UPDATE: It’s now live and available, and I’m enjoying the hell out of it!
Yesterday morning, I noticed there was a new product, Garmin BirdsEye Topo US and Canada, on the Garmin website. Pretty sweet – for thirty bucks, you can load USGS and NRC topos to newer Garmin handhelds for a year. I’ve been expecting and wanting this for awhile, so I subscribed right away, thinking I’d put it on my 62s and grab a few screenshots for this post. It didn’t quite work out that way, but let’s go over the product details before I get into my experience with it…
Most topos for handheld GPS units are vector maps; they are made up of lines and points, and look nothing like the USGS topos we know and love. BirdsEye maps are different. These are raster imagery, actual image files, that put USGS topo map images right on your Garmin. Up till now, you’ve had to use Garmin’s custom map process to do this, which can be a hassle, and then there’s that limit of 100 tiles (images) too.
For some people this won’t be a big deal; others will buy the product right away. The best reason I can give for wanting it is this — there is nothing quite like having the exact same map in your hand as on your GPS. You can pretty much determine your position instantly.
Coverage is 1:24,000 scale for the US, with the exception of backcountry Alaska, where it’s 1:63,000 coverage. Canadian maps are 1:50,000 scale NRC maps. For $29.99 per year you get unlimited downloads for one device. A few more caveats:
- BirdsEye™ Satellite Imagery
coverage requires a separate $29.99 subscription
- BirdsEye products are locked to one device
- The 62/78, Dakota, Montana and Oregon series, and the Edge 800, are compatible
Now, back to my own experience, then a coverage map and more stock screenshots from the Garmin site.
I was able to make the purchase with no problem, but the site said the order was awaiting processing and at the next step I was greeted with a screen that said “Sorry, our site is temporarily down for maintenance. Please check back soon.” After a couple of hours I called Garmin support. They passed me off to their Mac team (even though I got the same result in multiple browsers), who said they were having problems with their Web sales on Thursday and that they’d try to get it fixed. Hours passed. I was impatient because I wanted to post and get this out to folks for the Memorial Day weekend. After a second call, in which they took my contact info and said someone would get back to me by the end of the day, my order finally got processed, but when I tried to activate the subscription, I still got the same message. So I had paid, but was not able to tie the subscription to a particular device. A third call confirmed that no one would be back staffing Garmin support till after the weekend, and made it sound like they have no customer service folks associated with the Web sales side of their operation; they certainly never let me talk to them directly if they do. The staff I was able to speak with made it sound like this was something unique to my purchase, though I haven’t been able to verify that.
So it’s probably going to be at least four days before this gets resolved. Definitely one of my worst customer service experiences with Garmin, who are usually pretty good at resolving things. I’ll update this post next week, but I imagine it would tick off most consumers – the web site functions well enough to take your money, but doesn’t deliver the product. I’m sure they’ll make good on it eventually, and if one of you brave readers wants to take the plunge, please drop a comment below and let us know how it goes.
About Rich Owings
Rich-
I already have the Garmin 24k Topo for the Northeast. What additional benefit, if any, would this provide me? Is this product more for those who haven’t purchased the topo product?
Jim
I think it’s more for fans of USGS topos. Those of us who cut our backcountry teeth on them may find it very appealing. If you don’t use paper USGS maps in conjunction with your GPS, it probably won’t matter to you.
You could then combine these maps with others, like from the GPSfiledepot, or other Garmin Maps that you have. Also, it will allow you to use your own uSD card with topo maps and Birdeye aerials on the card and not just on the GPS. I have found that this is a limitation, as in SAR, I want to have a lot of aerials pre-loaded and the internal memory is limiting. I have considered getting the DVD but the subscription is cheaper and not even limited to an area, so it is very flexible.
This morning that link is not working – I get:
Looking for something at Garmin?
The page you’re looking for doesn’t exist or is temporarily unavailable.
I wonder if that page was not supposed to go online yet?
It did the same thing to me the first time through but I hit the link again and the page came up.
Huh, sure enough. You can still see the product here, but the link doesn’t work…
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=255&fKeys=FILTER_REGION_NORTHAMERICA
I was wondering the same thing; if the page went up before the product was ready to go. That would certainly help explain my experience.
Here’s the link that allows me to access the page:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=255&pID=98816&utm_medium=aff&utm_campaign=map&utm_source=cj
Looks like a redirected version of the link I posted. Still not working for me. Your page may be cached.
Good call. I loaded the link into a different browser and promptly received the 404 error.
My first reaction is “So you have to pay yet another 30 dollar a year subscription fee?!”. I would have expected this to be an additional benefit to your already purchased satellite(Birdseye) imagery purchase. On the other hand, i understand Garmin needs to make money to survive.
Jim,
If you have the 24k maps on dvd, the subscription will give you access to additional maps that are not in the area you purchased.
If you have the maps on uSD card, you now add the flexibility to to have maps on your own card, with plenty of aerial views too, all on the same card.
But I would wait till they solve the problems Rich mentioned. Unless you absolutely need to prove you can do something that Rich couldn’t.
Thanks for the info Amir.
I am having the exact same experience. I purchased an Oregon 450 yesterday and was excited by these Birdseye Topo’s (been using USGS since I was a kid, the Oregon is my first back country GPS unit). Was hoping to use them on a trip this weekend. So I subscribed. My order still says “awaiting processing” Anyway, this has been so frustrating I almost want to send the Oregon back. To see confirmation here that I am not alone at least gives me a glimmer of hope. I will say the the Garmin agent that helped yesterday was very nice and really tried to help. She seemed to think everything would be resolved by this morning. Guess not.
Anyway, this website is awesome. It has been incredibly helpful. Thanks!
D B,
Thanks! Now we know its not just me.
I think Garmin is announcing several new products next week (new Astro and Rino maybe?). Perhaps this is something that was scheduled to be announced at that time.
I’m also wondering if we will be able to enable/disable the topo maps separately from BirdsEye aerial imagery? It would be a pain to have to put them on separate cards.
As for the price… I really don’t think there’s much reason to complain about $30 for unlimited downloads. I probably won’t subscribe now since I have an oregon 400t that is about 3 years old now and I’m going to keep it forever.
Oops! I meant that I’m NOT going to keep the Oregon 400t forever, so I don’t want to buy any more maps that are tied to it.
The newest firmware for the Oregon/Dakota/62/78 series seems to have anticipated your concern…
“Improved support for BirdsEye™ Satellite Imagery (each provider’s imagery can be configured independently)”
That’s good – so we should be able to toggle between USGS topo’s, aerial imagery and traditional Garmin vector maps. I think this something that a lot of people have wanted.
Heh, when Garmin wants to sell you more Birdseye, they do a firmware update so you can enable different files. But when we want to use more than one of our own Custom Maps… forget it.
I understand that they’re in business to make money, but this seems like a simple thing that would make the Custom Map feature so much more useful.
Hey Guys,
Seems like I am in the same predicament (ugh). I just purchased a Oregon 450t yesterday even though I know the Montana is coming soon, but I was able to get it on sale. I drove over a 100 miles to the nearest store that sold them (I live in Oregon) and then purchased birdseye hoping to have a great weekend with the latest technology only to find out that I am still sitting by the computer and calling garmin to fix this issue for me. For a product that costs this much, one would think they would have the customer service to back it up…
Just got an email from Garmin support, letting me know they were working to resolve this. They wanted to be sure they had all my info, so I went to MyGarmin to be sure I had the wording correct on order processing status, etc., and I saw a big activate button. All done now! Nice to know there were folks there working on it over the holidays.
D B and Neilytron, check it out and, if you can, let us know if you’re able to activate for a specific unit.
Nope, I did not see any sort of button. I am very frustrated at Garmin and feel totally ripped off. I don’t believe I should be playing games with them in order to use a product that I already paid for. Ugh…
I think it was on the https://my.garmin.com/ home tab once I logged in. But that didn’t solve everything. The Topo product isn’t listed as a BirdsEye source in BaseCamp. I’ve let Garmin know about the issue.
I got an activation button Friday shortly after I spoke with Garmin. I activated, it took a while then gave me a message to run BaseCamp and start using Birdseye Topo. But there was nothing there. When this happened it still said my order was awaiting processing. Anyway, my order was marked Completed on Sunday. However, still have no Birdseye Topo and I noticed that it isnt even for sale anymore on the Garmin website.
I can understand why you’re frustrated, but relax and think about this for a minute. You purchased something that Garmin hasn’t even officially announced yet and you did it over a holiday weekend. I don’t think you’ll get much tech support from any US company on Memorial Day weekend.
I’m sure you will get this sorted out when support opens Tuesday. “Totally ripped off” seems a bit extreme. If you really feel that way, contact your credit card company and cancel the Birdseye purchase, but really, I think you just need to be patient.
Well, in a way, they shouldn’t make us the test pilots for a product, especially if we had to pay for it. If they sell something, it should preform as well as it is advertised.
No activate button for me. Is there a special place that it is suppose to be located?
Yeah, see my comment just above yours.
“Sorry, our site is temporarily down for maintenance.
Please check back soon.”
Current status seems to be that folks can activate the subscription and tie it to a specific unit via their MyGarmin account, but it still isn’t available as an imagery option in baseCamp. Hopefully they’ll get that fixed today.
So I just got off the phone with Garmin and they are having to to take the xml file from my unit (that I am emailing them) and write some code into it so BaseCamp recognizes that it has a subscription to Birdseye. I am not even sure what to think about that. Will update if this works.
I have some experience on the other side of customer support. These types of problems do pop up time to time. The issue is usually on the server side of Garmin’s operations. As much as customer service and software support wants to help out, there really isn’t much they can do. A problem report is created and escalated to the support team that doesn’t deal directly with customers. Given that there are this many complaints listed here, it will probably take a few days minimum to get this resolved. All I can suggest is patience. This is a software glitch and it will be fixed.
Still nothing for me. I’ll wait till next Monday if they fix it. (Cross fingers)
Got an email from Garmin support this morning saying:
“Thank you for contacting Garmin International. This is to follow up with our conversation Wednesday regarding your Garmin BirdsEye.
Your BirdsEye subscription should now be active and functional. Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you. If you experience any more problems with this service please let us know.”
But I still don’t see BirdsEye TOPO as an option in BaseCamp.
So that product page still seems to be gone from their site. And it’s strange they would roll this out without some kind of announcement. I wonder if this really wasn’t intended for public consumption yet? Strange…
I received a call from Garmin yesterday to troubleshoot this and we could not get it to work. I was told by two different reps that it should be the same as the Birdseye Imagery Subscription on that pull down and that when I launched that it would show the Birdeye Topo. Nothing so far and still waiting for the new xml file…
From a phone call to garmin tech support they stated that it will not be available until friday due to sever issues. We will see….
Well, it would certainly be nice to have it for THIS weekend!
Their mapping announcements have sometimes been low-key, with product pages going up a few days ahead of an announcement. Whatever the reason, they’ve pretty thoroughly bungled it.
Dear Neilytron,
“Thank you for contacting Garmin International.
I will be happy to assist you. I see in your account that birdseye is activated. All you need to do is download Basecamp to install the imagery to your unit. Here is a link to Basecamp:
http://www8.____.com
If you have your unit plugged in and open Basecamp, you will see a message asking if you want to create imagery.
If there is anything else I can help you with please let me know.
With Best Regards,”
Still nothing…
Hmm, based on what i see here, i will let all of you early adaptors be the guinea pigs and wait awhile before considering purchasing this. Good luck to you all.
Rick
I got the following email this afternoon:
“I do apologize if there has been any confusion, or frustration, regarding the purchase of the following item:
-TOPO, U.S. and Canada – 010-D1140-00
We have recently been informed that the trouble regarding this particular map service will not be resolved by our IT department until around the middle of the week of June 13th (anticipating 6/15/2011).
I do apologize for the hassle and appreciate your patience as we work on resolving this and providing you the service you wish to use with your GPS device.
If you have any additional comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us via email or at the number listed below.”
And then an hour later got this one from someone else:
“Thank you for contacting Garmin International.
I will be happy to assist you. Sorry about the Bird’s Eye Subscription
problem, we actually haven’t enabled our servers to host the mapping for
download. It will appear in just a few days as a download option in
Basecamp. Sorry about the delay.”
Got two replies today from Tech Support. (I was actually contacted yesterday, without ever contacting them, they apparently emailed me in response to my purchase.) One informed me it would be “a few more days” the other says June 15th.
See below:
“I do apologize if there has been any confusion, or frustration, regarding the purchase of the following item:
-TOPO, U.S. and Canada – 010-D1140-00
We have recently been informed that the trouble regarding this particular map service will not be resolved by our IT department until around the middle of the week of June 13th (anticipating 6/15/2011).
I do apologize for the hassle and appreciate your patience as we work on resolving this and providing you the service you wish to use with your GPS device.”
Ha! Beat you posting it by one minute.
Seriously though, thanks for sharing that. Hopefully we’ll all have it within a couple weeks.
Got the same email today. I will refrain from triple posting.
Same email arrived in my inbox.
NO BIRDSEYE FOR YOU!
Well I just spoke with a Technician from Garmin and unfortunately of those that are running a Macintosh OS X Tiger are only capable of installing Basecamp 2.1.2 which is NOT the updated version for Basecamp. So If you want Birdseye, you will need to buy a updated Operating System of snow leopard for an additional $29.00 to run the software.
Updated my Operating System and now the Birdseye software runs beautifully!
The page has been updated today and now shows the product, but no option to buy yet!
For those that have already signed up and been billed for BirdsEye Topo, I am assuming that Garmin will extend your subscription to one year from the date it actually becomes available?
Sure hope so!
This has really caught my eye, but left me totally puzzled. I went to myGarmin, to the section where you purchase additional maps and nothing I did could get BirdsEye Topo to appear as an option for my 62s. When I searched the Garmin site for “BirdsEye Topo Canada” I found the page where I can purchase the subscription but it does not list the 62s as a compatible product??
Maybe this is a pointless endeavor anyways. I have been using NRC Topo maps for many years and would love to see them on my 62s, but I am also a bit skeptical because of my experimentation with Custom Maps. Will the BirdsEye Topo Canada (assuming I can get it on my 62s) be better than what I could accomplish by scanning the NRC maps myself and putting them on my 62s via the Garmn Custom Maps tool?
They are supposed to get it fixed this week. I don’t think they have the compatible device list updated yet.
If they did it right, you’ll have better clarity at a wider range of zoom levels than with custom maps. You’ll also avoid the 100 tile limit and having to make them yourself.
I have made a bunch of “custom maps” and posted them at GPSFileDepot. After much experimentation, with USGS 24k topo maps, I have found that the largest area you can cover in this format is about 20 miles x 20 miles. Garmin has (evidently) intentionally limited the size of this kind of map so as not to compete with their own products – I just can’t believe there is any technical reason for the size limit.
If you try to cover a larger area, you need to reduce the resolution of the image and it will get very “muddy”, with elevation contours turning into dark blobs. So Birdseye has a distinct advantage because the size of Birdseye maps are only limited by the capacity of your memory card. I have a 16gb card that is filled to capacity with Birdseye aerial imagery, for example.
Just tried BaseCamp again and the USGS is now working for the birdseye Topo. Downloading now!
Woohoo, me too!
Successfully downloaded the maps to my Oregon 550. Expiration date still showing 5/31/12 so they didn’t credit me for the 16 days it didn’t work.
Same here. Hopefully they’ll get this fixed.
Hey, it is finally here, up for grabs!
Well, $29.99 not included…
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=98816
Amir K9CHP