The point in having all those cool gadgets is that you can look cool while still beign a geek, but isn’t the point lost since you do not leave your house (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000970.html)?
Anyway, are GPS devices good outside the NA/Europe/Japan niche?
Used to have a tomtom, as far as finding out where it was, hard to fault, point to point navigation? again pretty good.
however I bought it for the traffic infomation and the ability to route round trouble on a somewhat long routine drive.
the service where it connects via my phone was ok(ish) but could get expensive with data charges, so I got the antenna to allow it to pick up over the air signals.
which basically didn’t work, well it did in one location, the rest of the time it lacked a signal.
oh and the device had a tendancy to crash a few times a week, ok easy enough to reset with a paperclip but not while driving.
tech support didn’t help much either, I was told the traffic info would be useless in ‘the middle of nowhere’, to which I did try to explain the M1 in the UK isn’t the middle of nowhere.
as for thr crashes apparently I just had to put up with them since it was a ‘pocket pc based device’.
i took it back, argued a bit and got a refund.
I’d have another if:
1, there was a way to set a given road, at a given time of day has an average speed of ‘x’, thus I can program in every day trouble spots to avoid.
2, the traffic warning system actually works out of the box.
3, its somewhat more stable
nice tech, give it a few years and it will be very good, from the looks of this arrticle its getting there
You are correct - these GPS devices have very mature, easy to use software. I got one for my wife recently, for its intended use, but I should show it to my software developers, too.
You know the one side of me says, “Cool, something new and neat and shiny that makes my life easier!” The other side says, "Well, yet another piece of stuff that:
It’s just sometimes I’m honestly kind of sickened that everything has to be new, and bright, and cutting edge and awesome. Sometimes I think progress can actually be a naughty word. Maybe it’s just me.
I agree that Garmin’s “convergence” functions are about as unobtrusive as they can be, although I’ve fat-thumbed my way into the labyrinthine MP3 playing module a couple times already, so it’s not something you really only see when you are looking for it. The main problem is the button right on the main screen that pushes you into that particular ghetto if you touch it while pointing at something else on the screen to the numbnut in the back seat.
Personally, I can not imagine using the MP3 player on the Garmin, ever. The device is barely adequate for the speaking voice. It sounds like a 1973 mono cassette player with a blown out speaker for anything more demanding.
I bought the model I bought in the hopes of using it as a bluetooth speaker as well. Problem is, this is a damned expensive device, and so is always hidden away until we need it. I see no reason to pop it out and mess with the suction mount every time we hop in the car. This also means, of course, that I can’t rely on it being there as a bluetooth speaker, which I do need available 100% of the time. Instead, I bought a separate BT speaker for $50, which does not attract window-breakage.
Yeah, you just won’t understand until you use it. Sorry, folks. Nothing beats perfect foresight and planning, except not needing to worry about it. Personally, I don’t rely on our Garmin, but I know it’s there when I need it, and will get me to where I need to be with about 95% efficiency. That having been said, a little foresight and practice on a route gets us much closer to 100% efficiency, so the only use on my main route is as a traffic predictor and re-router.
I remember how two years ago it was impossible to get a GPS navigator for your car in Argentina. Now it’s way more common, but they’re still expensive over here: only the high class people can own them. And about Tivo, you wouldn’t want to believe we don’t even have that over here: we got a similar thing for DirecTV suscriptors, but it looks it wasn’t that successful. And no HDTV channels also… we are so backwards…
I’ve tried a few GPS devices from Lowrance, TomTom and Garmin. TomTom Garmin have the neatest features and the nicest screens, but I returned all of them and kept my 4 year old Lowrance iWay 500c. It’s bulky, heavy, it doesn’t have a battery, routing can be questionable and there are some addresses it refuses to find (anything on Sewall in Brookline, MA, for example). But the interface is quick. Even if it looks like it was made in Windows 3.1. You can click and drag the map. Typing in an address to find is very very quick. Creating a multi-point route is much easier than either of the other two.
Sure there are plenty of things I would change about it, but its the quickest to use and it mostly stays out of my way. I’ve driven 50,000+ miles a year for the past 4 years with it.
I’m quite shocked with the amount of bad data provided by commercial mapping providers. Which is why I’ve joined the OpenStreetMap project.
So…when are you going to start getting some code related posts out? I liked the gadget related posts, but I thought this blog was about coding.
Thanks!
Ahh man! Not more ruddy GPS rhetoric. We’re losing more and more of our mental abilities by letting machines do all the thinking for us. When going somewhere, I jot down some rough guidelines (road names etc) using gmaps. I then jump in the car (which has a paper based map -just in case) and go for it.
So far, I haven’t ever gotten lost beyond comprehension and I also get some sense of achievement when I get there.
Sod GPS, we should just make cars that automatically chauffeur you there, based on GPS and some bumper sensors. Hey. may as well remove all the fun from driving, it’s safer!
I work and live in New York City, so we don’t need a car. But when we rent a car, I have to get a GPS. I love it so much, I’m thinking of buying a unit; I figure it will pay itself off after 20 car rentals.
I use Verizon Wireless’s Navigator software on my cell phone. Works great, goes with me wherever I go. I can’t see any reason to upgrade to a full GPS unit…
I used to have a Garmin C550 (I believe that was the model number)… until someone realized they could just smash the window on my car and take it. Even though there is a serial number on the device, Garmin wouldn’t do anything to deactivate it or to track it down, so if you steal one, it’s as good as a brand new one. If they were actually useless if stolen, I have to think that would reduce theft and wouldn’t be that hard to impliment, but I guess that’s too much to ask and they’ll get my money when I buy another. The broken window went under my car insurance and the Garmin under my home owner’s insurance, and neither amounted to more than their respective deductables so I was out the price of both.
I’ve been thinking about a Nuvo to replace it though, since they’re smaller and I could probably fabricate some kind of mount near the radio so that it wouldn’t be so obvious that i had the thing in my car.
Hmm, I’ll have to check out this Nuvi (even though I have no interest in Car GPS units). I have a pair of Garmin Rinos (hand-helds with two-way radio) for hiking and ghost town hunting. They are the biggest pieces of electronic CRAP I have ever owned, in terms of their usability. THE WORST USER INTERFACE EVER! For the price, I expect something like that to run itself.
I have a Nuvi. I love it. I understand people’s concern about the theft issue, and the breakage issue.
What I did was buy a hard drive case from a local computer store (about $7.00). When I park my vehicle, I stash the Garmin in the hard drive case, out of sight. So far so good. The only thing visible on my dashboard is the little plastic disc.
When going somewhere, I jot down some rough guidelines (road names etc) using gmaps.
Just think, in 20 years you’re going to be complaining about those damn whippersnappers forsaking the good ol’ method of dashboard GPS devices for GPS chips directly integrated into their brainstem. Get off my holographic lawn, I say!
americans. in germany you would just by a cellphone which integrated gps…
Anyone use their Nuvi’s placed lower in your vehicle (not on the dash), either in a cup holder or some kind of mount near the radio? I’m interested in how it performs when placed as such.
I’ve used mine mounted on the center console, below the radio, with no problems. In fact the only time I’ve ever lost the satellite signal is in the tunnels on the PA turnpike (some of which are over a mile long). I can usually even get a signal in my house.
Also, Garmin has a whole line of motorcycle GPS units on their web site.
I had a Garmin C350 which broke, and I replaced with a Nuvi. My thoughts:
With a GPS, not only does it tell you when you reach the turn, but if you miss it, the GPS automatically figures out a new route. How many times have you made cumbersome circle around re-routes to get back to where you missed a turn?
My older GPS was more expensive and would read street names; my new one doesn’t. I found it makes almost no difference. Most of the time I can’t find the street sign in time to react to it anyway. The one place it really did help was interstate exits. When there are many exits in a short space, that often helped save confusion. You can pretty much rely on seeing exit signs.
My old GPS did have errors on its maps. Like, once it tole me to turn right onto highway whatever-it-was. I looked around increasingly frantically, but there was no intersection in sight. Then my son said, “It’s up there, dad!” Sure enough, we were in a valley, about 100 feet above us was a bridge that was surely the road we were supposed to take. But, uh, how exactly was I supposed to climb up the supports while carrying my car?
The “finding restaurants” feature is great! Now wherever I’m travelling, I can decide what kind of food I want, and the GPS will tell me the next place along our current route to get it. RE using reviews and personal recommendations to find restaurants: If you’re looking for a fine dining experience, this is probably true. But when I’m travelling, I’m quite content to say, “Find me the next steak house” and take what I get. Maybe when you’re on the road and want to grab a quick bite for lunch, you stop at a local bookstore and get a tour book with reviews of local restaurants, then stop random strangers on the street and ask them to confirm the information. I can’t imagine going to that much trouble.
I didn’t buy one with a built-in MP3 player or any of that stuff because it seemed pretty superfluous. But, I don’t know how they implement this, but I can think of a potential advantage: The unit could turn off the music when it announces the next turn. One problem I have with my GPS is that if the radio is on – and especially if my daughter turned the radio on because that means it is loud enough to make my head vibrate – it can be hard to hear the GPS directions. A feature to stop the music, make the announcement, and then restart the music would make us both happy.
My biggest complaint: The suction cup mount just plain doesn’t work. It constantly falls off. There’s something intellectually amusing about the fact that they’ve got all this complex satellite reception stuff, mapping, touch screens, and complex software working … but they can’t make a suction cup that actually sticks to the window. I finally bought an adhesive mount that seems secure, but I’ve only had it for a few weeks. The “friction pillow” seems like a good idea, I’d like to try one of those.