garmin 2027.10 map update

The latest 2027.10 map update is out for Garmin navigators. Garmin for whatever reason uses the future year for version numbers. No idea why, but whatever. I own a bunch of Garmins both current and old, and all my screens were updated with the exception of two that are over a decade old, which is understandable. If I really wanted to use those two old screens, I could load in alternative OpenStreetMap map data. Some features are lost using OSM data (speed limits, junction view, etc.), but it keeps them working.

Even with the latest maps, there is one thing I know will never be fixed.

Points of Interest, a.k.a. POIs.

Regardless of whether a Garmin or smartphone navigation app is used, POI accuracy has been a problem for a long time. Is there any way to fix it? No, so a workaround has to be used.

Close to 20 years ago, I learned that I can't trust a POI, and that's when I learned the workaround of using GPS coordinates instead.

A very simple example of that is when going to a business at a shopping mall. If I wanted to go to a GAP store at 2223 N Westshore Blvd Ste 142 Tampa Florida, punching that location in to any navigation system or app is worthless. That store is inside a mall, so what I specifically need is directions to the closest parking spot. That spot is coordinates 27.965574, -82.518710. When I punch that in, then I get the correct destination of where to park the car.

Coordinates is literally the only way to very specifically be directed to where I want to park.

When I say this will never be fixed, I'm not kidding

If AI or drones or both were thrown at the POI accuracy problem, it wouldn't fix it. The only thing that works is having every single POI confirmed manually by an actual person. And since there are many millions of POIs, yeah, nobody is going to bother ever fixing the problem.

I'll put it another way. This is a bit lengthy but it needs to be to get the point across.

Let's say a body of government contacted and said they'd pay me $500K to make a super-accurate POI list of every single government property in the state. And I mean all of them. This list would be used for internal use only. Every courthouse, every police station, every firehouse, every school, every power/utility station, and other government properties even for ones that are just fields with unmanned towers on them. Every single frickin' thing the state has. If the state owns it, it goes on the list.

Could I do this job? Yes. Could it be deployed on any government issued Garmin device? Yes. Could it be used on PCs internally? Also a yes.

How long would it take to get this list done? Depends on the data I'd get and what driving would be involved, because I know exactly what would happen. I'd be contracted to do the work, but the data given to me would be "dirty" as hell. It'd be nothing more than an enormous CSV or spreadsheet with many thousands of entries sprawled all over the place, many of which being completely uncategorized, and many locations pulled from data from as far back as 50 years ago or possibly earlier.

Some of those entries could be confirmed by online maps, but there would be many where the only way to confirm the existence of certain properties would be to physically drive there, and possibly involve walking and/or hiking after that. Yes, I said hiking, because some government properties are literally in the middle of the woods.

And on top of that, everything would need to be categorized.

This is a doable job, but absolutely not something that could be done in a week. It would take months. Maybe up to 2 years or more. It depends on how many locations I'd have to deal with and how far apart they are from each other.

But once it's all done, things are a whole lot better because now the proper, accurate and completely searchable POI list exists. All the properties are in there, nice and tidy. And they can be loaded into government issued automotive or handheld navigators, which is great because those are not phones and pass security checklists. Nice. And because I'm such a stickler for documentation, anybody who gets the list after I make it would have an easy time making periodic additions or modifications. Not a problem.

Now imagine trying to get that same style of accurate POI list for every single residential and commercial address. A government owned property list is doable, but residential/commercial? That's a much bigger job.

Maybe, maybe if a government body threw enough money at me, I could do the job of going through every residential and commercial address town by town, city by city, until every last one of them was accounted for. Cities and towns in particular value that data because it makes it far easier to track things like property taxes. But wow, what a slog of a job that would be. Not fun, even though very useful in the end for government. At least I'd get to drive around a lot. True, the fleet vehicle I'd be assigned would be some little hybrid car or small SUV, but that suits me fine. I enjoy driving and exploration anyway, so there's that. And I'd be up to the job, but still, big slog of a job.

In the end...

Whenever I encounter a wrongly marked POI, I really don't complain because I understand how giant of a job it is to even make and maintain POI lists. The fact POI lists exist at all is a miracle in itself, even if they're not that great.

I'm okay with manually getting coordinates due to wrongly marked POIs, because I'm not afraid to fix the problem myself.

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