Aldi-Personal Navigation Assistant with Integrated GPS Receiver

itgirlinuk

My friend has a sat nav installed on his car, but without a screen. The voice guides him through. And the route is also based on current traffic situations and suggests alternate routes in case of problems. Does any of the GPS system above do that?? Or are they all based on just pre-installed databases?

And does anyone know where to get the voice only version? And how much it costs?

itgirlinuk

Munki wrote:

I have a (now quite old) Palm Tungsten T PDA and wanted to use it to make a cheap GPS system.
All-in-all a good way to get a cheap GPS setup if you have the PDA to start with :-)
Munki.

Hi,

I have a PalmOne PDA and I know I can get a bluetooth device for it.

http://www.palmone.com/us/products/handhelds/zire21/

But, can I convert this into a GPS system, even without the bluetooth? Any ideas?

Munki_2

itgirlinuk wrote:

Hi,

I have a PalmOne PDA and I know I can get a bluetooth device for it.

http://www.palmone.com/us/products/handhelds/zire21/

But, can I convert this into a GPS system, even without the bluetooth? Any ideas?

Hi, I PM'ed you back.. but didn't realise you had a Zire21. Sadly it wont work with that Palm as it's too slow and doesnt have a colour screen :-(

You can get the Tungsten palms pretty cheap second hand on ebay (£50-£100) , so even with having to get a different Palm you should still save a lot of money compared to the price of a standalone GPS system.

For the benefit of others, I will post my reply to your message, as I think it may contain info about the ViaMichelin software that might help some people.

Cheers,

Munki.

Munki_2

itgirlinuk asked me if the ViaMichelin software reroutes after a missed turn, and if so, does it do it quickly. Here is the reply I sent, which I thought I'd best post just in case it helped anyone....

---

Hi, yes the via michelin software does reroute. I recall with version 2.5 it sometimes took a few moments to recalculate. But the newer version (3.1, which the upgrade is downloadable for free on their website) seems to have addressed this issue and it's quite rare for it to have to bring up the 'Route calculation' window now. If you miss a turning it decides pretty instantly the new route. Usually it tries to send you back on yourself to take the turn you missed. But i think it must take in to c onsideration whether doing the u turn would equate to a longer distance to carrying on and taking a different route altogether. I think it just does a few calulations and always gives you the shortest/quickest route. So it's quite effective.

In general it's a good system and if you want a cheap GPS setup for your palm (especially as my palm is too old to run TomTom), you can't go too wrong. It has it's sillies. It's calculations are a little silly at time. It can only rely on the maps it has, so, for example, it cannot tell if a road is a dirt track that you need a 4x4 to be able to drive down! Common sense stuff really.

Also I did have a quite amusing silly the other day... I had it navigate me somewhere, but missed my turning, so it took me off the next turning and expected it to turn me round and send me back where I should have been. But instead it kept sending me round a block of roads (got stuck in a turn left route loop) ;-) It was easily spotted and after a couple of scenic laps of a housing estate we drove off in a completely different direction and forced it to make us a different route.

One thing I can say is that every GPS system has its bugs and sillies... so why spend to much on one!? It works well.. and even if it does take you some strange routes at times, you don't get lost. It get's you there in the end. Sure they don't have the 'local knowledge'. But who cares... we're just vistors most of the time! :-)

Oh, before I forget, https://www.pocketgps.co.uk have downloadable camera locations (Points of Interest - POI) that you can convert using a program called POIEdit and send to your ViaMichelin software. Theyn you can set an alert for it to warn you when you are coming up to speed cameras. It's a little inaccurate at times, but if you keep an eye on the screen you can see them coming sooner than the alerts tell you. It does an intial warning a while before the camera, and one that should be just as youre getting tot he camera... b ut it sometimes tells you when you're driving through it... even after youve gone through... so don't rely on it!

Hope all this helps..

Munki.

Munki_2

itgirlinuk wrote:

My friend has a sat nav installed on his car, but without a screen. The voice guides him through. And the route is also based on current traffic situations and suggests alternate routes in case of problems. Does any of the GPS system above do that?? Or are they all based on just pre-installed databases?

And does anyone know where to get the voice only version? And how much it costs?

Well the ViaMichelin software does allow you to upload Points Of Interest (POIs). So you can get speed camera locations from https://www.pocketgps.co.uk , covert then into ASCII format using POIEdit, and copy them onto the palm using the POI Manager with version 3.1 of ViaMichelin. Then you can set an alert for the Camera POIs which will warn you when you drive nearby, and displays them on the map as they come into view.

As for traffic alerts, via michelin doesn't do this. Although you can download traffic hotspots POIs that various people have compiled, and set an alert for them too. I can't remember where I got them from ... possibly https://www.poihandler.com - lots of POIs... however the camera ones you have to pay for... so use pocketgps for them, as they are free there! ;-)

If you really require traffic alerts, TomTom's GO products allow you to subscribe to their TomTom Plus services that include traffic alerts. Hoever I recall they cost about 60 Euros a year for the UK alerts. :-/

HTH,

Munki.