Garmin continues to stay at the top of their game as the worldwide leader in satellite navigation with four models for 2016, namely the Garmin Drive™, Garmin DriveSmart™, Garmin DriveAssist™ and Garmin DriveLuxe™. Here’s a quick guide to the features of these 4 new models :

The newest in the product line, Garmin Drive™, is specifically designed to help increase driver situational awareness, boasting new driver awareness features and new driver alerts to help remove some distractions encountered by drivers and help them stay aware on the road. These new alerts include warnings for sharp upcoming curves, red light and speed camera alerts, fatigue warning alerts and even traffic information with fast-approaching traffic jam notifications. The Garmin Drive 50LMT is the entry level model in this product line.

Garmin DriveSmart™ is Garmin Drive™ and more! Garmin DriveSmart™ navigators will come with customizable smart notifications, voice-activated navigation and Bluetooth® wireless technology for hands-free calling and access to real-time services such as live traffic and weather radar through the Smartphone Link app. The Garmin DriveSmart 70LMT is the largest in size in the DriveSmart™ range, featuring an awesome 7” screen.

The Garmin DriveAssist™ features an advanced 5” GPS navigator with a built-in dash cam, on top of all the features you would find in a Garmin DriveSmart™. The integrated camera provides more advanced driver awareness alerts, such as the Forward Collision and Lane Departure Warnings, and a “Go” Alert that notifies distracted drivers when traffic ahead of their vehicle begins to move.

The very sleek and stylish Garmin DriveLuxe™ adds HD Digital traffic, the fastest traffic avoidance solution offered by Garmin, with updates as often as every 30 seconds.

With intense competition from smartphones, Garmin has upped the ante again by adding more features to their entry level “Essential” series GPS units. These are features that have never been available to the lower end devices before.

Features like the Garmin Real Directions, which provides actual landmarks, Direct Access and Foursquare data with millions of preloaded POIs that were only available for higher end units like the nuvi 2689LMT. Better destination search functions are also added.

What caught the eye, pun intended, is the new backup cameras acting like an additional rear eye that provides a live camera feed from the rear of the vehicle to eliminate the blind spot. The backup camera (model BC 30) is not free however. It is sold separately at $169 but it is a device worth having as many drivers get into accidents when reversing or getting rear-ended from behind.

Standard features like lane assist with junction view, school zone warnings, and Up Ahead, which appears alongside the driving map to constantly inform of nearby services are still there. These new models also display current street, speed, speed limit and arrival time.

The Garmin Essential series is available in 5 or 6 inch size and all models provides dual-orientation so that you can choose portrait or landscape view. Price range from $129.99 – $209.00 as follows:

1. Garmin nuvi 57 ($129.99)
2. Garmin nuvi 57LM ($149.99)
3. Garmin nuvi 57LMT ($169.99)
4. Garmin nuvi 58 ($139.99)
5. Garmin nuvi 58LM ($159.99)
6. Garmin nuvi 58LMT ($179.99)
7. Garmin nuvi 67LM ($179.99)
8. Garmin nuvi 67LMT ($179.99)
9. Garmin nuvi 68LM ($189.99)
10. Garmin nuvi 68LMT ($209.99)

Could the Garmin Fenix 2 the GPS watch to rule them all. Garmin believes so as they have packed a multitude of features into the this running watch that will see you keeping it for the foreseeable future. This watch not only tracks your runs, it also records workout statistics when you go hiking, cycling, climbing, swimming, skiing or even skydiving. If you are a multisport athlete who wants to track everything you can include custom activities and workouts. You can use its navigation mode to assign waypoints on a map so you can focus on hiking and enjoying the scenery, instead of having to refer to a physical map. The GPS and heart rate features adds icing on the cake too. And you need not worry about keeping it on. This device can last about a week of constant use on a full charge.

Garmin Fenix2

Unlike other GPS watches that have problems locking in to a satellite, the Fenix2 takes only about eight minutes to lock in. It is also compatible with Garmin Connect, Garmin’s online service that shows you nearly everything you need to know about your runs.

The Garmin Fenix 2 is definitely one of few sports watches that you could actually wear on a daily basis. It is hip-looking and it does just about everything a watch can do but with a styling and UI that is very user friendly. It is large and thick, water-resistant to a depth of 50m but weighs in just at 3 ounces. It is essentially identical to the original Fenix other than a few tweaks in the colors of the buttons. It costs $400, or add $50 for the performance bundle which includes the HRM-Run chest strap heart rate monitor.

Cloud computing might change the way you use GPS. It combines masses of information, frees up resources, and use only those that you need. Magellan aims to do just that with its SmartGPS Eco V2.0. It keeps GPS users and motorists informed with relevant location and social content, and provides clearer and safer navigation. Some of the new features include a wide portfolio of leading content providers, easy drag and drop content manager for users, and updated Smartphone, iOS and Android apps.

The Magellan SmartGPS Eco V2.0 is built on a robust architecture supporting aggregation of content that provides highly relevant content that you can personalize. It stores massive amount of inputs provided by various sources including road users providing real time traffic information. In addition to planning trips and saving favorite locations, the SmartGPS Eco content manager enables users to select the content they want to receive. This information is delivered seamlessly and automatically, and includes up to date content from providers such as restaurants and Yelp and Foursquare, cinema locations and iHeartRadio Internet radio. In addition, traffic information like road works and delays, 5 day weather forecast, severe weather alerts & map overlays plus where to find the lowest gas prices, and much more are available.

As one of the pioneers in GPS and navigation, Magellan believes cloud based products with location relevance for automotive OEM’s is a logical evolution. The SmartGPS Eco can be licensed to Automotive OEM and Tier 1 customers, fleet operators, and rental car companies.

More information from Magellan

Garmin has a host of devices catering to the motoring, biking, hiking public, now is making inroads with the wearable fitness market. Although the wearable device market is becoming saturated, it recently launched the Garmin Vivofit at the CES 2014.

What makes the Vivofit stand out is its incredibly long battery life and always-on display. The battery lasts a year. And always-on is very convenient if you are running and want to keep constant count of your steps without pressing a tiny button every few paces. Only drawback to conserve battery life is it is just not backlit as a result. Other than battery life, another great features is that it is water-resistant to 50 meters, which means it is safe to run in the rain, wear it in the pool and also while taking a shower.

It will also make you get on the move if you are sitting for too long. The on-screen inactivity bar turns red after you’ve been still for an hour. The red inactivity bar grows from left to right at the top of the LCD screen, giving you an always-on visual cue to get up and move.

Garmin is selling the Vivofit with, and without a heart-rate monitor. It comes in five colors: black, purple, teal, blue and slate.

Garmin also includes a USB ANT+ dongle if you want to sync to a computer. The Vivofit is priced at $129.99 while the package with the bundled heart-rate monitor lists for $169.99.

For more reviews on wearable tech devices visit fitbeat.net

Having conquered land and marine based GPS markets, Garmin is taking their GPS technology to the skies. It is their philosophy to create different watches purpose-built for specific activities. The Garmin D2 is their latest product and is a purpose-built watch for pilots.

The Garmin D2 has all the important functions and features that a pilot would need. Garmin calls the D2 a “portable avionics in a wrist-worn package”. The list of navigation features is impressive. These include:

1. Direct-to and nearest airport buttons that use a worldwide airport database
2. Altimeter with adjustable barometer setting and compass
3. Displays multiple time zones with Zulu/UTC reference
4. Various timers and vibrating alerts for inflight task reminders
5. Wirelessly receives flight plan from Garmin Pilot and controls VIRB – Garmin’s active video camera

The design is simple and display is clear to read even in dim lighting. Its size is 49mm diameter and 17mm high weighing just 82g. The transflective monochrome display has a resolution of 70×70 pixels. The lithium-ion rechargeable battery lasts up to 50 hours in GPS mode and 2 weeks in sensor only mode. It is also water resistant to 50m. The watch comes preloaded with a worldwide base-map and ability to specify way-points. It is priced at $449.