Home Grown GPS?

stueng said:
I find the TomTom app on the iPhone really really good, the fact that the phone pretty much always has an internet connection means that the maps are always up to date (as are the speed cameras) and with the new advanced voices it even tells you direction to head towards rather than just the exit number on the roundabout, so for example rather than saying take the second exit it will actually say take the second exit towards London or whatever.. I find this helps a lot. Im really impressed by the App

I will try and find an Audi with NAV

The reason I want the car PC is mainly for a project, but also to keep kids entertained I want to put screens in the headrests for kids on long journeys, I don't do DVD's or blu Rays all my media lives in XBMC and on a Synology NAS so I would want a PC in the car to power XBMC with some storage so that I can send movies to the car when its in WiFi range of the house. I have two Raspberry Pi's at the moment, I find them almost good enough but a lot of the movies stutter a lot so something a bit more powerful than the Pi.. they use hardly any power at all and run silent with little heat output

the alternative would be to use some kind of tablet device which can be docked somewhere in the car with internal and/or external storage. I imagine I could connect some kind of splitter which would allow the video signal to be displayed on multiple LCD's in the headrests?
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Why don't you just buy a couple of Google Nexus's, strap them to the back seats so your kids have something to watch and be done with it?

Or just give them to hold and play with?

Does seem a little pointless but it's up to you. :)
 
[TW]Fox;22472348 said:
Yea, this is too far the other way. Using your phone for nav etc sucks. Sticking stuff to the windscreen sucks. Integration is the way forward.
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Depends how anal you are I suppose and how much money you want to waste on something that you already own so it can look good.

Using your phone for NAV doesn't suck either, it works the same as your headunit. Just that it is easier to update.
 
Begbie said:
Depends how anal you are I suppose and how much money you want to waste on something that you already own so it can look good.

Using your phone for NAV doesn't suck either, it works the same as your headunit. Just that it is easier to update.
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Using your phone does suck for NAV. You either have to have cables running across the dash or rely on running on battery (which for a European roadtrip or a Lands end > John o Groats type drive would die), you have to have it placed either on the dash/windscreen where it's in the way of your view of the road/surroundings or place it somewhere obscure that's distracting to looks down and see. Not to mention the problem of what to do with the cradle (I don't own a man-bag), as leaving it in the car leaves you open to the mercy of idiots who will break into the car on the offchance that whatever device lives in the cradle is still in the glovebox.

You can of course get around the cable thing by ripping your interior apart and securely mounting whatever cradle you have to the front of the dash with hidden power cabling, but if you're going to that much trouble, surely installing something integrated (or just buying the right car in the first place) would be far easier (not cheaper mind).

Easier to update? I guess it does take me sodding ages to swap a DVD over, my poor hands.
 
Our Nav has a power cable and if you went from Lands End to John O'Groats you'd have to plug that in too as it'd die, that's no different. To the same place, the cigarette lighter and have a cable running up.

Not really much difference in using a dedicated Nav to a phone, really. :confused:

And buying a car or fitting something integrated is easier than just routing a cable?! You mad. :p
 
alexthecheese said:
Our Nav has a power cable and if you went from Lands End to John O'Groats you'd have to plug that in too as it'd die, that's no different. To the same place, the cigarette lighter and have a cable running up.

Not really much difference in using a dedicated Nav to a phone, really. :confused:

And buying a car or fitting something integrated is easier than just routing a cable?! You mad. :p
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I wouldn't use a standalone nav product either. In many ways that's worse than just using the phone, as then you have two devices (and cradles) to carry about once you get to your destination. Get a man-bag if you so wish, or walk around looking like the battle of the bulge, but I prefer to know that my entire infotainment system in built-in, no hassle, no faf, no cables, no cradles.

When the thread is a toss-up between a full infotainment system that comes pre-built into the car, offering nav, phone, telemetrics, vehicle data, media, parking functions, traffic etc etc etc, or ripping it out to fit your own crap, the obvious choice is obvious, and the in-built system wins every single time bar potentially for having less frequent map updates and potentially (marginally) worse address/postcode lookup (not that I've ever had a problem with 5 digits and a house number/name).
 
Begbie said:
Depends how anal you are I suppose and how much money you want to waste on something that you already own so it can look good.
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It's more than just looking good - its just far better having navigation integrated as part of the dash.

For years my Nav system was a PDA with Tomtom on it. And Tomtom was absolutely excellent. But I wouldn't go back - faffing with cables and cradles every time you stop at the services, remembering to wipe all the sucker marks off the windscreen to stop a lowlife breaking in looking for it, etc etc. It's just annoying.

Having a widescreen in the dash which happens to have full navigation capability is just better - when you stop you just.. take the key out and walk away. No faffing.

I'd go as far as to say I will not buy a car in the future which doesn't either have an integrated navigation system or the ability to fit some sort of integrated navigation system.

Using your phone for NAV doesn't suck either, it works the same as your headunit. Just that it is easier to update.
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It's not really that much easier is it? I update my maps by drag and dropping them into the maps folder on my SD card. I then push the SD card into my navigation unit. Bingo.
 
If you are gonna spend money on fitting a built in pc, you may as well just buy a decent headunit with bluetooth and screen that does the navigation as well, or like everyone says, buy a car with a factory nav system, although my experience of the built in ones fitted by manufacturers is less than great compared to standalone ones.

Moaning about wires running about is just ridiculous if you are gonna mount your phone anyway (which you should if you use whilst driving), and a brodit mount allows you to tuck the wires away as well and have a neat installation with near OEM quality. If you are gonna mount your phone, using it as a nav is no worse, since doing this I haven't used a standalone nav (tomtom/garmin etc).

Sure a fully integrated is better (and more expensive) but assuming 99% of people need a mount and cable for their phone charging anyway, to use it as a nav is not much of an issue.
 
Why would you mount your phone anyway :confused:

If you've got a decent integrated system your phone sits in your coat pocket or something. It's connected by Bluetooth to the integrated infotainment system..
 
what it is with all this "carry cable with you in the manpurse" malarky?
Doesn't your car come with a glove-box? :p
I agree on the looks better front and integration bit, strictly for half decent modern systems. But depending on how often you need navigation and if you don't want to bother with a cradle, I wouldn't blame people for not wanting to spend £1k on this.

Most car navigation systems wouldn't even allow postcode search until recently.
 
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