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Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

money.cnn.com

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Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

#381

Post by tracker1 »

tracker1 wrote: post #129

Even though my car stereo has pandora on it.. I usually just use bluetooth playback with pandora or skype from my phone as the google maps ux is much better and the directions work while listening. Honestly, the car ux for entertainment, etc in general feels like something that should have been state of the art half a decade ago... it's too slow, unresponsive and irritation imho, depite positive reviews. For referenc…

A bit late, but had meant spotify, not skype.. :-) I plan on letting XM lapse at the end of the free term as I really don't use it, and the cost is more than pandora and skype combined.

Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

#382

Post by Yaggo »

pwthornton wrote: post #106

Smartphone maps are so superior because they are always up to date, can provide real-time traffic data, can tell you to take an alternative route and can provide other data about places to eat, etc. While a lot of car GPSs have some of this, they are no where near what Google Maps or Apple Maps (or a targeted app like Waze) has. I bought a new car last year, and intentionally didn't get the GPS, even though my car ha…

I once asked what it would cost to update my Prius' built-in navigator maps: cirka 200 €. And after few years it would be again out of date. I'm not sure whether to blame the car manufacturer or navigator software supplier for the situation, but at least this is very short-sighted thinking from Toyota.

By the way, I still prefer the built-in unit because it has better integration with audio system and windscreen HUD. The usability is actually pretty good despite its age.

Similar issue: the built-in navigator can show realtime location-aware traffic warnings from TMC broadcast, but only if they are non-encrypted. In my country they switched to commercial / encrypted TMC broadcasts few years ago, rendering the feature unusable for my car, and Toyota won't update the navigator unit to support encrypted TMC.

Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

#383

Post by pluma »

brusch64 wrote: post #353
pluma wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 300 km/h [..] normal untrained person is safe to drive on the German autobahn German here. No normal untrained person should be driving at those speeds. The general recommended speed for the autobahn is 130 km/h. Typical speeds on the middle and left lanes are up to 200 km/h though most days the typical "high" speed is probably closer to 170 or 180. With good weather, no traffic and no roadworks (hah) you might be…

It's 250km/h not 300 km/h.. sorry for that.

Even 250 km/h is a bit extreme for "normal" drivers. See your sibling comment -- even if the car can do 250 safely it can be very difficult to drive safely at those speeds.

Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

#384

Post by nmstoker »

This is a little like a more extreme version of the smart TV situation: for the most part there are rarely prizes for coming second, so many people ignore the built in stuff. For many it would be better if they came without GPS and used the money for other things, but it seems many are unaware of this too!

Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

#385

Post by vsl »

copperx wrote: post #230
lukaslalinsky wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars can generally go much faster than the maximum speed limit, so it wouldn't be the first time the car allows you to do something against the law.

I'm honestly surprised they don't restrict that. Does anybody know why? I know different states have different speed limits, but I think a 85mph speed limit could cover them all. Is it because Canada and Mexico? They have lower speed limits. Is it because the car could be exported to Germany and driven on the Autobahn? or what?

It is because the car can’t judge on itself whether exceeding a speed limit is in fact illegal (heck, it can’t even detect the limit with 100% reliability).

How’s that? In some jurisdictions (I would imagine in most, but can only speak with certainty about Czech and Slovak ones), it’s legal to do anything that would otherwise be illegal if you do in the course of protecting a person from imminent danger to their life. There are nuances to it, but the gist is that.

So imagine your son was bitten by a snake. Ambulance won’t get there and back to the hospital (because they won’t have a serum with them) fast enough. The fastest, best way to save your son is to drive him to the hospital as fast as you can. Fuck speed limits, a life is at stake, and it’s perfectly legal for you to ignore them (or any other laws you have to break to save his life) while doing so.

The car wouldn’t be able to judge this. It would have prevented you from driving fast enough and your son would die, even though the car’s restrictions would not be preventing any illegal behavior at the time.

Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

#387

Post by maxerickson »

panic wrote: post #337
dingaling wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and my phone has no problems finding GPS and I have navigation instructions pulled up in about 5 seconds. That's because your phone isn't actually using GPS ( e.g. Navstar or Glonass ) at that point, it's using cell triangulation or wifi-based location. For example the fastest possible first-fix with Navstar from a warm-start, using cached prior-location and ephemerides, is 30 seconds[0]. From a cold ( position-unk…

How often do cars change position while powered down? That is, why not always (even on "cold start") use the last known position as a starting guess? How do phones get GPS-quality location data even immediately after being rebooted?

Phones do more than use the towers for location information, they use the data connection to download information about the satellite positions, shortcutting a 12.5 minute step:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

I wonder if the average car system really has the sensors for high quality inertial navigation. If they don't, the navigation won't work very well anyway until it has a decent GPS fix.

Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

#389

Post by navidev »

gambiting wrote: post #38

Because built-in GPS is terrible . I recently bought a 2016 Mercedes-AMG vehicle that has sat nav as standard(on non-AMG models it's a $1000 (!!!!!!) option). The satnav is made by Garmin, and it's just awful. Truly horrible in terms of speed, usability, and it only gets updates once a year(you get a new SD card when you go for the annual service). In the meantime, my TomTom 5000 satnav is still unbeaten - free lifet…

Some notes from developer perspective:

- The car model probably had the first iteration of Garmin satnav solution for in-dash car infotainment systems. Garmin's architecture was basically built for PNDs(dedicated device) based of their own internal custom OS. This was quickly ported to support in dash infotainment market. I am sure consequent releases got better in performance and usage.

- Garmin solution is optimized to perform well based on available resources. SD card read writes, low memory requirements, and other resource restrictions are accountable for the slow performance as well.

I am not trying to defend but just want to share the challenges that Garmin faced while they tried to gain market share. I am confident that their solutions will get better with time and deliver better user experience and innovation in the car.

-- SW developer and long time user of Garmin

Re: Most drivers who own cars with built-in GPS systems use phones for directions

#390

Post by TylerH »

3pt14159 wrote: post #364
saiya-jin wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never pay a single unit of currency for such a car, even subsidized, and neither would most of humanity, including politicians. I see plenty of very dangerous driving within speed limits, ie people unable to keep in their lane, playing with cellphone, randomly breaking in semi-empty roads and so on. These are my experiences from highways from most weekends. In towns, speed limits make much more sense and coul…

Why?

Why what?
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