New navigation device available

[jeffcarp]

TomTom has finally released their new truck navigation satnav in the US. This is a really good device and a great option for RV users. Here is the link: TomTom Trucker 620

TomTom has had their share of struggles after the decline of the market. But their new products (these new devices and their new iPhone and Android apps) are really, really good. I've used them side by side with Google Maps for tens of thousands of miles now. The routing, ETA calculation and traffic is very, very comparable to Google Maps in accuracy and traffic coverage. TomTom is using the anonymous movement of Apple devices as one source of their traffic coverage.

These new truck devices allow you to input vehicle profiles like size, weight and propane restrictions. The route takes that profile information into account. You can switch to a car profile too.

The new devices are 5" and 6" in size. They now have Wi-Fi for updating both maps and firmware. They can also connect to your mobile phone via Bluetooth for voice, SMS and app notifications. There's a companion smartphone app and website for planning routes and saving POIs. Those routes and POIs synchronize to all devices and apps that are signed into the same account. This means that your traveling companion can research POIs on a different device and send them to the satnav while you are driving.

The devices also accept custom POI files from websites like POI Factory so despite them being made for trucks you can add your own RV related POI files.

The speaker volume is very loud in our Class C while driving. I've added a custom mount from ProClip USA to position the satnav within easy reach from the dashboard.

Anyone that is not satisfied with the current navigation options for RVers (that's me!) should check these devices out. I am very, very pleased with these new products.

[camperkilgore]

Edventure wrote:

jeffcarp wrote:
The volume is very loud. I turn it down from the maximum setting because it is so loud. There is no means to connect headphones or connect it to your vehicle's bluetooth.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully it will be too loud for me too. Guess I could always get hearing aids but that would make me feel old too.

I have a lot of high frequency hearing loss, and we turn up the audio books to allow for that and the road noise. The TomTom still comes through so that I can hear it very well.

It would be nice however if it had some way to override the radio audio via bluetooth.

[Edventure]

jeffcarp wrote:
The volume is very loud. I turn it down from the maximum setting because it is so loud. There is no means to connect headphones or connect it to your vehicle's bluetooth.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully it will be too loud for me too. Guess I could always get hearing aids but that would make me feel old too.

[jeffcarp]

The volume is very loud. I turn it down from the maximum setting because it is so loud. There is no means to connect headphones or connect it to your vehicle's bluetooth.

[Edventure]

Anyone using the new TomTom Trucker 620, how loud is the audio output. My ears are not that good and when that Ford V10 starts screaming it drowns out the commands of my present GPS (Rand Mcnally RVND 7735). Can you connect it via an audio jack, Bluetooth or any other means to vehicle radio or smartphone? Thank you in advance.

[camperkilgore]

hawkeye-08 wrote:
The new TomTom looks interesting... Our current needs are met by the Garmin we have so CFO wouldn't agree to spend $330. I can certainly see the need as our travels increase beyond the local area.

I was in the same situation. The 4 year old RV gps we have is the Dezl760LMT, and it worked pretty good, but some things were a little aggravating. Mainly to do with planning a route, and adding places along the route in order to change the route picked by the gps itself. Menus and a few other niggles, but I don't want to spend too much time complaining about it.

The TomTom trucker 620 in my opinion is way easier to plan a route. Especially using the route planner. Everything seems to be very intuitive. Which is what I need. After staying at home for long stretches, and then hopping back on the road, the TomTom is not such a pain to remember how to use. The route is easily changed by adding "stops" along the path you really want to take, and the gps seems to pick very logical ways to get to those stops and then continue on to the destination. The Garmin would usually create all kinds of loops and backtracks when any stops were added.

The TomTom route planner can be done on the phone, ipad, or computer as well as the gps itself. Then the route can be sync'd with all the devices when you get it planned. This wifi stuff is turning out to be pretty handy.

But that's enough about my opinion, I didn't start this thread.

[hawkeye-08]

The new TomTom looks interesting... Our current needs are met by the Garmin we have so CFO wouldn't agree to spend $330. I can certainly see the need as our travels increase beyond the local area.

[camperkilgore]

Horizon170 wrote:
So far I haven't graduated from Rand McNally roadmaps. WE don't need electronic do-dads to figure out where we are going. I can get a new map every year for less than 10 bucks.
Marvin

Yep, we sometimes just use maps. Depends on how sharp we feel at the time we take a trip.

[Horizon170]

So far I haven't graduated from Rand McNally roadmaps. WE don't need electronic do-dads to figure out where we are going. I can get a new map every year for less than 10 bucks.
Marvin

[pianotuna]

I do know that google maps outshines the similar Apple product. Lots more worms * grin * in the Apple.

Where stand alone shines is when there is no cell phone signal.

[jeffcarp]

camper Kilgore wrote:

I can't understand why so many people gave it great reviews. Maybe my old brain just couldn't get the hang of the steps necessary to get it to work without problems.

Couldn't agree more. CoPilot is a product that I started using back in the old Windows phone days and came back to it a total of three times with thousands of miles each time. Each time I stopped using it and swore never again.

I could go on and on about the technical issues with the product but I wont. My problem is the ethics of the company. They advertise real sign post data and the truth is their data has no idea what the real sign post actually says. They're simply using the road names as they exist in their map data and putting those road names on a green colored sign and claiming that to be real signpost data. Since many road signs do have the intersecting street names in them, most people don't think anything of it. Unfortunately for them, many signposts have names of attractions, city names and other things unrelated to the crossing road name and it becomes easy to see they're dishonest approach. Any company that allows their marketing people to do that, I won't have anything to do with.

[jeffcarp]

camperkilgore wrote:
Thanks to jeffcarp for helping me out regarding my problem with the TomTom Trucker 620.

Glad to help. I'm glad to see that you stuck with it. I think they've got some excellent products right now. They really struggled with the rise of Google Maps but the latest iteration of their products and apps are really, really strong in my opinion.

I think that we might be seeing the benefits of TomTom owning the entire solution including the maps, routing algorithms and hardware. That's a step that Garmin never took and it seems to have cost them dearly.

[camperkilgore]

(((((((

ga80486 wrote:

Doesn't copilot allow you to select road preferences as you mentioned?)))))))))

((((((((((((((((Try searching in copilot for a campground or any other useful place for that matter. Their developers have not been introduced to the internet yet. I've never been able to search for a destination successfully. That was a waste of money.))))))))))))))

Something strange going on with the quote function????????



Don't get me started on Co-pilot. Thankfully my wife stopped me from smashing our ipad mini, because I got so mad.

Only a slight deviation from our route which was programmed into our route, and the thing kept saying to exit and go around again over and over. Never could get it to quit, without clearing that route and starting over.

I can't understand why so many people gave it great reviews. Maybe my old brain just couldn't get the hang of the steps necessary to get it to work without problems.

[ga80486]

Doesn't copilot allow you to select road preferences as you mentioned?

Try searching in copilot for a campground or any other useful place for that matter. Their developers have not been introduced to the internet yet. I've never been able to search for a destination successfully. That was a waste of money.

[camperkilgore]

Thanks to jeffcarp for helping me out regarding my problem with the TomTom Trucker 620.

The support people fixed the problem I had with logging in, and so far all is good with the gps and route planning software. There's a little learning curve, but for the most part I've been able to operate the device with relative ease.

The routing niggles I had with the Garmin, I don't have with the TomTom. It does things logically. When I put in stops on roads other than what it initially picks, it moves the route to those stops without making some sort of weird loop or backtracking.

Now as long as it don't send me over a wooden bridge, or under a low overpass, I'll be happy.