A recent beta firmware update for the Garmin Montana series brought twenty new data field options to the device, as well as data field categories. You can see four of the new data fields in the screenshot above. The Vertical Distance to Destination is sure to be a hit for the peak baggers among us. Hopefully these will make it to other models as well.
Here’s the full list of new data fields:
- Alarm Timer (from alarm clock page)
- Automotive Turn (lane assist)
- Avg. Lap
- Compass Heading
- Current Lap
- Date
- Elevation Above Ground
- GPS Elevation
- GPS Heading
- Grade (must be moving)
- Lap Distance
- Laps
- Last Lap
- Location of Destination
- None (blank field)
- Stopwatch Timer
- Total Lap
- Track Distance (reset when current track is cleared)
- Vertical Dist. to Dest
- Vertical Dist. to Next
It always pays to be a little cautious installing betas. Here’s a discussion of the Montana version 3.63 and 3.64 beta releases where you can see what kind of bugs people are reporting.
About Rich Owings
I couldn’t imagine most of these fields not eventually being migrated to the other current Garmin models. A few probably won’t considering the auto-nav features unique to the Montana such as Automotive Turn (lane assist) and perhaps Grade. They’re hopefully just testing the fields out for errors with the Montana crowd before broader integration.
I sure hope so.
Some of these fields were present on their ’90’s models. (like the GPS12) About 2 months ago, i contacted Garmin inquiring as to why their present flagship “on the trail” product was missing fields their 20+ year old models had!
Maybe you helped instigate!
The GPS elevation field is a very welcome addition. It came in a beta shortly after I emailed the beta team. I just hope they now add it into my new 62s.