The Mainstreaming of GPS

blog
84

PS. My Nuvi has a “unit conversion” feature, so I can convert miles to kilometers and so forth. Among the choices is to convert between Farenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin temperatures. Uh, when was the last time you were driving to your grandmother’s house, saw a sign at a bank with the time and temperature, and said to yourself, Hey, what would that temperature be in Kelvin?

How come they don’t include converting dates to Julian days or Mayan calendar? Seems a pretty serious omission to me. And there’s nothing to convert light-years to cubits, either.

85

I originally thought about a portable GPS, but I am a huge stickler for either OEM-style integration or proper installation. AND I hate convergence, so having a GPS that tells me the time in 9 timezones and can tell me the proper amount to tip in bangladesh stuck on the dashboard leaves me just as unsatisfied as those little suction-cup compass globes my grandparents had on THEIR dash when I was a kid.

Enter the vehicle-mounted laptop with bluetooth GPS, broadband card, and bluetooth printer.

My laptop runs streets and trips like Jeff’s previous method, using a stealth-mounted bluetooth GPS [theft isnt an issue when no one knows it’s there in the first place.]

Plus my Dell ATG D630 has an illuminated REAL keyboard, so when I need email or type an address in, I dont have to do the T9 tapdance on my phone.

This may be overkill for your grandparents, but for someone who doesnt want to sacrifice features at all, while keeping multiple-device reliance to a minimum, this is the only way to go.

Did I mention I can also read this blog in my truck while waiting for the drawbridge to close on my way home? How’s the browser on the NUVI…oh right. :slight_smile:

86

The windshield mounts are illegal in California. Dashboard mounts are fine.

And if you need a mount that’s (in my opinion) a good deal better than the vendor-supplied ones, check out http://www.mountguys.com/

I replaced my stock Garmin dashmount with theirs. My husband did the same with his Magellan mount.

We’re both fairly experienced navigators, and like the feel of discovery, but when we need to be in a certain place without time-consuming side trips, these GPS devices are better than the Thomas Map Guides we both (still) carry in our cars as backup.

The next step in usability will be to automatically integrate traffic data into the routestream and update navigation on-the-fly. I know you can already do this with the high-end devices (and dedicated traffic data subscriptions), but in my mind, this belongs in the unit out-of-the-box.

87

the only thing I really didn’t get: is there any practical use of this big gps-device if I don’t own a car?

I use gps, in my gps-enabled Nokia Navigator, with Google Maps, and it works nicely. What is better in this Nuvi?

88

I recently bought a Nvi 760, and love it, but have one major usability criticism:

It reads out the street names using the same language rules as the instructions.

I live in Sweden but my native language is English - I would prefer instructions in English, but the street names are then unrecognizable, so I have to set it to Swedish, which is now my second language.

But when I took the unit to Spain to use in a rented car, neither ‘Ingrid’ nor ‘Emily’ could manage the street names properly. I don’t speak Spanish, but I do have a rough idea how it should sound, and their gallant attempts were way off…

I would have preferred the text-to-speech rules to be linked to the current location, rather than the instruction language.

But it was great on the winding mountain roads, being able to ‘look ahead’ to see just how much of a bend I was going round…

89

Haha the baby is so cute. programming can really be a hard job if your not good at it. professionals usually does this with ease, cause for them programming is not just a job its a passion.

90

I have to disagree with much of your post…I find the Nuvi UI HORRENDOUS!!! Entering a new address, I have to TYPE in the city??? For the 20th time today?? How about a dropdown list, or a default??

Way points don’t seem to work (how do you indicate you have reached it vs mistakenly driven by??) Maybe its me, but I actually tried to read the manual and figure it out before giving up.

I can’t remember so many of the other things, I’ve basically stopped using it except for big trips because I get so agitated using it…being a software developer, I can’t help notice the pathetic implementation whenever I try to do any task on it, it seems like it was done by a (poor) first year student or something.

91

Lots of opinions here, so I’ll add my own…

Prior to adulthood, I was the navigator for family trips, equipped only with the destination and my trusty RMcN road atlas. Yes, I was a pre-teen roadgeek.

I’ve used DeLorme’s Street Atlas product for years and printed out the directions and maps for trips.

In late '05 I picked up the Street Atlas software that came with the USB GPS antenna for the laptop. While it worked well enough, the laptop had to reside somewhere, and that wound up being my wife’s lap. No convenient or simple was to securely mount the laptop, it took up space, and was inconveniently useful.

In late '06 I picked up a refurbished Garmin StreetPilot i3 for $99. I figured if anything, it was a cool toy to play with. About the size of a tennis ball with a tiny 1.75" LCD screen. No touchscreen, but a scroll/push wheel. It works well, was easy to use despite the lack of a screen, and didn’t take up much space. Maps weren’t perfect, but none of them are. I added a 2Gb microSD card to it and was able to put the entire North American map set on it - a big plus over the tiny 128Mb card it came with that only held 2-3 states at a time.

In '08 I picked up a Garmin nuvi 200 for the wife - $130 on sale. “Alice” works well and the wife enjoyed having it on her last trip - until she realized that “Alice” didn’t know about the construction and road closures in St. Louis at the time. (RULE #1: GPS is great, but a $5 road atlas is still worth every penny.)

Bought the new 2009 City Navigator North America NT Update - $50 on sale. Installed it and updated the maps on the i3 (despite the fact it’s not listed on the compatibility chart - the fact I have the 2Gb SD card makes it compatible.) You can’t update more than one Garmin device, though. What I did find was that when I went to the myGarmin support site, I was eligible for a FREE '09 map update to the nuvi 200. I couldn’t just use the code with my existing installed 09 update - I actually had to download the 2Gb code update, install it, enter the code, and then I could update my nuvi 200. Which leads to another issue - the lack of space.

The 2009 map set takes more space than the older maps - and it won’t fit on a ‘default’ nuvi 200. You must connect the nuvi 200 to your PC - it shows up as a flash drive - and REMOVE unneeded files to gain enough space to hold the lower 48 state maps. I removed all the voices but American English, and all the foreign text files, along with the JPEG files. After updating the lower 48 state maps, there is only 5Mb free on the nuvi 200’s 1Gb of flash memory. While I can insert up to a 2Gb SD card in the nuvi 200, I apparently cannot install maps to it. What concerns me is that, with each map update being larger, if I can only install to the built-in flash memory, I’ll have to start removing state maps in the future. That’s a flaw in my eyes - there’s no way I’m going to fill up a 2Gb SD card with POIs, so why not let me put more maps there?

Speaking of POI’s - it’s insanely simple to add them. A simple CSV file with information can be created - or one can download pre-created files from sites like POI Factory. Folks spend time creating specific POI files (all Wal-Marts and Sams Club locations, all US Interstate rest areas, all Flying J truckstops, all Chicago hot dog stands, etc) and make them available to all. Use Garmin’s POI Loader software to install them to an SD card and they can be added to the nuvi’s default POI lists. That came in handy - I preloaded the wife’s destinations for her trip, and all she had to do was choose them from Favorites - no typing or anything.

Also recently found info on how to create your own voice files and to download new vehicle icons (currently, the Black Pearl pirate ship is the wife’s icon - more exciting than a minivan icon!)

I also chose the nuvi 200 for it’s simplicity - I don’t need a picture viewer or MP3 player - I need a GPS trip navigator.

On the subject of ‘widescreen’ GPS units - I’d rather have a ‘tall’ screen, so I can see more of what’s ahead of me.

And I just picked up the Garmin friction dash mount for $23. One reason is that the suction cup mount is weak, the other is that theives are not only attracted to the empty suction mount you might leave behind (thus announcing that you have a GPS and it’s probably in the car), but they now scan the glass and look for the tell-tale suction cup CIRCLE that gets left behind when you remove it. It’s similar to the other beanbag mounts but doesn’t use the suction cup at all - has it’s own “ball” mount that snaps into place. The entire mount and GPS then comes off the dash and leaves no trace behind.

While I never thought that I would NEED a GPS - it’s fun to play with and is at it’s most useful when I have to deviate from my destination - it’s there to put me back on track when I need it.

-jim

92

Sounds like me just a few months back. I found the Garmin StreetPilot C550 for around $170 refurbished (and though it’s bulkier, it has all the features of the much more expensive nuvi 360), and I’ve been loving it ever since. The timing on turn prompts and the reading of street names are both fantastic. And it is pretty accurate on estimated time of arrival. I’ve told people since that it’s my favorite toy. It really is. More so than the giant TV or anything else I’ve bought in the past several years.

93

I only wonder if the device would be less pricey if it DIDN’T have all those other features.
Even if it’s not bloated, it may be causing people to pay for things they don’t need.

94

I just bought a 260W in part due to your post Jeff but I’ve found it lacking compared to the TomTom One it replaced.

The biggest issue I have is the lack of alternative routes.

Until Garmin offers this on all models I’d suggest going with TomTom.