Re: Sat Nav? : Wed Jul 31, 2013 5:27 pm  

Chaka wrote:

The only problem when using your phones as sat navs, it eats into your data allowance and if you’re in an area with a poor 3g signal, well you might as well dig out the atlas!

No it doesn't, it only uses push notices for traffic updates and they are tiny.
All you need to do is stop it using aGPS which you don't need anyway.

Re: Sat Nav? : Thu Aug 01, 2013 1:25 pm  

Just used the new one for the first time today, seems to be pretty good! Finds where I am straight away and even has the roads of the industrial estate I work in (the other one would tell me I'm on the motorway when I was in the car park). No idea how good it is at re-directing me to avoid traffic yet because I only took it up the road but we'll see

Re: Sat Nav? : Fri Aug 02, 2013 5:01 am  

Chaka wrote:

The only problem when using your phones as sat navs, it eats into your data allowance and if you’re in an area with a poor 3g signal, well you might as well dig out the atlas!

If you're using a smartphone and worried about using data, download 'Navfree' from google play. Takes a while to download - use wifi - but puts the map into your phone, then just uses satellites to navigate you. You dont need an internet connection to get about then.

Re: Sat Nav? : Fri Aug 02, 2013 8:12 am  

Raaaaymond wrote:

If you're using a smartphone and worried about using data, download 'Navfree' from google play. Takes a while to download - use wifi - but puts the map into your phone, then just uses satellites to navigate you. You dont need an internet connection to get about then.

I’m not worried as I have a live traffic sat nav. I also have an I phone, which on the odd occasion I use Google maps for live traffic checks, I find very useful. BVut always good to know there are other alternatives out there.

Re: Sat Nav? : Fri Aug 02, 2013 6:53 pm  

Grimmy wrote:

Just used the new one for the first time today, seems to be pretty good! Finds where I am straight away and even has the roads of the industrial estate I work in (the other one would tell me I'm on the motorway when I was in the car park). No idea how good it is at re-directing me to avoid traffic yet because I only took it up the road but we'll see

If you've got the latest maps - DON'T UPDATE UNTIL THE VERY LAST OPPORTUNITY - you won't have any problem with redirecting, Garmin are shit hot on that

Re: Sat Nav? : Sat Aug 03, 2013 11:35 am  

I have the Waze app installed on both Android and iPhone. It is community based so users update with traffic news. Data usage is quite low, but it kills the battery.

[DaveO]

Re: Sat Nav? : Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:14 am  

Grimmy wrote: Just used the new one for the first time today, seems to be pretty good! Finds where I am straight away and even has the roads of the industrial estate I work in (the other one would tell me I'm on the motorway when I was in the car park). No idea how good it is at re-directing me to avoid traffic yet because I only took it up the road but we'll see Be careful it doesn't direct you down very narrow roads to save 30 seconds off the journey. I find this the biggest fault of Sat Nav's. In my experience they tend to be OK in the conurbations though my wife did get taken down a farm track to cut off a corner off a major road on her way to a training course in Winsford once. Where they are not so good in my experience is in rural areas. Earlier in the year we were on holiday in Pembrokeshire and some of the routes the Sat Nav took us on were just plain idiotic. Based on that experience I bought a new road atlas for our recent holiday to Cornwall so I could check what the sat nav was coming up with. It turned out to be a wise move and I am sure sticking to the more obvious routes you could see on the map saved a lot of reversing and hairy passing maneuvers down narroe Cornish lanes. I still used the Sat Nav but when the next direction was to turn down an unnamed road I just ignored it and this seemed to work well. One way around idiotic sat nav routes is to use itinerary planning if your sat nav supports it. Most if not all current Tom Tom sat navs don't support it. They used to. My original Tom Tom One had it but the latest one I have does not. Some of the Garmin ones do and if yours does there is a bit of free software out there you can use with it called Tyre from here: http://www.tyretotravel.com/ The idea is you set multiple waypoints based on a Google Map route. This is not the same as "travel via" as that could still take you down an unwanted short cut. So using waypoints you get to tell the sat nav exactly which roads you want to travel on. As to live traffic My Tom Tom has a live traffic feature and it does work. Saved us some time recently when on holiday but again expect the alternative route to involve some interesting roads!

Grimmy wrote: Just used the new one for the first time today, seems to be pretty good! Finds where I am straight away and even has the roads of the industrial estate I work in (the other one would tell me I'm on the motorway when I was in the car park). No idea how good it is at re-directing me to avoid traffic yet because I only took it up the road but we'll see Be careful it doesn't direct you down very narrow roads to save 30 seconds off the journey. I find this the biggest fault of Sat Nav's. In my experience they tend to be OK in the conurbations though my wife did get taken down a farm track to cut off a corner off a major road on her way to a training course in Winsford once. Where they are not so good in my experience is in rural areas. Earlier in the year we were on holiday in Pembrokeshire and some of the routes the Sat Nav took us on were just plain idiotic. Based on that experience I bought a new road atlas for our recent holiday to Cornwall so I could check what the sat nav was coming up with. It turned out to be a wise move and I am sure sticking to the more obvious routes you could see on the map saved a lot of reversing and hairy passing maneuvers down narroe Cornish lanes. I still used the Sat Nav but when the next direction was to turn down an unnamed road I just ignored it and this seemed to work well. One way around idiotic sat nav routes is to use itinerary planning if your sat nav supports it. Most if not all current Tom Tom sat navs don't support it. They used to. My original Tom Tom One had it but the latest one I have does not. Some of the Garmin ones do and if yours does there is a bit of free software out there you can use with it called Tyre from here: http://www.tyretotravel.com/ The idea is you set multiple waypoints based on a Google Map route. This is not the same as "travel via" as that could still take you down an unwanted short cut. So using waypoints you get to tell the sat nav exactly which roads you want to travel on. As to live traffic My Tom Tom has a live traffic feature and it does work. Saved us some time recently when on holiday but again expect the alternative route to involve some interesting roads!

Re: Sat Nav? : Wed Aug 07, 2013 5:56 pm  

I hold my hand up to once following my old satnav down a country lane in darkest Lincolnshire which narrowed to the width of one car, then the tarmac ran out and then the "road" turned into two tyre tracks along the edge of a farmers field.- it was a genuine shortcut because we ended up where we needed to be but was probably more suited to mountain bikes than a Ford Mondeo that was only a few months old.