Garmin Smartphone Link

HIGHLIGHTS

The Garmin Smartphone Link is now available as a free download on Google Play for Android owners. The application is supporting English language. It weighs in at only 10MB to download. The new Garmin Smartphone Link app version 1.6.1 has been updated on 2014-01-13. For ensuring consistency with the device you should take into account the following app compatibility information: 2.1 and up

installed and uninstalled l m using my 595 for GPS I don t want to run down my phone battery by having it s location on too just so these can talk Wants access to my messages Nope Revisited this app to share my in route location But YOU CAN T CLOSE THE APP It s always running you can t hibernate itb or force to stop Sad     Dave Douglass

App constantly ran in the background even when not connected to anything My phone reported that it used up my battery the most even though it wasn t connected to a Garmin most of the day Uninstalling The app itself is fine Not amazing not great All battery issues aside it will probably treat you well enough         James Davis

The app when connected to my Garmin works great Unfortunately that s also the problem It will attempt to connect to ANY Bluetooth device my phone is paired with In order for it to work I have to turn off my smartwatch not Garmin and my car stereo before powering up my Garmin Once Smartlink is connected to my Garmin I can turn on my car stereo and my watch UPDATE fixed last 2 weeks it connects every time                 Harry Delien

nice app but for a few months now every time I switch off my blue tooth my smartlink app doesn t close disconnect I keep having to force the app to close manually Think this needs a fix Disapointed that there is still no fix for this 6 months later         Tricia Heppleston

This earlier version of the app had the provision to receive share locations from other apps which i was then able to send to my garmin gps navigator The maps on the app including the one on the navigator im using Premium Nuvicam have very low detail such that if i want to navigate to a particular area then i would want to be sure that im not going anywhere else and would like to know about the other surrounding areas and landmarks close to my destination     Nitin Rikhy

The road construction data is very inaccurate It thinks a local interstate highway is closed when it s actually open This makes the turn by turn directions useless for me on my daily commute It keeps trying to direct me to the side roads which can take much longer         Glenn Ward

Can someone please tell me what option to set in the app so that when the phone is Not connected via Bluetooth to the Garmin device that the Smartphone Link app will NOT burn my phone battery down I have un checked the option for Bluetooth Auto Connect but that does not help         Jason Maxwell

I wish we could access the memory card without having to connect gps to computer some of us are always on the road and dont have access to one except for a smartphone also does anyone else gps freeze up when connected to this app I use a desl 580 truck gps             Kelly Londo

So tjose of you complaining about not being able to force close well that becasue of the jotifocation access unset that permission amd be free to force close Personally apart from the massive data accumulation it doesnt use lots in one go just never clears it out and doesn t save it as cache that yoh can clear yourself have contacted dev but they couldn t understand me because they were support not devs it s an alright app if a little basic and tired looking                 Gary Farr

good app but the search engine is just about useless who the hell is Here search provider so to find a location you have to Google it then type that into the search engine then send it to the nav why didnt you partner with google and I would have been happy to pay for the app working as a big system provider in IT this is a no brainer you just need to market it correctly             Justin Martin

i want my car stereo to pick up Bluetooth which it always has in the past prior ro Garmin Gps MY GPS UNIT DOESNT NEES TO BE GETTING MY PHONE CALLS IT OVERIDES MY STEREO all i want it to do is navigate thats it i have to physically turn off the GPS unit to use phone or if i deselect no phone calls under bluetooth it doesnt allow gps to connect to phone it cycles on and off between connected and disconnected crappy app i see the frustration others are complainong about this app     Mike B

Battery hog What once was an all day battery now lasts 6 7 hours Even when not using the GPS It must be searching for the GPS and wastes battery doing it Can t find how to turn it off except when needed     Jesse Miles

Rarely works doesnt allow live track unless i uninstall and reinstal and make phone forget bluetooth connection Very poor This was the reason i bought a garmin     Neil Hancox

I really don t like the way this app comes on when I turn on my Bluetooth I manually turn the app off only to find next time I look it s on again That makes me feel uncomfortable     Mike Robins

It is useful to be able to look up destinations and upload them to my GPS when I get in the car but the app is a real power hog It is consistently responsible for about 13 of the battery usage on my phone             Patrick Flanagan

Good app only problem with it is that it doesn t automatically shut off once connection is gone and starts up randomly sometimes there should be a kill app feature when disconnected and a connect only to specific devices feature                 Stuart Arbuthnot

Rerouting around traffic and construction is super helpful but I don t get much else out of this Also the UI doesn t look great             Ben Gruman

My phone connection work but the Smart link services don t connect This app is useless I wish the traffic was in the power cord like my last Garmin     Ted Ezra Maxberry

Worked well till update could send location from maps to garmin then update now location sent to GPS is wrong by several miles if not for weather and traffic it would be totally useless     Moss Moss

Thank goodness this is a free app Right now i am only out 5 for the weather enroute I have a NEW kenwood truck rv rsdio in my new motorhome phone blurgooth connectz great but app won t connect with the garmin gps     Ralph Taylor

App is always running and draining battery Always tracking your location as well     Matthew

Constantly loosing conection between phone Xiaomi MiMax3 and Garmin zumo tried with 396 and 595 while sharing the track with familly They are stressed abut it as loosing track can mean something wrong happened                 Markone PEGAZ

It works well but eats my battery It seems impossible to force Stop this app when I don t need it             John Ashplant

Worked well for a while now its non functional not showing a map at all     Colin Gilbert

No good Will not connect to HTC U11 Bluetooth pairs then disconnects will not do anything else     Mathew Aldridge

Will pair after a number of attempts but then the garmin says no paired device Done thus a number of times and just giving up It worked on old sony Xperia m1 but not L3         Leah Burgess

Terrible it keeps draining the phone battery even when there s no device connected     Markus Kohli

Worked good till the recent garmin update Now it freezes my gps         Goran Pomar

doesnt work well with new GPS all connectios are listed as bata     DJ Lynks

Battery drain Not using the app and Bluetooth off this app drained 16 of my battery over 8 10 hours     Seth Greene

A really deluding app I had higher expectations from Garmin but I was deluded     Luca Borghesio

always have to Force Stop the app when I m done using it Please fix the issue     Daniel Sawin

App uses 4GB cache have to clear it every 3 months         Wouter Boevink

The maps are copyrighted 2015 so maybe we could get some newer maps I dont know Cool app though                 Chandler Heard

Works fine but how on earth do I exit the app I don t want it running all the time                 Edward Cunliffe

Very invasive on 24 7 even you are not driving for sometime Offer no way to turn it off     Jim Chan

you have to pair the device every time you cut it on if not you wont get traffic weather etc     Andre Hope