TAG :: Toronto Area Geocachers » Groundspeak Launches Maps Beta for Garmin

Today Groundspeak is launching their new Maps Beta for Garmin program. The site is now offering free downloadable maps of the USA and Canada for Garmin handheld devices. The maps are available immediately at the Maps Beta download page.  The maps look and feel just like the new Maps Beta that Groundspeak introduced last december. Geocaches are featured prominently on the map screen for easy locating. They appear as coloured boxes when zoomed out, and full cache icons when zoomed in. Highlighting a cache on the map will give the name of the cache, and the difficulty/terrain rating.

The screenshots above are from a Garmin Colorado 400t. As you can see, the maps are quite detailed, and great for spontaneous caching.

The maps feature

• Preloaded geocache information, including over 750,000 geocaches.
• POI database with over 1.5 million points of interest including restaurants, pubs, and dollar stores
• Full routing, including Geocache Route Optimization(tm) for power caching.

This is possibly a response from the Lillypad to Garmin over the OpenCaching initiative. In the forums, Jeremy was quoted, saying that “if Garmin was going to target Groundspeak’s profit center, then it was only fair for Groundspeak to go after Garmin’s lucrative map business”.

The maps are compatible with all Garmin handheld devices, including the Garmin eTrex, Colorado, Oregon and 62 series.