GPS reading destinations from nodes and not ways?

A mapper reported that their Garmin GPS is not showing exit destinations, and is haphazardly tagging motorway_junction nodes with destination=*

Some features have had as many as 8 edits in the past week.
Changeset comments: [GPS Issues] [Field check GPS reads no destination just “ramp ahead” NS Open Data hrm] [GPS Issues caused by missing information “ramp ahead”]

Is something wrong with Garmin? Do OSM features need to be “double-tagged”?

It all depends on what maps they’re using. I can tell you that the maps I build using mkgmap work fine with destination on ways, so there isn’t a fundamental problem with Garmin devices. If it doesn’t work for this person, it means the maps they’re using haven’t been properly set up to use the destination on the ways. The correct route forward would be to contact the person in charge of the map style to get this fixed, not to duplicate the destination onto the motorway_junction node. The wiki article for motorway_junction explicitly says that the destination should be on the way, not the node.

I also see that this mapper has been adding “names” to the junction nodes and link ways. That’s clear mapping-for-the-renderer. Someone needs to sit down with this mapper and remind of some of the basic tenets of OSM.

Conversation started: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/62593117#map=15/44.6874/-63.5575