Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

design.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 98 posts

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#61

Post by djrogers »

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…

> So now I just research it before leaving, mentally map it in my mind, look up street view for turn offs... Then I Yolo it all the way. When I finally admit I'm lost, I pull up, bring out the phone and start google maps then...

This is by far the best way I've found to use mapping apps while riding. Setting aside the heat issue, GPS apps require more concentration than I like to give them while riding. It's a lot easier to check other vehicles rear view mirrors, judge intent of drivers, and just generally keep your head on a swivel without a GPS to look at.

I have found that for the occasional reminder, my Apple watch's taps work well (can't see my watch though, so you gotta remember which taps are which for left/right).

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#62

Post by djrogers »

mi100hael wrote: post #55
systemtest wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ride motorcycles in cross-Europe trips for fun but prefer the GPS. My GPS will look for small twisty mountain roads with lots of elevation changes and lots of corners. Roads that are only on highly detailed local maps, and I don't want to carry 30 maps on a month long road trip. Road signage is simply not a thing on these roads as they are only used by locals. I can disable highways, B-roads, toll, ferries and on m…

Can you share what app/device you use that has all of those features like specifically picking out fun roads? I'm not aware of that feature on any major nav app.

Sounds like he's probably using a TomTom Rider - there's an option specifically to pick a scenic/fun ride between A and B.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#63

Post by jmkb »

mi100hael wrote: post #55
systemtest wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ride motorcycles in cross-Europe trips for fun but prefer the GPS. My GPS will look for small twisty mountain roads with lots of elevation changes and lots of corners. Roads that are only on highly detailed local maps, and I don't want to carry 30 maps on a month long road trip. Road signage is simply not a thing on these roads as they are only used by locals. I can disable highways, B-roads, toll, ferries and on m…

Can you share what app/device you use that has all of those features like specifically picking out fun roads? I'm not aware of that feature on any major nav app.

You can try Kurviger -- it uses OpenStreetMap data and chooses "fun" curving routes using the Graphhopper routing engine.

https://kurviger.de/en

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#64

Post by [deleted] »

bungie4 wrote: post #49

In North America and Europe, it's common for motorcyclists to quickly layout routes when touring using google maps. They (google) have made a UX that makes it ridiculously easy (as compared to something like Garmins Basecamp -which should be used as shiny example of how not to design an UX) The issue is that you cannot directly save the maps in GPX format to upload to your GPS. So thiers a world of work arounds, some…

[deleted]

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#65

Post by davidzweig »

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 designed a device with an 8" e-ink display recently. I thought it wouldn't be too hard to repurpose it to have it display rendered maps tiles for your current location, using the built-in GPS module. If you could send the device a GPX/KML file over bluetooth, it could plot it over the tiles, and you'd have a simple, robust setup. Searching, entering text etc. are best done on a device with a good input mechanism and data connection, anyway.

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#66

Post by [deleted] »

mi100hael wrote: post #55
systemtest wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ride motorcycles in cross-Europe trips for fun but prefer the GPS. My GPS will look for small twisty mountain roads with lots of elevation changes and lots of corners. Roads that are only on highly detailed local maps, and I don't want to carry 30 maps on a month long road trip. Road signage is simply not a thing on these roads as they are only used by locals. I can disable highways, B-roads, toll, ferries and on m…

Can you share what app/device you use that has all of those features like specifically picking out fun roads? I'm not aware of that feature on any major nav app.

[deleted]

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#67

Post by xeromal »

mi100hael wrote: post #55
systemtest wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ride motorcycles in cross-Europe trips for fun but prefer the GPS. My GPS will look for small twisty mountain roads with lots of elevation changes and lots of corners. Roads that are only on highly detailed local maps, and I don't want to carry 30 maps on a month long road trip. Road signage is simply not a thing on these roads as they are only used by locals. I can disable highways, B-roads, toll, ferries and on m…

Can you share what app/device you use that has all of those features like specifically picking out fun roads? I'm not aware of that feature on any major nav app.

I use https://trips.furkot.com

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#68

Post by wickberg »

I use it on my motorcycle in the US, but there are some major pain points.

I have a Bluetooth headset in my helmet, so I can hear the directions... which are usually close enough. But you still do get some occasionally confusing voice prompts that - without the screen to glance at - may lead you to a wrong turn.

I do have a handlebar mount I've resorted to on a few occasions, but as others have noted (a) the phone can overheat, (b) subjecting a $500 device to the vibration and chance of falling is not ideal, and (c) I've had the acceleratorometer actions kick in unexpectedly, leading to the phone battery dying faster since it turned the LED flashlight mode on.

That said, I have only one serious complain - the opt-out-of-route-change that they've made the default is a huge issue, and I really wish there was a setting to disable that. If I've gone in and picked between a few potential routes, having it decide a different one is faster and that I'll need to press a button on screen to stay on my preferred heading ends up leaving me off course and/or on the side of the road digging my phone back out.

(And before someone suggests voice commands to fix it... that's not a workable solution. While the helmet cuts down noise, it doesn't eliminate it, and I have enough problems with voice recognition that I leave it permanently disabled.)

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#69

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

dahauns wrote: post #35
Itsdijital wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago before a long motorcycle trip I made a nice setup to use google maps while riding for the trip. A custom mount, ran all the charging cables, NFC tag and tasker profile so it knows when it's mounted. I used it for 3 days before a guy told me to give old fashioned maps a try, and gave me a few state maps. My tank bag has a nice window slot for them, so why not use it in tandem? Within 2 hours I had totally st…

>You can quickly see all info on the map (no dicking around with zoom/scrolling on the touchscreen) DID YOU GET THAT, GOOGLE?

This is one of my biggest frustrations lately. I have a modern phone with a large, high-DPI screen, but Google (and most navigation apps I've tried) only wants to show me the sparsest map. Plus having to zoom insanely far in just to check the name of a road many times, or names disappearing arbitrarily during zooming...

Re: Designing Google Maps for Motorbikes

#70

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

kristiandupont wrote: post #15
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…

This is rather off topic, but does anyone understand how the cigarette lighter plug of all things managed to become more of an international standard than any other electrical outlet (with perhaps USB as an evolving exception)? It's baffeling to me..

The simple answer is: smoking. Ubiquitous for quite some time and literally addicting. Now that everyone has Facebook on their phablets (arguably addicting) the market has met demand by adding USB ports.
Post reply on HN