Garmin Explore™

Garmin

About this app

PAIR, SYNC AND SHARE
With Garmin Explore, you can pair your smartphone or tablet¹ with your compatible Garmin device² to sync and share data for off-grid adventures. Use downloadable maps for navigation anywhere.
• Garmin Explore needs SMS permission to allow you to receive and send SMS text messages from your Garmin devices. We also need call log permission to display incoming calls on your devices.
• Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.

OFF-GRID NAVIGATION
When paired with your compatible Garmin device², the Garmin Explore app lets you use your mobile device for outdoor navigation, trip planning, mapping, and more — with or without Wi-Fi® connectivity or cellular service.

SEARCH TOOL
Easily locate geographic points — such as trailheads or mountain summits — associated with your adventure.

STREAMING MAPS
For pre-trip planning, you can use the Garmin Explore app to stream maps when you’re within cellular or Wi-Fi range — saving valuable time as well as storage space on your mobile device. Download maps for offline use when venturing outside cellular range.

EASY TRIP PLANNING
Plan your next trip by downloading maps and creating courses. Specify your start and finish points, and automatically create a course you can sync with your compatible Garmin device².

ACTIVITY LIBRARY
Under the Saved tab, review and edit your organized data, including your saved waypoints, tracks, courses, and activities. See map thumbnails to easily recognize your trips.

SAVED COLLECTIONS
The collections list allows you to quickly find all data related to any trip — making it easy to sort and locate the course or location you’re looking for.

CLOUD STORAGE
The waypoints, courses, and activities you’ve created will automatically sync to your Garmin Explore web account when you’re within cellular or Wi-Fi range, preserving your activity data with cloud storage. A Garmin account is required for storing your data in the cloud.

LIVETRACK™
With the use of the LiveTrack™ feature, loved ones can follow your location in real time³ and see data such as distance, time and elevation.

What You Get with Garmin Explore
• Unlimited map downloads; access topographic maps, USGS quad sheets, and more
• Aerial imagery
• Waypoints, tracking and route navigation
• High-detail GPS trip logging and location sharing
• Unlimited cloud storage of routes, waypoints, tracks, and activities
• Online trip planning


¹ See compatible devices at Garmin.com/BLE
² See a full list of compatible devices at explore.garmin.com/appcompatibility
³ When used with your compatible smartphone, the Garmin Explore® app and when used with your compatible inReach-enabled Garmin device.

The Bluetooth word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by Garmin is under license.

Ratings and reviews

For how much you pay for garmin subscriptions this service is essentially a scam. Can't download maps larger than 110mb at a time. Or tx areas from phone to garmin device. You need a desktop PC, then you can download slightly larger maps. The overall faff time difference between the methods in negligible and makes me not want to use Garmin even more. They do not support any of their products except their latest, making making your latest gadget obsolete seemingly overnight. Fix, not "update".

It's crazy that a company specializing in navigation has such miserable map app. Slow, laggy, crashing. No control over the map downloads, the app downloads maps updates at will, nothing in the settings to stop it. The ordering of the inReach messages is totally random, makes it hard to find messages when it mixes recent messages with messages from years ago.

Works but needs improvements. When I look for address it need to be connected to the internet to find the address. Even with all the maps downloaded for "Offline Use." Once I find the address and sent to navigation device, it only send Coords to the device, when I get close to where I'm going I only get the coords which are useless. I like to see the house number.

What’s new

🐛 Various bug fixes and improvements