TomTom Updates

[Brian Reay]

We have a couple of TomTom SatNavs for the our cars/motorhome. Both have 'lifetime' free map updates- one for UK/Western Europe, the other 'Whole World', although we tend to just update UK/West Europe unless we are visiting the USA.

All in all, the update process is 'less than impressive'. It is slow, the software is unreliable when it comes to 'finding' the unit is connected (I use a Mac). Previously, I needed two IDs as you couldn't have two units on one ID, although that has changed. The process seems very 'picky' re the cable- I've tried several which show continuity but just don't work with the software. They are fine for other- none TomTom- applications.

I have a fast internet connection (40MHz, checked and reliable) but it takes 'ages' to even download the files from TomTom, before it starts trying to transfer them to the device. By ages I mean an hour or more, sometimes two. Other, large files from elsewhere are much, much, quicker.

The transfer to the device is, likewise, slow in my view.

I've tried another machine (dreaded Windows), the speed is no better, nor is another Mac. The Macs are modern, decent spec MacBook Pros etc.

I've ensured there is nothing else active on my network and used a wired (rather that Wifi) connection for the computers.

Admittedly, I don't update the units that often, maybe twice per year, usually around now and January. The exception would be if, for example, we were planning a trip to the US and didn't have the map in the unit- we had an extra card for that.

Is this typical of what others find, please?

[David]

Downloads from the TomTom server are always slow.

Copying across USB2 also seems very slow; presumably because of the slow processor in the TomTom.

I have found that it is advisable to copy the TomTom and SD card contents to the PC because the TomTom backup is not that reliable and if there are a couple of downloads then the last good backup gets overwritten then you are screwed.

So, yes, it isn't just you.

Cheers

Dave R

[Old Codger]

I had a TomTom satnav a while back. I found it a pain in the proverbial so chucked it in favour of Google Maps on my phone.

[Clive Page]

(sorry sent this by mistake to the original poster, I meant to make a follow-up to the group):

I've just updated maps on my TomTom 5100 and it took in total about six hours to download the maps from their server and then upload and install them on the device. This is indeed ridiculously slow. It also insisted on installing updated system software which has had some bad effects, e.g. the voice instructions are much slower than before.

Sample: "In 100" long pause "yards" long pause "cross the roundabout" pause "taking the second exit". These pauses are much longer than before and it means that the whole sentence takes so long you sometimes get there before hearing the end of it. I've tried changing to alternative voices, but they all suffer from the same problem.

TomTom used to be company with good products, sadly no more.

I suppose it might be worth complaining - sometimes you can get a response from a human and I've complained before about long download times but got the response that this should not happen but they don't know why. So helpful.

[dennis]

It takes me about 50 minutes to download the western europe maps with the DSL maxed out 100%. It takes about as long to install them. The second device (daughters) doesn't need to do the download but takes as long to do the transfer.

The latest tomtoms use wifi for their downloads so they may be faster or slower.

[alan_m]

I currently have TT Go on my Android smart phone and the downloads of the App or UK map updates are relatively fast over Wi-fi from my home Internet connection (Less than 10 minutes for the UK map). Although the App works well it is cut down version of what they marketed before. An annoyance was that I paid £30+ for the App with a promise of free map updates for life. 18 months later the free updates for life stopped when they introduced their updated App. I did get to change to the new App with 3 years of map updates for 1 dollar but had to jump through some hoops before TT recognised that I was an existing user of the original App.

Before that I had one of the top of range TT dedicated units which supported a SD card. Updates for this were a PITA and very slow.

The map they supplied with this unit plus the TT operating system occupied 99% of the internal hard disk/memory. The first update map plus the OS would have occupied 102% of the internal memory and the TT software on the PC talking to the TT unit and the TT site refused to see that I had a further 32G of memory on a card so refused to download the update.

I resorted to what has already been suggested in this thread. I plugged my TT unit into my PC and treated it like an external USB disk and copied the entire contents of its internal hard disk/memory to the 32G SD card. This SD card then became my TT unit with masses of spare memory capacity which the TT site allowed to be updated. The download used to take hours. The TT unit then had the option of using the old map in its internal memory or the new map on the SD card.

The user forums on the TT site were full of complaints about map updates not downloading or worse. An old map had to be deleted before a new map could use the internal storage. When something failed - no maps! Soon after TT introduced smaller size 'regional maps'.

I gave up on the dedicated unit because of the cost of the maps. After the first year I declined the offer for the latest quarterly update at £15 a pop (buy 4 updates in advance). After around two years they offered a full map update at half price - the catch was that you couldn't get it from the TT site without the TT plugged in to check that you had installed the previous update(s).

It is at this point I tried many of the other Sat Nav Apps on my mobile phone and unfortunately _at_ _the_ _time_ found the TT App to be one of one of the better ones. One consideration was having the full usable UK map on the SD card and not relying on mobile data reception to download map sections for the next part of the journey. When I was checking out various alternatives I was travelling on roads unfamiliar to me in Wales and the borders with England where mobile reception could best be described as patchy.

I see that TT made a loss in the last financial year mainly trying to flog wearable sports ware (fitness bands etc.) at IMO inflated prices. Having experience of TT as rip-off merchants I wouldn't touch their sports ware and associated software with a barge pole. I suspect that probably having p****d off millions of other users of their Sat Nav products at some time they haven't got a receptive user base when it comes to new products.

[Allan]

[snip]

I had noticed a while back that the updates seemed to take ages, but the most recent one I did seemed pretty slick (I came back with cup of coffee and it was already done).

I'm relatively happy with my TomTom Start 50. It does what it says on the tin. I'm not doing a huge amount of driving at the moment, though.

[John Rumm]

Part of the difficulty is the size of the maps... IIRC the last time I did a western europe map update on my old go700, it was a 2gig download. Even on fast broadband that's going to take some time.

[Huge]

[35 lines snipped]

I recently got an email from Tomtom saying that my one year access to map updates was about to end (I bought new maps when we were house hunting) closely followed by another email telling me they were dropping support for the ONE XL because the maps would no longer fit on it. Bloody good job I didn't bother buying another year of updates!

[John Rumm]

I fell into the trap years ago of getting the 700 since it had an internal 2G HDD, and that was *way* bigger than any SD card you could get at the time (largest was probably 128M).

I thought that would give it a longer future for updates. Of course now you would be hard pressed to find a SD card smaller than 4G!

[Jethro_uk]

JOOI, are you fscked if you use Linux ?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually quite the reverse..

[Huge]

I put a 2G in it (out of my junk box) at the last set of map updates, since they wouldn't fit on the 1G [derisive snort] it came with. I imagine the embedded Linux it runs can't cope with filesystems over 2G (FAT? Who knows?), which is why they're dropping it.

[Muddymike]

I have this problem with the TomTom app on my iPhone. I chose it despite being the most expensive because of the lifetime updates!

How did you contact TomTom I can't find an email address for them.

Mike