Reviews for Garmin Explore™

Everything was OK until I realize it was constantly trying to sync with my Garmin Pro 550 Plus draining battery and heating up. Looked at Garmin support for how to turn off. Found instructions only to discover the new version of app didn't have that option. Tried turning off nearby devices thinking I'll just do that when needed and now app not working even after turning permission back on. Guess I won't have the gps tracking I needed. What a waste of money, should have bought another brand.

I like Garmin devices but their services and app strategy is becoming straight garbage. You need three or more apps depending on the GPS / messaging devices you are using. The paid map features aren't even consistent even across higher end GPS devices. Once the cell phone companies turn on the satellite coverage, this all dies a quick death.

I use this app with an inReach Mini 2 that is typically off. The app constantly runs a sync service in the background at all times that never completes no matter how long it has been since the last use. This means it always leaves an un-dismisaable notification on the phone. Force-killing the app only makes the notification go away briefly before it comes back even with restricted battery usage. I guess I'm uninstalling it since that's the only way to get rid of the notification.

This app is utterly worthless. It doesn't allow you to send tracks to your watch. This is the only thing this app needs to do and it fails horribly. Even if it allowed this feature, the app has always failed to sync with the watches at all. Garmin should be ashamed by their inexcusable failure to make software that does the only thing it needs to be able to do: send tracks to your watch. Garmin, are you guys listening? You are totally inept and I will not be buying one of your products again.

The app is definitely better at making routes and tracks (what's the difference anyway??) Than Garmin connect but does not allow to show the heat map. Why does Garmin have two apps where 1) shows the information but is bad at making routes (e.g. does not allow you to plan off track or go against a one way (that's Garmin connect) and 2) does not show the same information as Garmin connect (not the same map options, no heat map (that's Garmin explore)). Solution: integrate in app into the other!

It lets you manage collections of waypoints, courses (routes), etc and sync them to your devices. That part is straightforward. What's confusing is how notifications pushed to your device (e.g. fenix 7) are handled when you have more than one of Garmin Connect, Garmin Explore, or Garmin Golf installed on your phone. The only way I could get consistent behavior was to manually configure all three apps to be the same.

The other day I was out of cell service, I turn on my inReach to send a text and... the app won't load without cell service because Garmin pushed an update to the app. Terrible user experience for something that's designed to be used offline to not work offline. It should always work without cell service. If you need authentication, make it authenticate from the inReach it's normally connected to. I have been using this for a couple of years and this was the biggest fail yet.

Been using the Garmin Instinct and Solar version for some time and have had no issues with the app until now. Since the update, it won't auto-download any of the maps. I've downloaded a few maps manually for offline use and it won't show the topo map in the main map for that area even after manually downloading it. As soon as you fix it I'll change my rating. *** Edit for those who have this issue. Clear the cache and data on the app. Sign back in and allow permissions. All fixed***

Route creation great! Device support terrible. I have 8 Garmin devices....only 1 is supported. I purchased a new Zumo XT for my motorcycle and while setting it up it tells me to download Explore....so I do. Then Explore says "device not supported." To the developers....please release cool stuff like this only once you can properly support the device line. We need this to work with everything else. Once it does...5 stars. Guess I have to plug my GPS into a computer 1990s style for now.

Horrible documentation (non-existent?) and not at all intuitive. It took me forever to figure out that you can't sync ROUTES to Instinct. They have to be TRACKS. Even if you have a collection selected for sync under Devices on the explore.garmin site, you have to select that collection in this app and tell it to sync. Click on the device icon in this app, go to collection manager, and select what collections to sync. Syncing for inReach much more straightforward. Layer selections suck...The end.

The app is not perfect, but the active topo maps are amazing. I love how easy it is to create new courses with the snap to trail feature. It's seamless to sync them to my watch. It was fun to recreate some hikes from my past and see the elevation change and distance we hiked. To get similar functions on other apps, you have to pay a yearly fee. This alone makes buying a high end Garmin watch worth it for me.

I downloaded the app tonight to create routes for my new Instinct. I had trouble at first getting thing to work, but this step seems to sort out my problerms: Turn on ALL permissions for Explore AND Connect in the phone's app settings. Then open the app & login. My account wouldn't verify in Explore until i realized there were a couple permissions off in the Connect settings. Routes & waypoints sync to my watch, no problem! Not the most intuitive system, but I'm slowly figuring it out.

Just bought the Garmin Marq Adventurer, downloaded Garmin Explorer to my Android phone, Synced between them. Problem is when I set up new Waypoints and sync to the Adventurer, they don't transfer! Also, you can't save maps to your SD card - SERIOUSLY!!! I used to test software for a living and this is a joke! Here's an idea for the developers - make this so it works on a computer and not just phones. It would be MUCH more user friendly having a large screen to plan out routes. UPDATE: I was able to finally get the Waypoints to transfer but ONLY after I added them to a Collection in Explorer. Might be nice if they had instructions that mention this (or maybe I just missed it somewhere).

I've used InReach technology for a few years now. Our group has a dozen Explorer + units running on the Earthmate App. When the 66i came out, I was excited to adopt it and expected that as an early adopter there would be issues with the Explore App. At this point there are a lot more issues than I anticipated. It is sad that Garmin products are such a hassle for early adopters. I am very disappointed in Garmin products and support.

Garmin devices are solid! Garmin apps are garbage. I was hoping for better functionality with the new app update but I am (unsurprisingly) disappointed. When uploading a gpx file there is no option to add it to an existing collection, it automatically makes a new collection for each file uploaded, which is less than helpful. Update: cannot place a waypoint without the app crashing

As an interface between your phone and GPS device to navigate, it is okay. That is the good stuff. The bad stuff is that it cannot calculate arrival time accurately. The last two times I have used this app to navigate it had me arriving in the past. Meaning it had me arriving an hour behind the current time while estimating I had about 2 hours left of walking. Thankfully, I am not dependent on that information. It shouldn't be difficult to fix this.

Phone app is difficult to create waypoints or routes on. The web page is amazing! The the only other issue that I have is that when you sync your collections from the app to your watch, it doesn't group the waypoints in their respective collections. For example, have a collection labeled "hunting" that has various waypoints. But when I sync it to my fenix 6x, it puts all those waypoints with other random saved locations in my watch. I'd like them to be grouped like they are on the app.

Almost always an awful experience. Had an update stuck for years that decided to install for some reason. It used to never synch before the update and now it does but now these idiots got rid of tracks it seems. I used to plan a course, keep every course I've ever done, then save a single track for each day of offline use. Now I can only see every course I've ever done on my GPS device. It seems there's no menu for just my offline maps on the device. Garmin is the worst.

Garmin makes great hardware, but their software is absolute hot garbage. This latest update is no exception. The ONE feature I was hoping to find in the latest version was the ability to disable its running in the background, but that's not here. They've also apparently removed all of the POI data that was in the previous app and want to charge you $50/year to get it back...data which is included on my $1200 watch. Unbelievable.

Garmin Instinct 3 Solar user. This app seems to work okay. It adds 10 to 20% drain on my phone battery when permission is set to always running in background. Add Garmin Connect also at the same setting and even some more battery drain daily. The app features can be a little confusing even with garmin videos on how to utilize. overall it works for my basic needs.