Sat nav for cars

redvee

Dad wants a sat-nav gadget so he doesn't get lost driving routes he knows like the back of his hand Budget of around £100, what recommendations can people here offer?

jellybellywmb

Tom Tom One, you can get them for less than £100 now, very easy to use and very rarely go wrong.
I travel approx 40,000 miles a year and it serves me well .

I also have a Garmin withh Europe on it and I really dont like it as much as the Tom Tom

gimboid

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8331824.stm. TomTom etc might be forced to drop prices soon (even on the standalone units).

Slow Downcp

Tom Tom One - my wife has one and if she can understand it and not get lost, it must be good and easy to use.

nicensleazy

Or, you could use the female sat nav

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwLDNAmQ7TM

Verbal

Yep, Tom Tom One. Cheap and cheerful and does the job and you can download other maps if you need as well different voices. Dennis Hopper took me and the Missus through France in the summer "slow it down man, slow it down!"

Le Commentateur

Or Darth Vader: "Prepare to enter hyperspace" (motorway slip road), "Your journey to the Dark Side is almost complete" etc.

OffTheBackAdam

I use a Garmin, which I find very easy to use.
If I miss a turn, it's very quick at recalculating and suggesting another route, rather than telling me to turn round.
Might be worth spending the money on an i-Phone & use Google's free navigation application?

Headhuunter

I was wondering the other day. If it were somehow possible to attach a car sat nav to the bike, could you avoid paying 250 odd quid for a Garmin Edge? All I need is simple GPS/sat nav so that I can go out on rides and find my way back without stopping and pulling out a map. I'm not that interested in all the other Edge functions like cadence, elevation etc. I just want a simple, good quality sat nav system that I can fix to the bars. Anyone tried using a £100 car one?

Mister W

Another vote for the TomTom One. I bought it over a Garmin because the reviews said that it responds quicker, so warns you of turnings earlier and is quicker to recalculate your route.


As for using a car sat nav on a bike... the Garmin Edge gives you the option to plan a route then be navigated round it, which isn't something a car sat nav will do.

Headhuunter

Mister W wrote:

Another vote for the TomTom One. I bought it over a Garmin because the reviews said that it responds quicker, so warns you of turnings earlier and is quicker to recalculate your route.


As for using a car sat nav on a bike... the Garmin Edge gives you the option to plan a route then be navigated round it, which isn't something a car sat nav will do.

Ah, good point. Edge it might have to be then. They just seem ridiculously expensive compared with car sat navs

redvee

Went for the Tom Tom One but ended up buyiong it from Halfords :oops: , my Dad needed it for today so web sales were out of the question and got the free map updates for life option. Dad is happy with his new toy and I'm impressed with how quick it re-calculates the route when you deviate, in error or deliberatley. Makes me want a Garmin Edge 705 even more now.

hopper1

nicensleazy wrote:

Or, you could use the female sat nav

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwLDNAmQ7TM

Spooky... You don't know how close to reality that is... If, like me, you own a VW.
The b1tch that runs my Sat Nav causes arguments when there's only me and her in the car.
Quite often I'll be driving a route that I know and she'll churp up with a ' take the next left', when I know where I am, and I know I need to stay on that road. Then I'll be telling her to shut the f*ck up, while she goes on and on about making a U-turn... Eventually, I hit the off switch

nwallace

redvee wrote:

Dad wants a sat-nav gadget so he doesn't get lost driving routes he knows like the back of his hand Budget of around £100, what recommendations can people here offer?

Buy him all the OS maps he needs and then teach your mum how to navigate.

redvee

nwallace wrote:

Buy him all the OS maps he needs and then teach your mum how to navigate.

Small problem: They got divorced 30+ years ago.

nwallace

redvee wrote:

nwallace wrote:

Buy him all the OS maps he needs and then teach your mum how to navigate.

Small problem: They got divorced 30+ years ago.

Doh!

geoff_ss

nwallace wrote:

redvee wrote:

Dad wants a sat-nav gadget so he doesn't get lost driving routes he knows like the back of his hand Budget of around £100, what recommendations can people here offer?

Buy him all the OS maps he needs and then teach your mum how to navigate.

I love maps, especially OS ones. I think GPS is useful for pinpointing where you are on the map if you're in fog on the top of a Lake District fell but I#d still want the paper map. I suppose they're useful for delivery drivers too.

My wife, Avice, is an ace map reader who rarely goes wrong, so I claim that we use AvNav

Geoff

SteppenHerring

Headhuunter wrote:

I was wondering the other day. If it were somehow possible to attach a car sat nav to the bike, could you avoid paying 250 odd quid for a Garmin Edge? All I need is simple GPS/sat nav so that I can go out on rides and find my way back without stopping and pulling out a map. I'm not that interested in all the other Edge functions like cadence, elevation etc. I just want a simple, good quality sat nav system that I can fix to the bars. Anyone tried using a £100 car one?

You could certainly use a £100 car sat nav on a bike. Just put a 12v car battery in your panniers, hook up an alternator, wire it up and away you go.

Headhuunter

SteppenHerring wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

I was wondering the other day. If it were somehow possible to attach a car sat nav to the bike, could you avoid paying 250 odd quid for a Garmin Edge? All I need is simple GPS/sat nav so that I can go out on rides and find my way back without stopping and pulling out a map. I'm not that interested in all the other Edge functions like cadence, elevation etc. I just want a simple, good quality sat nav system that I can fix to the bars. Anyone tried using a £100 car one?

You could certainly use a £100 car sat nav on a bike. Just put a 12v car battery in your panniers, hook up an alternator, wire it up and away you go.

There are plenty of car sat nav systems which are powered by a couple of AA batteries, you don't need to hook them up to a car battery!.... Do you?

Mister W

Most car sat navs work from an internal battery that you charge via the lighter socket so they'll work quite happily for a few hours without an external power source.

My Mum told me that my Dad talks to the sat nav, in exactly the same way he talks to her if she's navigating. I'm not sure what response he expects to the question "Are you sure that's the right way?"

snailracer

Headhuunter wrote:

I was wondering the other day. If it were somehow possible to attach a car sat nav to the bike, could you avoid paying 250 odd quid for a Garmin Edge? All I need is simple GPS/sat nav so that I can go out on rides and find my way back without stopping and pulling out a map. I'm not that interested in all the other Edge functions like cadence, elevation etc. I just want a simple, good quality sat nav system that I can fix to the bars. Anyone tried using a £100 car one?

I occasionally use my car satnav on my bike. The main drawback is that the colour screen is almost invisible in daylight, so I bodged together a DIY visor which sort of works.
Voice instructions are inaudible in traffic unless you use a earphone (tangles up). Relying on voice instructions alone might work if you live somewhere without many complicated junctions, not so good in London.
Mounting & waterproofing are also issues, I put mine in a stout transparent plastic bag, reinforced with duct tape at the folds, and attach to a bar bag with velcro strips.
The battery in the satnav has been adequate so long as I start out fully charged. If your journeys are longer than 3-4 hours, you might run out.

ColinJ

Make sure that your dad realises that Sat-Navs give suggestions, not orders! :shock:

Here's a photo of where that driver got stuck:

redvee

ColinJ wrote:

Make sure that your dad realises that Sat-Navs give suggestions, not orders

He isn't going to be following it turn for turn. More for guidance when in strange towns and when we get lost. Recently it took us 2 hours to get from Ilfracombe to Crediton :oops: but we put the blame at the police roadblock.