[OSM-talk] Field surveying app - alert near marker/waypoint

[stevea]

It may be that the way (user experience, more) of software-with-an-Internet (on a phone, tablet, laptop, device-WITH-Internet...) isn't the same as GPS-with-only-satellites.  I've got a Garmin 60 CSx which can beep (and talk?) and stuff but I have turned off all audio for years on it.  Decent "proximity alert" function on this device which I think if you set the "talkativeness" to about medium, you'll be on your target, if not close to a bullseye.

I know, 60 CSx are older (mine is about 15) but they are champs:  a solid device despite rapidly changing tech, I continue to build OSM maps for it onto µSDHC whenever I feel I need to update those.  60 CSx praises have been sung (here and elsewhere) many times.

I agree that finding a "right" balance between navigating a craft (car, bicycle, biped self...) and mapping with a device (which might be reading and writing data in deliberate, yet complex and intentional ways, talking to you as it does so and/or communicating to you with a brief set of beeps) is tricky business.  Finding that sweet spot (mine involves an old-fashioned shirt-pocket-sized, spiral-bound-with-a-pencil-tucked-in note pad) can be fiddly to get just right.  I'm still evolving the "language shorthand" I write down as I map.

There are some excellent software out there, even as they run off of device-ROM and aren't 'net-connected.  You got satellites?  (The more the better?)  You can map.  'net connectivity comes and goes, anyway.