The Device page

The Device page is where you connect a Garmin and see what is on it.

A full-screen map fills the right of the page and a sidebar of panels fills the left, so you can read a list on one side and see it drawn on the other.

Connecting, browsing, importing and sending stay free on every account, so you can get rides on and off a Garmin without paying anything. Three surfaces are Pro: the advanced device file browser, the Maps panel that lists the .img maps on the Garmin, and every control that deletes something from the device.

Status card#

The status card sits at the top of the sidebar and tells you how far the connection has got, so you know whether to wait, press something, or start working in the panels below.

A device connected as a drive shows two more things on the card, because a drive can carry more than one storage.

• The storage that is loaded, listed as Internal and SD Card.
• Add memory card, shown only when one storage is loaded. Press it to load the memory card as well, so tracks kept on the card appear in the panels below.

Connect a different Garmin swaps to another device, which is what you want when you have more than one Garmin to work through.

Connecting, step by step.

From INVIA and From computer#

Two buttons put something on the device. Both draw what you picked on the map before anything is written, so you can see you chose the right thing while it is still easy to change your mind.

From INVIA#

Pick a saved route, ride, or collection, show it on the map and send it to the device.

1. Press From INVIA.
2. Pick a saved route, ride or collection. INVIA draws it on the device map.
3. Confirm the send.

Some members of a collection can be hidden from you, so INVIA warns that the send may be partial before it writes anything and nothing has reached the device yet. Confirm to send the members you can see, or cancel.

From computer#

Load a GPX file from your computer, show it on the map and send it to the device.

1. Press From computer.
2. Choose a GPX file. INVIA draws it on the device map.
3. Confirm the send. INVIA sends a clean regenerated copy, so the street-address cue points some navigation apps bury in a file never reach the Garmin as pins or stops. Those entries read like 2254 CA-86, Brawley, CA 92227, USA, and INVIA takes them out before the file is drawn on the map or written to the device.
4. Save the file to your INVIA library when INVIA offers. This step is optional.

A GPX file with more than one track goes across as two files, one track file and one saved-places file holding the waypoints, because a Garmin keeps tracks and saved places apart. The track file appears in On Device and the waypoints appear in Waypoints.

A collection travels the same way, one file carrying every track's shape and one carrying the saved places, and a place that belongs to two members is sent once rather than twice. Those places arrive as pins rather than as route points, so the Garmin does not draw a line from one pin to the next.

What a send does.

Save All Activities to INVIA#

One button saves every recorded track now shown to your INVIA library, which spares you selecting a season of riding one track at a time.

• The storage filter applies, so setting Viewing to Internal saves the internal tracks and leaves the memory card alone.
• INVIA says No tracks to save when there is nothing to save, and nothing is written, so the device is unchanged.
• Saving copies the tracks rather than moving them, so they stay on the device as well.

Advanced: Device files (Pro)#

A real file manager for the device, for when you need a file the other panels do not list. Navigate any folder to any depth, and upload files into any folder.

Every file offers three actions.

Deleting from the device does not change your INVIA library, so anything you already imported is still there. The file disappears from the device list after the delete, which is how you know it is gone.

A Maps group in the same panel handles .img maps.

• Upload a map (.img) to the device
• Save a copy to your computer, on each map
• Delete map from device, on each map

The panel works across all three transports, so it behaves the same whether the Garmin connected by file transfer, through the Bridge, or as a drive. With no device connected the panel reads Connect a Garmin device to browse and import files, and connecting a device fills it.

The file browser in depth.

On Device#

On Device lists the tracks on the device and counts the tracks and waypoints, and the same tracks are drawn on the map, so the list and the map always agree.

Recorded activities from the Garmin's Activities folder are merged into this list, so a ride you recorded on the Garmin sits alongside the routes you sent it. Those are .fit files.

A ride is often on the device twice, once as a GPX track and once as a .fit activity. INVIA recognizes the two copies as the same ride, so you see one row, not two, and nothing is deleted from the device.

The panel has four controls.

• Activities: show only recorded activities on the map and hide routes, so you can pick a ride out of a crowded map.
• Refresh: re-read tracks from the device, for when the list no longer matches what is on the Garmin.
• Select: select several tracks to import or delete together.
• Viewing: with two storages loaded, choose All tracks, Internal or SD Card.

Refresh discards the list INVIA is holding, closes any open folders and reads the Garmin again, so the map and the sidebar rebuild from what is on the device now. The list is kept between visits rather than read again every time you open the page, which is why it can fall behind the Garmin.

A read can also come back short, and INVIA says so on the panel rather than showing you the shorter list as if it were everything.

• Couldn't read {drive} this scan, showing a partial list. Tap Refresh. appears when a whole storage could not be read, so everything on it is missing from the list.
• N files could not be read, tap Refresh to try again appears when single files failed, so the rest of the list is sound.

A short list is never saved as the list INVIA shows you next time, so a bad read costs you one Refresh and nothing more.

Selecting tracks opens an action bar with import and delete. Import copies the tracks into your INVIA library and leaves them on the device, and delete removes the files from the device and leaves your library alone.

Importing tracks and activities.

Waypoints#

Waypoints lists the device's saved places, grouped by the file they came from, so you can take a whole file at once or pick single waypoints out of it.

1. Press Import all to save every device waypoint to your INVIA waypoint library.
2. Or select some waypoints and press Import N to save only those.

INVIA skips a waypoint that is already in your library, so importing again never creates duplicates. A waypoint counts as already there when both of these are true.

• It is within 15 meters of one you already have, which is close enough to be the same place.
• Its name agrees with that waypoint, or its name is generic.

A name is generic when it is blank, or when it is nothing more than one of these words on its own or followed by a number. The words are waypoint, wpt, pt, point, poi, pin, mark, marker, flag and stop. So Waypoint 037, WPT 12 and Point 3 are generic and a name you typed yourself is not, which means two different real names at the same spot are both kept.

A skipped waypoint is not added a second time, and the waypoint already in your library is left as it is, so a second import cannot undo a name or a note you edited.

The import tells you how many it skipped, so a count lower than you expected is explained on screen rather than left to you to work out. The message reads Imported 6 waypoints to your library (3 already saved), and when every one was already there it reads All waypoints already in your library. There is no list of which waypoints were skipped, only the number.

Each imported waypoint gets its region filled in automatically, so you do not have to file it by hand.

Waypoints on the device.

Maps (Pro)#

Maps lists the .img maps installed on the device with the size of each one, so you can see what is taking up room before you decide what to remove.

• Delete map from device on a row deletes that map.
• Select starts multi-select, and All, None and Delete (N) act on the selection.

Deleting a map removes it from the device and from this list, and your tracks and waypoints are not touched. To keep the map, save it first with Save a copy to your computer in the Advanced: Device files panel.

A Zumo, an XT or a Tread reads user maps from the MAP folder on internal storage, and INVIA writes them there, so an uploaded map lands where the Garmin looks for it.

The map#

The right-hand panel is a full-screen map of everything on the device. It draws the tracks, the waypoints, and a preview of whatever you are about to send, so you can check a send before you confirm it.

The map can run out of graphics memory, and INVIA says so on the map rather than leaving you with an empty panel. The message reads The map ran out of graphics memory and couldn't recover. Your device stays connected, reload to bring the map back, and a Reload page button sits under it.

The message appears only after the map has lost its graphics memory and been rebuilt three times inside 15 seconds. A single loss is repaired with nothing shown to you, which means the message only follows repairs that kept failing. That takes a computer whose graphics memory is shared with everything else and already under pressure, most often right after unplugging the Garmin with a lot of routes drawn. Reloading is all there is to do, because no setting on the page changes whether it happens again.

• The device stays connected, so nothing you did is lost. Reload the page to bring the map back.
• Nothing on the device changes and no import is undone.

What is never gated#

Free on every account:

• Connecting a device.
• Browsing your rides on it.
• Importing them.
• Sending routes to it.

Pro only:

• Deleting from the device, wherever the delete appears: the On Device track list, the file browser, the right-click menu on the map and the sidebar menu.
• Managing .img maps, which covers the whole Maps panel and its inventory of what is installed.
• The advanced file browser.
• Bulk imports of 20 or more files.

Selecting 20 or more files on a free account imports nothing at all, so no part of the batch lands while the rest is held back. A panel opens reading Bulk import is a Pro feature, with the line You can import your rides a few at a time on Free and a See Pro plans button. Nineteen files or fewer are unaffected, and the same panel appears whether you started the import from the Device page or from your library.

A free account has a device-send allowance, and when it is used up the page reads Device send limit reached.

• Sending to the device stops.
• Connecting, browsing and importing from the device still work, so you can keep pulling rides off the Garmin.
• Pro removes the limit.

A free account gets five sends in total rather than five a month, so the allowance does not refill on any date. A whole collection counts as one send however many files it writes to the Garmin, which is why sending a collection of eight rides is not eight sends.

Nothing in INVIA shows how many sends are left, because the Device page carries no counter and the plan comparison says only Limited against No limits for library, routes, collections and device sends. The first you hear of the allowance is the message when a send is refused.