GPS for cars

Piers

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Anyone any info on GPS for cars - especially the ones which have give verbal directions and have a display?

Makes / models / web-sites etc, would be gratefully received.

Piers du Pre
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jfm

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Piers I have the VDO system, factory fitted in BM 5 series. I think it's fab, highly recommend. Like aircon and elec windows before that, I wouldn't get a car without it now. Display shows map on widescreen TV, highly zoomable, or a picture of the next junction, and (optional) voice commands like "At the next roundabout take the third exit" in a rather erm nice female voice. Also there's a little arrow at top of display that always points to destination, and a distance to go countdown that measures actual, not crow flies.

My only complaint is that the CD is 3-6months out of date when new, and mine's now 6 mths old anyhow, so it is only 95% accurate in London becuase the change they direction of one-way streets and no-right-turns etc so often

Also can watch TV and kids playstation on the screen.

I wd be happy to demonstrate when next in Berthon!

If you really want to lash out, get the DVD based systems, whereas mine is only CD Rom.

I also have a separate GPS system with a waypoint for every Gatso, Truvelo and SPECs speed camera in the UK. It bleeps when I get within 1/2 mile and counts me down to the camera! Fantastic, though on your A34-Lym run (a road I know very well) it's not necessay because there are no cameras!

JFM (Braveheart)
 
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Deleted User YDKXO

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I've got a factory fitted GPS driven nav system on my BMW and I would'nt be without it, despite the ridiculous cost (about £2500). Its particularly useful for finding addresses in urban areas as you can even input house numbers for most roads.
There are 2 basic types, a simple system giving verbal instructions and a diagramatic representation of every junction or a rolling screen map system looking a bit like a colour chart plotter. I had the first system in my previous car and its use is limited because its difficult to interprate the verbal instructions and diagrams. The rolling map system is much better because you can relate the verbal instructions to a proper large scale map.
Current systems have map info on CD's but I believe new systems are coming out with map info on DVD which should be faster and more accurate. Another new innovation is integration of the nav system with Trafficmaster so that traffic hold-ups are displayed on the nav screen, which I think would definitely be worth having.
You can buy stand alone nav systems for less money than the car manufacturers charge for a factory system (Bosch, Siemens, Philips make stand alone retro fit kits, I think??) but you have the problem of where to mount it and the fact that its tempting for low life to smash a window and rip it off your dashboard.
Another 5 years and these things will be fitted as standard in new cars just like radios
 
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Jfm, is that the Morpheous system? I'm thinking about fitting one. Any comments? Usefulness? Ease of fitting? Cost? Who did the fitting? How easy to download new camera sites?
 

jfm

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Re: GPS for cars - gatsos

Deleted User, yes I current have geodesy-morpheous. www.morpheous.co.uk

It's a bit ugly imho, about size of cigarette packet, but you can chop it in half and fit more neatly, for pics of special install in my 5 series see the following pics, sorry a bit blurred. This is a diy job, I dont think anyone does pro installls as you have to saw it in half literally and this kills the warranty etc
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1505238&a=12683859&f=0

Cost is 380 plus 70 for remote antenna. In use it is fantastic, deadly accurate. Modem downlaod is excellent, you just drop it into a supplied dockstation and plug into the phone socket and the mains, it does everything itself, you dont have to "dial up" yourself

If you are about to buy there are two competing GPS systems. One is Trafcam where you use a palm computer on the dash and it takes loads of faffing each time you drive off, so totally useless IMHO. The second is origin bluei, see www.originbluei.com. This looks miles better than morpheous, but thay have not made any yet so it doesn't actually exist. I have had one on order since April, they promise delivery late November, we'll see.
 

paulineb

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Mr B has an excellent system. It's me + map. It has a few downsides though; he has to wait for me to turn the map the way we are going before he gets the next direction, if he raises his voice the map goes straight out the window and it's VERY expensive to run.

Pauline B
 
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I've got a BMW which has a Phillips system built in but you can buy it for retro install. Mine is built in but the do-it yourself version sits on a pod on the dash.
It is generally ultra accurate and I get update disks every six months or so. However, its got this extremely patronising female voice which really pees you off after a bit - the news has just come on and you want to hear what's being said and this dozy woman interupts and says "take the next exit in half a mile" and the repeats it at quarter a mile making you miss the sea area Malin forecast. Now what we tend to do is only use the location finder when its difficult e.g. in London or Birmingham and otherwise just use the map software which is the car equivalent of a good chart plotter with resolutions down to 150 yds to the cm.
It can occasionally get it wrong, especially if you are in a city surrounded by high rise buildings so that the GPS can't get a good look at the sky. It will then show you in the wrong location and once it does get a look at the sky, it tends to throw a wobbly and jump all over the place. Solution is to switch off and restart at next set of lights, effectively re-booting it.

Have fun

Nick

ps my wife hates the woman's voice even more than than me!
 

jfm

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The lost signal with high rise buildings has been fixed. The new version measures distance travelled along the road and senses steering by a gyro. So it can keep up very well even if the GPS signal is lost for a few minutes. It can track round the aldwych underpass perfectly for example, even in slow traffic. Also the voice can be switched off with one thwack.

Nick, on your version do you have TV? If yes it is programmed to switch off when the car is moving, if you dont like that there is a fix available on the internet, just a sequenced press of 10 keys or so and you can have TV while driving. Lemme know if you need the URL and I'll dig it out.
 

paulineb

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You need to be able to spell to use them. We were in St Katharine's a couple of years ago waiting for friends, who were about 2 hours late. It turned out they entered St Katherine's into their GPS and the machine didn't recognise it. So it we be no use for some of the guys on this BB ;-)

Pauline B
 

jfm

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Re: GPS for Haydn

Ooh no Pauline. The VDO kit is cleverer than that. You enter the first letter and it then only offers you the possible remaining letters. So if you are boing to Brighton you enter B and the system only offers you 8 or so letters because they are the only possible letters that can follow B in the name of a UK town. Usually it has guessed the name before you have fully spelled it. And it has a bit of intelligence with names like St Kaths, it will accept Saint or St or St. etc etc. But if you start with St Cath... I spect you'll confuse it!
 
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Deleted User YDKXO

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Re: GPS for Haydn

Yeah, but you have to know the right town first before you can enter a street and if you get the town wrong you dont get the street
 

ari

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Re: GPS for cars - gatsos

Please tell me it is a flash reflection and your M5 doesn't have white dials......!!!

:-S

Ari.
 
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Deleted User YDKXO

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Much to my amazement, my system even navigated me through the Blackwall Tunnel recently so newer systems must have some kind of gyro, as jfm says, to keep the nav going
 
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Deleted User YDKXO

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Re: GPS for cars - gatsos

Thanks for the photos. It actually looks neater than I thought but I'm surprised there are no pro installers - surely this is a potential goldmine given the govt's intention to finance the war on OBL thru' speed cameras
What's involved in the DIY fit given I'm incompetent in this area as well as being idle
Also I dont recognise that nav system in the photos. What is it?
 

jfm

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Beemer with XR3i dials and furry dice

Ari yes it's flash reflection!! The dials are charcoal grey with a slight sheen, whereas the rest is matt black, so the dials just caught the flash badly!!! Sorry they're such cr@p pics, the digi cam was new and some friends needed to see the Geodesy device fitted
 

jfm

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Where shall we go today??

Normally you know which town you want!!! Dont you?? :)

You can go straight to the street, enter it with no town, then press index and it will list all streets in the UK by that name, followed by the town, and you choose the one you want. But if it's "high st" you get lots to choose from
 

jfm

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Re: GPS for cars - gatsos

Deleted User, the nav is Beemer 2001 standard fit in the 5series, has 6.5" 16:9 ratio widescreen TV. They stopped fitting the other one, with the smaller 4:3 screen offset to the side, in 2000. It's made by VDO but badged beemer.

I haven't found a pro installer. The fit I did involves hacksawing the geodesy in two pieces, the front LED display and the rest of the box which you can hide away remotely. All you need is a hacksaw and then you make up a 20-way ribbin cable with a 10x2 array IDC connector at each end, with 2.0mm pitch instead of the more usual 2.54. Needless to say this destroys the warranty. If I were doing it again I think I wouldn't bother, just get the originbluei instead
 
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Deleted User YDKXO

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Re: Where shall we go today??

Well, no, actually. I tried to find a road the other day the postal address of which is Slough but the nav system had it in Colnbrook, I found out later. Yeah, I could have scrolled thru' all the road names in the index but it was easier in the end to get the A-Z out
 

peterandjeanette

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Very interested in the sequence for TV on the move. Please advise. It'll keep my reserve map reader quiet on long journeys. Especially for the soaps. "Mavis" - my gps map lady - is more polite than reserve map reader. "Please make a U turn" is better than "I said left, you pr**t". Many thanks.
 
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