GPS (1 Viewer)

[Steve Schaffer]

Just a GPS anecdote:

I used to work in the service dept. of a large Toyota dealership, specializing in electrical repair.

A couple of years ago a customer who'd bought a new Highlander with factory GPS was screaming lemon law because her place of work (she was a teacher at one of our local elementary schools) had to be entered manually rather than showing up in the unit's points-of-interest database. She said she'd been working at that school for 20+ years so she should not have had to do a manual entry.

I couldn't help wondering why this person needed a GPS system to find a place she'd been working at for over 20 years.

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Dave, make sure you download the most up to date maps from TomTom. They provide this service free in the first 30 days (after that it costs about $80 for a national map...slightly less for regionals.) When I got my 130S earlier this year, it was missing a major tollway extension near me until I updated the maps.

 

[drobbins]

I did the map download when I first started the software. It also has a feature for user maps so I uploaded the correction. We will see if they make any adjustments. Other than that, it seems accurate.

 

[DaveF]

I'm finding a multitude of map errors in my GPS. But I'm finding these errors are widespread, seen in MapQuest and Google as well. My first thought is that any house less than 10 years old is guaranteed to not have the actual address exactly right. And less than five years old, the street probably won't be mapped. But as D Robbins sees, old addresses can also be wrong. I think the simple truth is that our nation's maps are not perfect, and the GPS is only as good as the map sources it is built on.

In fact, today, I took a 30 minute detour today because the address for a hair salon was just completely wrong; wound up in a cul de sac of a trendy new subdivision. Called the salon, got their cross streets and had the GPS navigate to the intersection. Worked fine.

If this frustrated and confused me -- a tech savvy and gadget friendly guy -- I can see how someone, like the woman in Steve's anecdote, could be completely baffled and put off by this state of affaris.

 

[BrokenAmbience]

haha that knight rider one is interesting!

what do you guys think of the Motrola GPS devices though?

 

[Greg_R]

Garmin, Google, and others do not create their own maps... they purchase them from a company and then put their own layers of features on top. The primary mapping company is called Navteq (used by Garmin, Google, and others) and you can report map errors to them HERE. I have used this tool in the past and the errors DO get corrected (of course you will need to buy the latest map set for more $$$ ).

 

[drobbins]

Thanks for the link. I will look into it.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I just got the Garmin Nuvi 750 off of Amazon, getting delivered tomorrow. My brother in Law has the 770, because he travels a lot and it has pre-loaded maps of Europe. He loves it and says it's been super accurate for him, with little to no satellite acquiring problems.

I'm excited to strat playing around with mine; I love maps and am fascinated with google Earth and GPS things. The 750 is basically the same as the 770 without the Europe maps and bluetooth capabilities.

I love how you can have it display pretty much anything you are looking for relative to your current position. Like nearest Restaraunts by food type, gas stations, shopping malls, hotels, hospitals, police, etc.

 

[Dennis*G]

I'm sure they work just fine. Check the warranty, hopefully they have at least a one year warranty, and maybe they will throw in a free map update?

 

[Robert_Gaither]

Another tomtom one owner here, second edition, it showed all the signs of inaccuracy such as the wrong side of street and even several streets over from it's correct location. This resolved itself after I connected it to my blackberry by bluetooth, now it's pinpoint accurate.

 

[James L White]

Garmin Streetpilot c340

82 bucks on E-Bay

 

[drobbins]

I received a TomTom for Christmas and I still don't fully trust it. It gets me to a 1/4 mile or closer, but not to the doorstep. :frowning: I also just got a Blackberry to use for work. What does connecting the two with bluetooth do?

 

[Tony Whalen]

Wonder if that Knight Rider unit works okay in Canada... I *NEED* to own that.

 

[Micah Cohen]

Hi all! I was about to start a GPS thread, but I found this recent one. Why was I going to start a thread? Because I don't understand why my Nuvi 680 does dumb stuff like... go the long way!

In at least three instances I have found that this GPS (which was bought for my directionally-impaired wife) goes the wrong way, goes the long way, goes the BAD way, especially on drives even she knows.

Why can't I program in the route I know (the short cut, the straight way, the historically driven way) so that the GPS "knows it" from now on? Do any GPSs allow this kind of "programming"?

Are there any newer models that allow this function?

Thanks!

MC