Sat Nav or Phone?

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  • Rambosmum
    Rambosmum Posts: 2,445
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    To conserve the battery you can get it to turn the screen off between directions.
  • Gloomendoom
    Gloomendoom Posts: 16,550
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    I prefer the built in sat nav in my car. Occasionally backed up by my wife using Google maps on an ipad and/or paper maps.

    The wife/ipad/atlas combination is particularly effective for dealing with incidents, road closures and whatever in heavy traffic.
  • robatwork
    robatwork Posts: 7,086
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    I love the people who are happy with Tomtom or Garmin. Keeps them off the diversions that google suggests.

    Over the last 10 years or more I have "live tested" tomtom and garmin devices side by side with google maps/waze, as well as the inbuilt satnavs in a variety of makes of car.

    The simple conclusion is that no car satnav ever matches the live traffic info of google.

    I now have Android Auto, and while it has flaws, and the map screen is nobbled with 1/3 of it covered in the AA logo, I only use google maps and sometimes Waze. The inbuilt just can't match the up to the minute (well, 5 minutes maybe) traffic info. If you're in a quiet part of the world then maybe the satnav prettier map would be better. If you're fighting round the M1/M25 every day like me then google wins. By hours.
  • Arklight
    Arklight Posts: 3,171
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    robatwork wrote: »
    I love the people who are happy with Tomtom or Garmin. Keeps them off the diversions that google suggests.

    Over the last 10 years or more I have "live tested" tomtom and garmin devices side by side with google maps/waze, as well as the inbuilt satnavs in a variety of makes of car.

    The simple conclusion is that no car satnav ever matches the live traffic info of google.

    I now have Android Auto, and while it has flaws, and the map screen is nobbled with 1/3 of it covered in the AA logo, I only use google maps and sometimes Waze. The inbuilt just can't match the up to the minute (well, 5 minutes maybe) traffic info. If you're in a quiet part of the world then maybe the satnav prettier map would be better. If you're fighting round the M1/M25 every day like me then google wins. By hours.

    Garmin and Tomtom include live traffic and have done for a very long time. I drive a lot in various countries and prefer a dedicated sat nav with a traffic subscription and my phone free to do other things. Google maps is very good but I would rather have a Garmin for lane guidance and road positioning.

    I wouldn’t bother with Tomtom anymore.
  • robatwork
    robatwork Posts: 7,086
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    Arklight wrote: »
    Garmin and Tomtom include live traffic and have done for a very long time.

    Exactly my point - their live traffic isn't as good as google's.

    But I am happy you think it is; the more people who do, the better, as far as I am concerned.
  • Arklight
    Arklight Posts: 3,171
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    robatwork wrote: »
    Exactly my point - their live traffic isn't as good as google's.

    But I am happy you think it is; the more people who do, the better, as far as I am concerned.

    I haven't found their live traffic to be much different to Google's. If you are really losing "hours" on the M25 then either you're doing it wrong or your unit isn't working properly.

    The main differences are the UI and positioning information. Dedicated sat-navs also include functions like routing preferences and waypoints which aren't well implemented in Google maps. They also don't need a data connection.

    The downsides are that the're outside of Google's search ecosystem. But not everyone wants to be in that.
  • takman
    takman Posts: 3,876
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    Arklight wrote: »
    I haven't found their live traffic to be much different to Google's. If you are really losing "hours" on the M25 then either you're doing it wrong or your unit isn't working properly.

    There is a massive difference between the traffic information on a stand alone Sat Nav and Google Maps.

    Using TomTom as an example they will use traditional traffic data from traffic cameras which isn't very detailed and only really applies to main roads. They will also use any data from their sat navs signed up to live traffic and any apps being used which won't be that many as they have to be in use at the time.

    Google Maps use GPS data from EVERY android mobile phone with a signal, which number in the millions at any time (excluding the small amount which turn off GPS or location sharing). This means they have a massive amount of data which they can use to make an extremely accurate traffic map. They can use this data to determine the quickest route based on how fast traffic is flowing for every single part of the route.

    If your paying a subscription for Live Traffic then your paying money for data that is far inferior to what you can get at no cost.

    If you wanted to keep a separate unit then you can get a decent android device for less than the standalone Sat Nav to use dedicated to google maps. You could then tether it to your phone for a data connection.
    Even if you had to pay for data for this separate device it would probably cost less than you currently pay for Live Data.
    This not only offers much better traffic data but also offers forever up to date maps without having to do anything.
  • I ditched my sat nav when I discovered Waze a couple of years back, always finds the quickest route and it still amazes me how accurate it is at telling me when there's been accident, car on the hard shoulder, etc.
  • DoaM
    DoaM Posts: 11,863
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    takman wrote: »
    If your paying a subscription for Live Traffic then your paying money for data that is far inferior to what you can get at no cost.

    Is now a suitable time to trot out the line:

    If something costs nothing, then YOU are the product.

    ?? :D
  • DoaM
    DoaM Posts: 11,863
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    Waze

    Just tried it again to see if it had improved since the last time I tried it (months ago, and I've done a few phone updates since then) ... nope - still black screens my Infotainment system on Android Auto. Uninstalled and back to Google Maps.
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