Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Varche on 10 March 2015, 10:50:22
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I have managed without sat nav until recently when I got one for Xmas.
It has been brilliant in the UK and yesterday we used it (in anger) for the first time over in Spain.
I dare say they have faults especially if you rely on them and don't put any thought/logic into where you are going. It did get confused once under a concrete Spaghetti junction - maybe loss of signal.
Yesterday we visited about 10 shops on various industrial estates in Malaga ,for the first time, just by inputting the addresses.
Two features that are good are knowledge of speed cameras / prevailing speed limit and what lane to be in on multi lane roads.
When it calculates your estimated arrival time is that from an algorythm based on typical speeds to speed limit OR does it learn from your driving style which might be Miss Daisy or Alonsolike ?
What do other people feel about them?
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They're brilliant, and compared to a driver actually reading a map whilst driving (which I think safe to say we've all seen, and possibly even done) they're a godsend. My gripe, though, is that the TomTom I've used has the nasty habit of having absolutely no concept of distance - ie: you're told you're 50 yards from a turn, two seconds later you're told 'turn left' (!) this has the annoying result of one of two things
1. You miss the turn, as you can't realistically, safely turn in the given distance, then get it whining in your earhole for the next five mins as you make a 'round the block' manoeuvre.
2. You make the turn, hard lock with passengers thrown about the cabin, driving like an 18 year old the day after passing his test and being given a Scooby. Also means doing that oh-so-pleasant thing where you indicate as you perform the turn, as opposed to mirror, signal, then manoeuvre, like what we're supposed to.
As I say, they're your choices. You have to reconcile/compare which you prefer - making the turn, and being moaned at by your other half 'why are you driving like that?' vs 'you missed the turn! Why did you miss the turn?' ::)
I am assuming that the newer models have at least partially rectified this. Also as you say, getting confused which road you're on when you go over/under another road. :)
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I've been using one for a few years, and find it very useful, particularly as you say for visiting industrial units, as even though I know my local town quite well, it can often get me across town quicker. I also find it very useful for meandering off a long journey to explore unknown areas, and not relying on SWMBO trying to get us back on track peering at an upside down road map.
As you have pointed out, it still requires a bit of common sense in use. There have been many cases of idiots arriving at the wrong town with the right name! :y
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Rarely use mine unless I specifically need to know how to get to an address, even then tend to use for the last leg of the journey.
Sometimes switch it on in Just Drive Mode (Here Maps) on a journey just to remind me of Speed Limits and Cameras, but we all know we shouldn't rely on that, and a Live Traffic Feature is handy.
Absolutely useless in Central London in terms of getting to A to B, just just end up sitting in Traffic with the rest of the boys, but Londons always been a bit of a 'you need to know the shortcuts in terms of traffic hotspots otherwise your on a lost cause'.
Yep, handy toys, bit like your first Dish Washer syndrome, when you think why didn't I get one of these years ago. :y
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Sat Nav was invented because girlies are unable to read maps. :)
Not merely my humble opinion......more a statement of fact. :)
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It has been brilliant in the UK and yesterday we used it (in anger) for the first time over in Spain.
We navigated around Spain using a freebie sat nav based on OSM and it worked very well. Can't remember how close it got us to your gaff - possibly as close as the bar? ;D
It's a godsend when trying to navigate through cities and it's also handy when on a run in the kit car, as long as you can plan a route in advance and make it stick to it. Sadly, many these days seem only to want to navigate you to a postcode and woe betide you if you actually want to choose your own route. :-\
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They're brilliant, and compared to a driver actually reading a map whilst driving (which I think safe to say we've all seen, and possibly even done) they're a godsend. My gripe, though, is that the TomTom I've used has the nasty habit of having absolutely no concept of distance - ie: you're told you're 50 yards from a turn, two seconds later you're told 'turn left' (!) this has the annoying result of one of two things
1. You miss the turn, as you can't realistically, safely turn in the given distance, then get it whining in your earhole for the next five mins as you make a 'round the block' manoeuvre.
2. You make the turn, hard lock with passengers thrown about the cabin, driving like an 18 year old the day after passing his test and being given a Scooby. Also means doing that oh-so-pleasant thing where you indicate as you perform the turn, as opposed to mirror, signal, then manoeuvre, like what we're supposed to.
As I say, they're your choices. You have to reconcile/compare which you prefer - making the turn, and being moaned at by your other half 'why are you driving like that?' vs 'you missed the turn! Why did you miss the turn?' ::)
I am assuming that the newer models have at least partially rectified this. Also as you say, getting confused which road you're on when you go over/under another road. :)
A couple of issues here...
Firstly, at 30 mph, two seconds will see you about thirty yards up the road, so no real surprises there ::)
Secondly, turn the voice off. It's distracting and generally unnecessary. If a voice tells you to "turn left now" you might just do it without thought... all those stories of people driving the wrong way into one way streets or into tram lines or canals... all doing EXACTLY what the idiot box told them ::) Use the picture as a reference, read the road ahead and pay attention to your immediate environment :y This also avoids situation 1 in your example.
Situation 2 should never happen unless a) you're totally retarded, or b) you're trying to be a complete Tuesday :y
My current TomTom is a year old Go6000, with live updates, live traffic and google search, all free for life. It's a bit big for an Omega due to the windscreen/dash space, but the only thing that has come close was the factory Nav in the E Class... Well worth every penny imho :y
The only grumbles with sat navs in general is that their very use detaches you from your journey; look at a map and you know where you are in relation to places around you... on a sat nav, you're merely a splodge on a line. Also some rural postcodes are bigger than whole Lundun boroughs ::)
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It has been brilliant in the UK and yesterday we used it (in anger) for the first time over in Spain.
We navigated around Spain using a freebie sat nav based on OSM and it worked very well. Can't remember how close it got us to your gaff - possibly as close as the bar? ;D
It's a godsend when trying to navigate through cities and it's also handy when on a run in the kit car, as long as you can plan a route in advance and make it stick to it. Sadly, many these days seem only to want to navigate you to a postcode and woe betide you if you actually want to choose your own route. :-\
Yes that is what we have found. Strangely it has a lot of country dirt roads on over here which is quite handy for us.
Anyway does the device "learn" how fast you drive when it is calculating journey times? Ours is a TomTom.
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ETA is always a simple speed/time/distance equation :y
Speed up, your ETA becomes earlier, slow down and it becomes later. Similarly, take a short cut you might arrive sooner, take a detour you might arrive later.
Also worth noting that the shortest route is often not the quickest, contrary to popular belief ;D
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Wait til you get a mobile internet. Google/search your destination address, copy and paste into Tom tom "copied address" and away you go. Don't even need a pen V :)
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Wait til you get a mobile internet. Google/search your destination address, copy and paste into Tom tom "copied address" and away you go. Don't even need a pen V :)
Home internet is still a novelty at chez Varche. ;D
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Ah the joys of living in a third world country. ;D ;D
Even the weather is rubbish, http://www.eltiempo.es/zagra.html
ETA is always a simple speed/time/distance equation
I suspect that the algorythm is a simple and fixed. e.g. 68mph on 70 mph motorways etc but wondered if you habitually drove everywhere at say 40mph if it would adjust and calculate ETA from that.?
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It does :y
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Ah, the good old ETA, some see it as a guidance message and some see it as a challenge. ::) ;D
The joys of mobile Internet. You can even get someone to send destinations to the car and accept it as a destination now. A big step from having the route written down on a bit of paper stuck to the dash. ;D
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Ah the joys of living in a third world country. ;D ;D
Even the weather is rubbish, http://www.eltiempo.es/zagra.html
Wassat round orange thing, then? (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26795734/Smilies/huh.gif)
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I use an 8 year old £50 Garmin which I've never updated, as I didn't think it was worth it. ::)
Although, I did get in a bit of a pickle in Norwich once where they had changed a one way system and apparently I was driving across fields going by Porthmadog a couple of years ago! ::) ;D
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Never needed a sat nav,the wife throws bread out of the window. ;D ;D
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Pretty decent inventions I think and I'm not really into all this technology stuff.Just need to apply a little common sense at times and not just blindly follow instructions.
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...... There have been many cases of idiots arriving at the wrong town with the right name! :y
Indeed. I well remember a foreign HGV driver from Southampton finding this place (http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/24681) instead of Pompy Hants :o :o :o
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great stuff & you can use a program like "Tyre" to plan your own route with different way points etc. Then load your route into TomTom & away you go
http://www.tyre.tk/ (http://www.tyre.tk/)
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I'm a plan, route notes and know where I am for out of town journeys in the UK and all over Europe, where my dad used to do rallying and time trialing, so I had to learn, as a child, to read a map and give a running commentary to exactly where we were, call the road corners, hills, and notable features like rivers, bridges, churches etc. Any hold ups I had to find alternative routes and then call those. I loved it, which is why I say to my wife as long as I've got a map and compass I can navigate anywhere in the world. :) :) :)
But in town and cities you don't have the time, and for me the spare brain capacity to navigate and drive at the same time, so Sat Navs are mostly great, so concentrating on the driving with the Sat Nav doing the navigating is so much easier, more accurate and safer, providing it knows where it is going and it has the latest route changes, otherwise you can end up going in circles. It hasn't happened to me with road changes in Reading at all, heading for Caversham, I didn't get directed and end up in Reading North East at all three times, oh no, ::) :-[ :-X I didn't resort to my paper street maps at all to arrive late at the meeting. ::) ::) ::)
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...... There have been many cases of idiots arriving at the wrong town with the right name! :y
Indeed. I well remember a foreign HGV driver from Southampton finding this place (http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/24681) instead of Pompy Hants :o :o :o
It happened in France this week, a coach driver took skiers to somewhere on the West Coast instead of a ski resort in the East. They got there 24 hours late! ;D ;D ;D
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Watch out! The Belgians are coming... Or not ;D
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I am a bit of a convert, the Honda I bought a year ago has it and I have used it and found it quite helpful. I still think though that you need to be able to read a map. On 2 distance runs it has taken me a different route than I would have taken, it wasn't wrong, just a different route.
That said, I was happy to receive an new Map Book at Christmas which will live in the car............ :y :y