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Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

design.google

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Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#21

Post by vr46 »

michaelt wrote: post #10
keyle wrote: post #2

That's very cool. One time, I decided to just put the phone in my pocket and take my bike to a location. I had the ear buds in my ears, I thought, voice is enough... Oh my, was I wrong. I ended up missing most turn off in streets due to latency, some crossings made no sense over audio, a total disaster. So I got a stand to attach the phone to the handle bars... And that works great, for about 20 mins. I live in Austr…

I tried the same thing on my motorbike in London. I had a pretty cheap android phone at the time. The 'headphone hearing protection' would make the volume too quiet to hear over the engine any time you jiggled the headphone jack. Required a screen interaction to fix. Of course if you didn't hear the audio prompt or couldn't make it out precisely, you're on your own - no way to check it or get it to repeat if the phon…

Depends on the bike - touring bikes like my BMW and the big Triumphs have sockets, mine has the DIN socket and it's easy to get a USB adapter for it. Not exactly the perfect bike for London, but I did commute on it for a year or so, using a RAM mount with waterproof holder. My gloves had conductive fingertips but they stopped being conductive after a while. Meh. The old touchscreens worked better.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#22

Post by toomanybeersies »

constantlm wrote: post #9
keyle wrote: post #2

That's very cool. One time, I decided to just put the phone in my pocket and take my bike to a location. I had the ear buds in my ears, I thought, voice is enough... Oh my, was I wrong. I ended up missing most turn off in streets due to latency, some crossings made no sense over audio, a total disaster. So I got a stand to attach the phone to the handle bars... And that works great, for about 20 mins. I live in Austr…

Experienced the heat issue when we did Vietnam South to North on a bike some months ago. Phone got so hot you couldn't touch it. Had to wing it in the end and stop every now and then to see how lost we were.

I thought that Vietnam, outside of the larger cities, was fairly easy to navigate.

Conveniently for me it was raining the whole time, so overheating wasn't an issue. Rather, I had the opposite where I almost froze riding through the rain in Đà Lạt wearing only tshirt and shorts.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#23

Post by toomanybeersies »

keyle wrote: post #2

That's very cool. One time, I decided to just put the phone in my pocket and take my bike to a location. I had the ear buds in my ears, I thought, voice is enough... Oh my, was I wrong. I ended up missing most turn off in streets due to latency, some crossings made no sense over audio, a total disaster. So I got a stand to attach the phone to the handle bars... And that works great, for about 20 mins. I live in Austr…

I try to do the same even while driving. It's a good brain exercise and helps ensure that I'll actually remember the route.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#24

Post by TeMPOraL »

keyle wrote: post #2

That's very cool. One time, I decided to just put the phone in my pocket and take my bike to a location. I had the ear buds in my ears, I thought, voice is enough... Oh my, was I wrong. I ended up missing most turn off in streets due to latency, some crossings made no sense over audio, a total disaster. So I got a stand to attach the phone to the handle bars... And that works great, for about 20 mins. I live in Austr…

Oh yes, the heat.

We're going to a friend's place in a different city, more than an hour away. My SO is driving, I'm navigating. Just as we're about to enter the city and start the most complex part of the drive, my phone dies. Turns out, the constant glare of the sun + rubber casing + the already absurd heat generated by Google's navigation overheated the phone. We had to stop for a moment, let it cool down, and only then could continue.

My takeaway from that experience is that on long trips, I now only engage navigation in the important areas, and take off the rubber casing when driving in warm weather.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#25

Post by TeMPOraL »

modeless wrote: post #12
Halop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you - I have tried attaching my android watch to the handlebars and functionality wise it's perfect UI for navigating. However it takes about 10 seconds for the screen to dim to the monochrome power saver mode and then it's impossible to see anything during daylight. Android wear does not support a permanently on screen all the time and I would totally buy a cheap device like that just for navigating.

How about a Pebble? Always on, sunlight visible, cheap. The company is gone but they still work. This is what you can get for navigation: https://apps.getpebble.com/en_US/application/530a8f36fc62a5e...

Pebble was the best. Was fun while it lasted. [*]. I'm counting days until my Pebble Time dies and then I'll be off the smartwatch game until something else pops up that's not just a toy or a fitness tracker.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#26

Post by michaelt »

barrkel wrote: post #14
michaelt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried the same thing on my motorbike in London. I had a pretty cheap android phone at the time. The 'headphone hearing protection' would make the volume too quiet to hear over the engine any time you jiggled the headphone jack. Required a screen interaction to fix. Of course if you didn't hear the audio prompt or couldn't make it out precisely, you're on your own - no way to check it or get it to repeat if the phon…

Use Bluetooth helmet speakers for audio. Most touring bikes, and many scooters have a cigarette lighter attachment point. My SH300 has one in the glove box. The 2016+ VFR800 has one. Etc. Many better quality gloves have conductive tips on their forefingers for capacitive touchscreen usage these days. My Alpinestars SP8 gloves do. I find Google Maps audio directions just barely acceptable for London navigation. I pref…

Yes, many of my problems could have been at least partly solved by spending more money on a helmet with bluetooth, more money on a bike with a better battery and a phone power supply, more money on better gloves with special finger coating, more money on a phone with a better battery and better handlebar mounts available, and so on.

Sadly, as a student on a £300 motorbike, I didn't have the money for such luxuries :)

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#27

Post by timmipetit »

AnnoyingSwede wrote: post #16

Riding in the Netherlands with google maps and a scalaG9x and a android phone in the pocket works pretty okey. The few issues i have is bluetooth not being on continuesly, so as the phone starts giving a new direction, i might miss the first few words, but as i get closer to the exit and the second or third remind goes off, i tend to hear the full message. I am using english phone settings and language settings, and…

Yeah, having those Dutch street names pronounced in English is so confusing and funny! It would be perfect if you could use your phone in English, but use your local language for navigation. Still haven't found a way to achieve this on my Android phone though :(

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#28

Post by piquadrat »

maaaats wrote: post #20
keyle wrote: post #2

That's very cool. One time, I decided to just put the phone in my pocket and take my bike to a location. I had the ear buds in my ears, I thought, voice is enough... Oh my, was I wrong. I ended up missing most turn off in streets due to latency, some crossings made no sense over audio, a total disaster. So I got a stand to attach the phone to the handle bars... And that works great, for about 20 mins. I live in Austr…

I use a Garmin Edge 520 mounted on my bike (bicycle). It doubles as my fitness-logger so I'm not suggesting anyone buys it just for some maps, but I really like it. It's not as smooth as using a phone when it comes to maps, but for preplanned routes it works great. It has made 4-6 hour bike-rides on unknown roads much easier. No more stops at intersections to struggle with the phone to see where to go, can just keep…

The newly released Edge 520 Plus builds a bit on that, as it comes with maps for your region pre-loaded (region as in e.g. Europe, or US). This allows it to do point-to-point routing on the fly, as well as rerouting if you miss a turn. I bought it a few weeks ago and am super happy with it.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#29

Post by yAnonymous »

keyle wrote: post #2

That's very cool. One time, I decided to just put the phone in my pocket and take my bike to a location. I had the ear buds in my ears, I thought, voice is enough... Oh my, was I wrong. I ended up missing most turn off in streets due to latency, some crossings made no sense over audio, a total disaster. So I got a stand to attach the phone to the handle bars... And that works great, for about 20 mins. I live in Austr…

>I live in Australia and the heat of the sun on the phone + google maps using CPU will literally shut off the phone as it reaches 50C+

Get a better maps app, there's an abundance of them. Google Maps for mobile is just a resource hog with a shitty UI.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#30

Post by gearhart »

keyle wrote: post #2

That's very cool. One time, I decided to just put the phone in my pocket and take my bike to a location. I had the ear buds in my ears, I thought, voice is enough... Oh my, was I wrong. I ended up missing most turn off in streets due to latency, some crossings made no sense over audio, a total disaster. So I got a stand to attach the phone to the handle bars... And that works great, for about 20 mins. I live in Austr…

This. I've frequently been surprised by how useless the audio navigation is without being able to check the screen for clarity.

There just needs to be a "no visuals" setting where you get given much more audio information.

The worst experience I've had was riding in Slavic countries with just headphones in and realising after a few miles that GMaps couldn't pronounce the road names and so was just leaving a silence.

I'd get "Turn left on to ''". I thought the roads were numbered and I was constantly turning onto highway 2.

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