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SAT NAV


denjy

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On 7/5/2019 at 5:15 PM, countersteer said:

I have a Garmin Zumo 660 (discontinued) and had an earlier model Zumo prior to that.  My favorite feature is being able to construct a multi day trip in strange territory on my PC and then load onto the GPS.  My quest for the twistiest road segments has sometimes landed me in places that were less than ideal, but all in all it's worked very well.  Last time I looked, I couldn't find a phone app that matched the trip planning functionality of the Garmin software.  Perhaps that's changed?

I also have a 660 and found that when wearing hi-viz gear I could barely see the screen and as previously mentioned it became a serious distraction and trying to do routes or tracks in Basecamp was a PITA. I have Osmand installed on my phone as my GPS app and do all of my route planning in Furkot. I can do a route in Furkot in a few minutes, send it to my phone and be done with it. Once you spend a little time with the program it becomes clear(to me anyways) that I will not be aggravating my life with Basecamp anymore. Now I have a waterproof case for the phone so I am confident that the GPS will be collecting dust in my gear cabinet.

 

Cheers

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On 7/10/2019 at 12:57 PM, krillz said:

A cell phone is a horrible idea for me. I ride where there is no service what so ever. I use a nuvi 2555. I also have gloves that work for devices. I’ve rode in the rain while using it  still works  

Try Garmin Base Camp app on your PC to pre load routes. 

GPS doesn't require cellular data or signal so should work the same on your phone as it does on your nuvi

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1 hour ago, bugie said:

GPS doesn't require cellular data or signal so should work the same on your phone as it does on your nuvi

 

1 hour ago, bugie said:

GPS doesn't require cellular data or signal so should work the same on your phone as it does on your nuvi

Sounds like it should. But doesn’t. I’ve never seen anyone turn on, say google maps and route home when there is no service. Doesn’t work where I ride. AT ALL

Edited by krillz
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  • 1 month later...

Howdy y'all.

Thought I'd chip in from across the pond re: that new fangled internet google maps on your phone.

You can download a prescribed area of a map before your journey. Do this by tap and holding an area, scroll down on the pin location info > download. You can then zoom in/out to choose the desired area and save the data to your phone. Think the max is 200mb or so which is usually a few hundred square miles. I downloaded most of Sicily and crete this way and navigated fine without data on the way.

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/13/2019 at 6:45 PM, krillz said:

 

Sounds like it should. But doesn’t. I’ve never seen anyone turn on, say google maps and route home when there is no service. Doesn’t work where I ride. AT ALL

DL the Google Offline maps App (unsure if they have it for Apple) once you DL the areas YOU determine over WIFI all you need is the GPS signal.

I will never use anything else.

I do not look at it in the car... Why would I look at it while riding? I just let her voice tell me the way. While listening to my music. and one voice command (Hey Google, directions home) and I am on my way. I will be setting up a wireless charger on a holder (still researching) and I will always be charged and ready to go!

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So I am in the love/hate camp with Garmin- usually hate.  I cant stand Base Camp and how primitive it can be with pre- route planning and loading it smoothly as a specific route (not a track) onto the device without issue.

So, before anyone who likes to design a custom route buys a garmin, I refer them to search the "Scenic Web App" for iphones.  You can build and modify a route in Google maps, and then seamlessly transfer and edit it in Scenic.  From there, just press go on your phone with good directions.  Its cheap enough, and does NOT need cell signal.

Worth a look unless you absolutely must have a dedicated GPS.  I own 2, and I prefer to use Scenic unless I am going off road.

https://advrider.com/f/threads/scenic-iphone-ipad-app-alternative-to-garmin-zumo-and-tomtom-rider.1161012/

Edited by open1mind
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I decided to play around, and built an OpenAuto (Android Auto) "headunit".  Phone gets to stay inside the tank bag so the vibes don't murder the camera, with the screen off so it doesn't overheat, and I don't need to look damn near straight down for the occasion I *do* need to see the directions.  As an almost purely rural driver, being able to see did come in handy on my recent trip to Baltimore (~1300 miles round trip for me, was great!) as voice directions were a bit too slow for how dense the area was.  Oh, and Baltimore roads are terrible.

My complaints are how poor most of the apps are designed, but that is incredibly minimal since I don't actually use any of them, everything is pretty much covered by the controls on my comm.  Oh, and it breaks "ok/hey google" because while it picks up the command from the comm, it then tries to listen to a mic on the headunit (which A, doesn't have one and B, wouldn't be able to hear me if it did).  Again, not something I actually use more than once in a blue moon.

 

But mostly I just did it to see if I could.  Raspberry pi 3B+, official 7" touchscreen, a 3rd party case, some silicone, and a ton of sugru, viola, complete!  Bolted a RAM ball to the back to mount it with. 20190928_131730.thumb.jpg.f967fcac48be680856391a6314b501cd.jpg

Of course, the cables all got routed elsewhere, that was just a test-fitting and test-function.  Oh, and I absolutely drowned the USB on the side in sugru to make it weather-resistant.  The bottom ones, a splitter, go to power (Pi and screen), the side goes to a USB hub that has external power (a USB-to-barrel-plug cable, took forever to find a hub that used one) so my phone will actually charge, the SAE-USB, USB hub, and phone are all in the tank bag.  Switch on power, plug in phone soon as it boots, it launches Waze and starts whatever media I had playing when I turned it off, if I turned it off without pausing.  There are about a million ways to make it automatically turn on and off, but they are so much more involved than putting together what is generally a commercial solution and weather-hardening it.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I have the Garmin 396 LMT-S. It's just okay. I thought it would be cool to control Pandora music from my phone through the Garmin, but that feature turned out to be a nightmare. Once enabled, if the Garmin ever powered on in range of my phone it force-launched Pandora whether I wanted it to or not. Closing Pandora on my phone didn't help, the Garmin app would just force it back open again. Pairing was also buggy.

I couldn't figure out how to disable the Pandora thing so I eventually just uninstalled the Garmin app from my phone. So I no longer have traffic and speed trap updates on the Garmin, but at least I'm back in control of my phone.

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