Anyone any experience of this?

After a long discussion last night about my wife worrying when I am out on the bike, I am thinking of upgrading to the Garmin 810. Apart from the mapping etc, the LiveTrack feature is a compelling argument for spending £200 plus on it.

Does anyone have any real life experience of using it? AKAIK it involves connecting the Garmin to your phone and it relays your location via the mobile app to a website that Mrs SP can see. How reliable is this in remote locations where mobile signal might be iffy?

I use it with my 510. It connects to your phone with Bluetooth and requires the Garmin App (I think only iOS and Android).

It uploads via cell data, so completely signal dependent.
My wife seems to think it works fine.

I use it on my 510 and it’s great. I can go for a longer ride and my Mrs knows when to expect me back and not worry, or plan for the rest of the day.

Seems to work really well.

It needs signal though.

If there’s no data signal it won’t work.

If that’s a problem (it is where I ride/live) then you need to consider something like a SPOT tracker.

It’s also using your phone battery which might be better saved for the time you need to make that “emergency” call.

You can do the same without involving the Garmin, although that means the phone GPS will be on so there will be additional battery drain.

Glympse is pretty good – shares your location with specific people for a specific time period.

If you both have iPhones then find my iPhone will do the “where are they right now” thing with zero fuss. I’m sure Android has something similar.

I’ll leave you to consider the potential pitfalls of showing your wife how to see where you are at all times!

If you want live track then the 510 can do it for less that the 810. It’s more of a ride tracking thing to see how you are doing as it shows your stats and GPS track rather than just your current location. I’d see it as more useful if people wanted to see your progress on a charity ride or challenge rather than just find your current location.

I have used this. It is basically the exact same as the ViewRanger tracking feature. The viewranger one is better though as it also enables you to take photos and it will display these on the web app those who are tracking you use.

The only issue and it has been mentioned above. The phone battery does not last long when GPS is switched on.

I think Garmin are missing a trick with you not being able to upload photos from your phone to link with LiveTracker