Garmin Nuvi 500 Firmware And Software Download

'Drive, hike, bike or boat. With the rugged,waterproof, multi-mode nuvi 500, you can do it all. Packed with detailed streetand topographic maps, nuvi 500 is ready for adventure both on and off thebeaten path. Like the 550, nuvi 500 switches modes to navigate your activelifestyle and provides spoken turn-by-turn directions to your destination.'

1. Garmin Nuvi 500 Firmware And Software Download Windows 7
2. Garmin Nuvi Firmware Update
3. Garmin Nuvi 500 Firmware And Software Downloads
4. Garmin Nuvi 500 Firmware And Software Download Windows 10

That is a quote from the product description of the Nuvi 500 taken from the Garmin website. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? I thought so too, and bought one to replace my trusty but tired Garmin GPS III+ that I've used for nearly ten years on my boat.

Well, it turns out that the Nuvi 500 CAN'T do it all.It will happily let you enter driving, walking, bicycling, and scootering mode,but boating mode is strangely absent from the mode screen. From what I wasable to surmise from the Garmin support website, the boating mode is notenabled until a set of 'bluechart' maps is purchased, to the not-so-jaunty tuneof about $300 bucks. I didn't pay that much for the GPS!

This struck me as just being silly. I've been using the Garmin 'Roads +Recreation' mapset for a decade. It isn't a nautical chart, and it has workedjust fine for me. I boat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which can best be described as 'a maze of twisty little passages, all alike'.

1. Drive, hike, bike or boat. With the rugged, waterproof, multi-mode nuvi 500, you can do it all. Packed with detailed street and topographic maps, nuvi 500 is ready for adventure both on and off the beaten path. Like the 550, nuvi 500 switches modes to navigate your active lifestyle and provides spoken turn-by-turn directions to your destination.
2. Downloads For Garmin Nuvi 1300, free downloads for garmin nuvi 1300 software downloads.

I don't need depth info, its all about ten feet deep at mean tide. I don'tneed buoy info, there are only two marked river channels anyway. My navigationneeds are simple, and the base topo map should work just fine. I just need toknow where I am in the maze, how far away the next bar is, and what waypoint tosteer for to avoid the shallow spots in the open tracts. I like to know myspeed in knots, and I don't want the GPS trying to route my boat over pavement.

After trying three times to talk to someone at Garmin and being on hold forover 30 minutes without speaking to anyone, I sent them this email:

Edge 500 Updates & Downloads. Edge 500 software version 3.30. As of August 7, 2013. Use Garmin Express to install this file. (3.58 MB) View system requirements. Nuvi 5xx (region file only) software version 4.30. As of September 30, 2011. Use Garmin Express to install this file. (9.20 MB) View system requirements. Notes: WARNING: If this software is uploaded to a device other than that for which it is designed, you will not be able to operate that device.

To which I received this response:

That's not really the answer I was hoping for, but as support responses go,it isn't a bad one. I wish they would have been staffed to answer my call, Iwish they could have answered my email in less than two days, but whatever.Tech support is a tough and generally thankless job, don't let anyone tell youanything different. Anyway, the support engineer found me a map that mightwork for $160 if I was willing to try it sight unseen, but he also gave me avaluable lead- I'd need a 'marine map of some type' on the unit to hit boatmode.

On that lead, I went looking for free Garmin compatible maps to try out, inthe hope that I might find one of the bay area that would enable boat mode. Ifound a few sites with free maps. Check out Maps 'n TrailsorGPSTracklog.comfor some cool topo maps. They even had some maps that claimed to be nautical.The ones I found were certainly of marine areas (the Mediterranean sea, and thecoast of Poland for example) but were rendered as standard topographical maps,not as true 'marine maps' in the Garmin sense of the term. They would loadonto the GPS, but wouldn't enable boat mode. I was not able to find a singlemap on-line that would enable boat mode on my GPS for the delta.

Finally, I came across the website for a shareware tool called cGPSmapper. It claimed to be ableto be able to convert maps from 'polish format' into true Garmin marine maps.My hopes were high that if I could find a map of the delta in some electronicformat and convert it into polish format, I might be able to use cGPSmapper toload it onto my GPS and enable boat mode. It took me a few hours of searchingthrough maps of California, and for ways of converting the very extensive data available on-lineinto polish format before I came to a realization that seems obvious enough inhindsight. To enable boat mode, you don't need a map with relevant data foryour location, you just need a map with the marine flag set! Well Duh.Seems simple now. CGPSmapper comes with docs for writing a map in the polishformat, which I used to create a super-simple marine mapsetconsisting of justa single point. It turns out that a single point is enough to enable boat modeon the Nuvi 500. Bingo! Problem solved.

Since I've done all of their work, I want to share with you how to enableboat mode on your GPS so that you don't have to speed a weekend figuring outhow to do it on your own like I did.

To be clear, the method that I am about to describe to you isn't really a hack, despite the exciting title of this page.It doesn't violate any laws, there is nothing wrong with doing it. It probablywon't even void your warranty, but ultimately that is between you and Garmin.Don't try it if you are worried about that, and don't even think about blamingme if you screw something up. Personal Responsibility: Use It.

Enough already... lets get on with it!

1. Download nuvi500boatmode.img, the nautical mapset that I created.
2. Plug the nuvi into your computer. It should load a USB disk volume 'GARMIN', just like a USB thumb drive would do. Open that volume.
3. Copy the nuvi500boatmode.img file into the 'Garmin' directory on the 'GARMIN' volume.
4. Rename the nuvi500boatmode.img file that you put onto the 'Garmin' directory to 'gmapsupp.img'
5. Remove the nuvi from the system and let it reboot.
6. On the GPS, go to 'tools/settings/map/mapinfo' and make sure the 'Boat Mode Enabled by Jeff!' map is checked.
7. Go to the mode screen on the GPS and select boating.

Thats it, you're done! Welcome to reasonable marine navigation on your Nuvi.

You might think that without a marine chart, the GPS wouldn't be very usefulon a boat. Not true at all. Here is what the GPS looks like in driving modeversus boating mode:

In both cases, I'm trying to navigate across the tract from the south to thenorth west corner via a waypoint on the safe side of a shoal that I'd reallylike not to hit again. In driving mode, you can see that the GPS is reallyfreaking out trying to avoid the shoal- it is taking me overland to the south!However, I suspect that its chosen route along the asphalt is going to be worseon my prop than a little underwater mud bank. Also notice that it has put mylocation up on top of the nearest levy instead of in the slough. At least itchose to put me on top of a nearby 'watering hole' (notice the beer mug icon).I suppose that is not an unreasonable assumption on its part, although I'd ratherit didn't show me at at the bar until I actually was.

Now check out boating mode. The most obvious change is that now the displayuses a chart color scheme. It isn't a different map- this is the same topo mapthat came with the GPS, just rendered in standard marine chart colors. Noticethat the GPS hasn't jumped my position to the bar. The boat is correctlysitting at the entrance to the slough. The route is going via the waypointsthat I requested, speed is in knots, and there are turn, bearing and headingindicators. Perfect!

If the color scheme isn't quite to your liking, you can choose to put the display into 'Night mode' which will make the water look a little more blue. The GPS will even let you view the map in '3D Mode', but I can't say I've ever found that to be a useful thing.

Extra Bonus Goodness

It turns out that the city nav + topo map that comes preinstalled on theunit has tide station information that is enabled when in boatmode! Look under the tools menu for the new 'Tides' icon.

Conclusion

It isn't difficult to enable boat mode on the nuvi 500 once you know how,but Garmin sure doesn't make it easy. I can't say I understand why Garminchose to disable basic navigation functionality in the unit. I certainly wouldnot have wanted to buy the marine charts from them without having ever beenable to preview boat mode at all. Now that I've seen the mode, I am morewilling to buy the bluechart maps and try them out. However, my satisfactionas a customer has taken a serious hit from having to jump through these stupidhoops to get the basic advertised functionality working. Maybe after coolingoff over the cold, boatless winter months, my opinion of Garmin will recover enough that I'll buy the charts for the start of next season. If I do, I'llupdate this page with screenshots.

Thanks for reading!

Garmin Nuvi 500 Firmware And Software Download Windows 7

Garmin Nuvi Firmware Update

Comments

Garmin Nuvi 500 Firmware And Software Downloads

• This thread may help you roll back the firmware: http://forums.gpsreview.net/discussion/12414/x/p1/
  Did you backup your Nuvi at some point prior to upgrading? If so, you may have the file that you need to roll back the firmware. If not, this is what you should do in the future before upgrading firmware. Look on the Nuvi for a file named gupdate.gcd. This is the installer file for the current firmware version. When the nuvi starts up, if it detects a different version of gupdate.gcd, it will automatically install it.
  Too late now, since the gupdate.gcd file will contain the installer for version 4.20. But if you have saved the previous version of gupdate.gcd, you can simply copy it to your nuvi and restart it. That will force the old version to re-install. Again, this won't work unless you have saved a backup copy of the old file.
• Hi
  Thanks for the info. Actually I just discovered I did make a backup way back in July last year, just after I bought it, so I do have an old gupdate.gcd file, I'd say from version 3.30. So do I just copy paste it over top of the existing file and restart (presumably backing up the 4.20 version first so that I can reverse this??). Is it safe to revert back to this earlier version without bricking the thing?
  One possible issue is that I suspect I made this backup before the update to the firmware version that introduced TTS, so reverting back will be to a version prior to that (prob. 3.30). I think 3.40 introduced TTS so is there a way of then updating on to 3.40 without just getting the latest version again? Will webupdater offer me single step upgrade options from 3.30 or just 4.20 or nothing?
  By the way, today I found another glitch that has arrived post 4.20. After about 30 seconds of driving (with no set destination) the nuvi suddenly zooms out to country level, and you have no choice but to press the zoom button 20 times to get back to street level. This happens every time you start up! Yah.
  Appreciate your comments.
  Cheers
  Glenn
• There shouldn't be any problems 'bricking' your unit... but one never knows. Yes, the technique you describe is correct. I think webupdater will only offer the current firmware version.
  You could also try contacting Garmin support and see what they say.
• Thanks again. One other quick question. Garmin support did suggest I just reinstall 4.20 via the option in web updater. I've done this a few times now, but each time it downloads the file and then just restarts as per usual. It doesn't look like it is actually reinstalling anything.
  The very first time that I installed 4.20 (updating from 3.40) I got a different boot sequence, where a message is displayed saying something about updating firmware. So I suspect that the reinstalls of 4.20 are not actually reapplying the firmware (ie flashing the device). Is there any way I can force this - maybe renaming the file or something? Or is it actually doing this correctly but just not telling me?
• Quick update. I finally rang Garmin Support and the first person I spoke to had no hesitation sending me the install file for 3.90. It seemed to fix all the issues. I get the impression that Garmin are beginning to admit that there are issues with 4.20 and if you press them they should give you a 3.90 file regardless of warrenty status.

Garmin Nuvi 500 Firmware And Software Download Windows 10