On Mon, 4 Mar 2019 15:53:55 +0000, Andy Burns snipped-for-privacy@andyburns.uk wrote: [snip]
I have been researching this more. Could the battery 'problem' be the result of leaving it on sleep mode instead of turning it off fully. I have usually just pressed the button, on the assumption it would shut down after a time, but maybe this is not so?
If you shut it down very time, does this then extend the start-up time?
within google maps, go into the hamburger menu, tap on "offline maps" select using pan and zoom one or more rectangular areas that cover the parts of the country of interest to you, then click on the gear icon and set the offline areas to automatically download updates, but only over wifi.
I mean the physical "connect" button that's located on the underside of the device.
Yes.
No.
In fact more powerful. My iphone 5 got a location much quicker than the previous TomTom 7200 when you head out and turn the phone off when you arent actually navigating.
I don't anymore, because the map update is completely automatic with the phone satnavs and are free for the best of them too.
Yeah, it's a very low end satnav, but even the top of the line TomToms and Garmins have no advantage over a phone anymore.
The other advantage with it on the phone is that you can just enter the name of a business etc and navigate to that or just tap on an email or text that has an address in it and have it navigate to that with just a single tap.
How do you find that ? I'm just about to buy a new car to get that.
The one in the Honda Civic works right down to 0 mph, so works in traffic jams with the traffic crawling along in stop start mode. I don?t get into that situation often but do when going to big events with on site parking in the racecourse or in big carparks where you can be crawling for half an hour or so.
That?s what Android Auto and Apple Car Play do.
So, if that is all you need to do, what stops that happening 'by accident' (like my mouse combining with the wife's PC / keyboard)?
What is the point of the software process of combining devices if it happens automatically?
How would you stop it happening (under Linux)?
Cheers, T i m
Yuck. ;-(
Even if previously flat before plugging it into the car, my Garmin Nuvi has found the satellites and calculated the route before I've even pulled away! ;-)
How people put up with anything less I don't know? ;-(
Cheers, T i m
I haven't found that to be the case myself. Yes it will flatten the battery in 4-65 hours BUT in car charging is more than enough to keep it topped up.
Possibly phone dependent.
Because it has a GPS reciever built in.
If it doesnt it cant be used for sat nav can it?
And doesnt know wheree it is.
if a gps unit has been switched-off for long enough, its almanac data will be stale and it has to listen to download that first, which can take several minutes, only then can it start calculating positions.
a mobile phone can "cheat" and download it using A-GPS and get a position hint from a mast, so it gives position information fast.
Agreed. My Nuvicam calculates routes in less than two seconds, whereas my daughter's phone can't even get a signal.
Once installed on the phone the Satnav App and associated maps in the phones memory can work without a Mobile phone connection. This is assuming that your phone has an inbuilt GPS receiver - some may not have this facility.
I spent some time looking last night. It seems to me that TomTom and Garmin are regarded as much of a muchness - if anything, the software on TomTom is more popular. I am interested in what you say about 'low end' but all the TomToms look very similar apart from added features. Do you get better hardware by paying more? Can I find out what chip each has, for example?
The Garmin lovers do tend to be rather more passionate about their satnavs.
Yep, particularly the amount of internal memory, time on battery, support for the fancy features and faster cpus.
At one time the top of the line actually had a small hard drive, dunno about now tho, I gave up on dedicated satnavs getting on for a decade ago no.
Yeah manufacturers do keep that stuff pretty close to the chest. The best reviews used to spell it out but may well not bother with dedicates satnavs anymore now that most don't use them anymore.
Ignorance (+marketing) is bliss?
Yup, my Nuvi is similar (and more importantly, re-calculating on the fly) ...
I quite like leaving my phone free to be a phone or web browser whilst simultaneously using my GPS to do the navigation. And I can use the GPS as a hands free device and even get it to read texts out for me, whilst the Mrs uses my contract phone to use Whatsapp or (if I'm not already answering a call though the GPS), 'a phone'. ;-)
As mentioned, I can and do use my phone as a GPS and it can sometimes do things easier (especially for the Mrs, like voice activated navigation, when prompted by me) than she might be able to do on the GPS itself, but if we are going anywhere unknown, I use the Garmin Nuvi every time.
My use of GPS's (and mobile phones) started when we were motorcycle camping / touring as the GPS would save us time when trying to find a campsite in the middle of nowhere and the phone for emergency purposes.
We would often do the first 300 miles of a daily 'hop' easy enough but spend a disproportionate time then finding the campsite. I only really needed the GPS for those last few miles but was good to have on for the whole trip for all sorts of other reasons / info (like altitude or ETA etc).
Many of those who are Smartphone GPS fanboys rarely (if ever) use their devices with others or in any other situation than driving or walking.
Pre GPS and driving the Mrs and I would often have arguments because she would get travel sick if reading (maps or anything) whilst we were moving and I wanted to keep moving and generally did so making 'better progress' <g> than when the Mrs was driving.
As soon as we got the first Garmin, she would question me that we had it with us before setting off as it took that responsibility away from her and so we then had happier trips. ;-)
And all this was *LONG* before smartphones of course ...
As an aside ... I have the traffic warnings enabled but auto avoidances turned off and *always* run all my GPS's with North up. I want it to be a scrolling map so that I can maintain my bearings and
*I* can make decisions if we have or choose to go 'off route' for some reason. Much easier to do when the map is North up than when you are driving up the screen all the time.Key uses of the Garmin for us ...
Autorouting (nothing I couldn't do manually but prefer not to have to do in many getting from 'A to B' cases).
ETA feature (giving people a reasonable idea when you will be there or the chances of you getting somewhere before a deadline etc (or not)).
POI feature, finding the nearest fuel station, preferred restaurant or hospital etc (and get the phone number to see if they are open, especially if you don't have a smartphone etc). These can often be quite close but not necessarily on the road / direction you are traveling.
Cheers, T i m
I think that is mainly because they have always done what was expected of them OOTB (and were *also* fairly flexible re what was displayed) and so we question how any other solution could be better?
Many of us have also tried / owned / experienced other makes and models (especially TomToms as they became more common) and simply don't find them as good? But maybe that also depends on your technical ability, synching PC <> GPS etc and updating / uploading maps and tracklogs etc.
In the early days TomTom didn't exist, then didn't make a waterproof model and I still don't think they make much outside the std car / consumer stuff?
And if you don't have a smartphone, the TomTom app isn't much use.
One thing I did like about the TomTom was I think some models came with a smart docking cradle that meant they could be charged and synched / at the same time?
Cheers, T i m
You'd have to go some to find a new smartphone without GPS. Even 8 years ago it was pretty much standard.
Or course the GPS systems it can view might differ. But again it seems all smartphones sold in the past 2-3 years can cope with US, Russian, Chinese and EU constellations.
It's "OK", but I wouldn't pay for it again. It only uses the throttle, and is also a touch complacent. So it's quite a common situation to be doing 70 on the motorway, come up behind a vehicle doing about 65, and rather than act as a sensible driver and ease off the moment you see the car, it runs up behind the car and then disengages saying "you take over" which involves braking or an accident.
It's clearly intended for much less packed motorways.
TBH I use the limiter a lot more.
Nope. However I do have an automatic, which offsets some of the pain ....
Can't speak for Apple, but I tried AA a few times, and whilst I love the bigger font (definitely a winner) the locked-in nature of Google Maps was a disincentive. Solely because I want my mapping solution to display speed limits - which HERE and Waze do. (With the caveat that another poster here has linked to news that Google may have come around).
BTW, I noted "good solid wireless" as a requirement. Given how often I have to re-pair my phone and car, not all manufacturers seem to have grasped that yet.
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