'Dummy' Sat Nav for Offline Maps
Discussion
Looking to purchase a Satnav for Offline maps with pre-planned routes.
I want something separate to my phone, so that I can use Waze for live traffic info/speed cameras and a Satnav for the pre-planned routes that I've made.
European maps are a must as will be mostly used in France/Spain/Germany/Switzerland
Budget up to £150
ETA: not sure what a Satnab is, but mods please could you alter the thread title.
I want something separate to my phone, so that I can use Waze for live traffic info/speed cameras and a Satnav for the pre-planned routes that I've made.
European maps are a must as will be mostly used in France/Spain/Germany/Switzerland
Budget up to £150
ETA: not sure what a Satnab is, but mods please could you alter the thread title.
a TomTom device will happily do this - if you have a spare phone the tomtom app will also do this, with offline maps.
you can plan your routes in advance via - https://plan.tomtom.com/ and then upload to your device.
TomTom devices available from £100 - halfords always have a good range, but im sure they will be available cheaper elsewhere.
you can plan your routes in advance via - https://plan.tomtom.com/ and then upload to your device.
TomTom devices available from £100 - halfords always have a good range, but im sure they will be available cheaper elsewhere.
NWMark said:
a TomTom device will happily do this - if you have a spare phone the tomtom app will also do this, with offline maps.
you can plan your routes in advance via - https://plan.tomtom.com/ and then upload to your device.
TomTom devices available from £100 - halfords always have a good range, but im sure they will be available cheaper elsewhere.
Thanks Mark, using an old phone didn't occur to me, but that could be just what I need! you can plan your routes in advance via - https://plan.tomtom.com/ and then upload to your device.
TomTom devices available from £100 - halfords always have a good range, but im sure they will be available cheaper elsewhere.
I'll try an old handset that I have and see if that works, before spending the money on a dedicated satnav
The 3 things you also want from a TomTom are lifetime (full european) maps, traffic and speed cameras.
You used to get these on a lot of devices but most of the new ones don't seem to have them all.
A second hand Go 5000 might do the job though.
The TomTom phone app does include those things and offline maps for about £20 p,a.
Another option is Myroute App. That's in 2 parts, the PC based route planner ( which is probably the best one there is IMO) and now there is a Smartphone navigation App which gives you traffic etc and offline maps. Both can be bought with a lifetime subscription.
Tom Tom's route planner has moved off Mydrive & over to Plan.TomTom.com. it's flaky IMO
You used to get these on a lot of devices but most of the new ones don't seem to have them all.
A second hand Go 5000 might do the job though.
The TomTom phone app does include those things and offline maps for about £20 p,a.
Another option is Myroute App. That's in 2 parts, the PC based route planner ( which is probably the best one there is IMO) and now there is a Smartphone navigation App which gives you traffic etc and offline maps. Both can be bought with a lifetime subscription.
Tom Tom's route planner has moved off Mydrive & over to Plan.TomTom.com. it's flaky IMO
markiii said:
can you do waypoints on the Tom Tom app these days?
always infuriated me that you couldn't in the past
Yes, you can do it in the App & then you can save the route and it will save the waypoints, always infuriated me that you couldn't in the past
However, if you send any routes to it from a PC they still always come through as Tracks without the waypoints annotated. Its been that way with Tom Tom for years now - and its still irritating! It should follow the same path that you mapped out on the PC but it won't have the waypoints marked on the map.
I have an old Go 5000 which has lifetime everything on it but there seems to have been a change in some software somewhere so that the only way I can send routes to it now is via plan.tomtom.com - which means you can't send waypoints - you just get a track. You can send it routes thatyou plan in Myroute, but they still go through plan.tomtom.com, you cannot just drop files onto the device any more. The device used to quite happily read the old Tom Tom itinerary files (just a collection of waypoints) but there seems to be no way to send them to it now.
Its one of the reasons I am looking towards using the Myroute app because if you plan with waypoints with that it does pick them up on the phone. Struggling with it a bit because I am a long time Tom Tom user & so much more familiar with the logic of that.
The problem with navigating with a track (IMO) is that its just a dumb line on a map & the device will try & follow it come what may. It doesn't adjust for road closures, traffic delays or anything else. If you have a pre-planned track and there is a road closure on it on the day you want to drive it the thing will just spit out "route not possible".
You also can't do things like turn motorways on or off during a journey or use Tom Tom's "Find alternative route" which is always a good way to make sure its looking at all the options when there is a lot of traffic.
If you use a route with waypoints then essentially what you are doing is giving it a bunch of points to follow but letting the device work out how to get between them and you can adjust the thing on the fly so if you get a road closure it will just work around it & if you want to skip a waypoint or add in another stop then you can. Using a track iis much more prescriptive.
Edited by Wombat3 on Friday 6th June 11:48
I've tested it out this week, using my work phone as the 'dummy' Satnav.
I have signed up to TomTomGo as they have an offer on currently for £13.99 for a year.
I've planned my routes on Plan.TomTom.com and synced then to my phone.
I don't like how on the planner, it tries to reroute you, unless you specifically set waypoints throughout the route you specifically want to travel.
Once I realised that, I adjusted my routes and it stuck to them like I wanted.
I use my personal phone for Waze through Android Auto and my work phone on a mount with the TomTomGo app and it's worked well so far this week, doubt two 150mile drives
I have signed up to TomTomGo as they have an offer on currently for £13.99 for a year.
I've planned my routes on Plan.TomTom.com and synced then to my phone.
I don't like how on the planner, it tries to reroute you, unless you specifically set waypoints throughout the route you specifically want to travel.
Once I realised that, I adjusted my routes and it stuck to them like I wanted.
I use my personal phone for Waze through Android Auto and my work phone on a mount with the TomTomGo app and it's worked well so far this week, doubt two 150mile drives
One of the two reasons why I stick with my 2009 TomTom Go 530 is I much prefer using a simple desktop programme such as TYRE or ITNConverter to prepare my route files then side-load the files to the device, rather than bother with the cloud nonsense which the later devices force upon you.
The second reason is that the earlier devices have the most precise 3D mapping to help you estimate the radii of upcoming corners, handy if you use the device as a co-pilot. Later devices and the likes of Google Maps and Waze are more 'zoomed out' by comparison.
And if you know how, it's possible to use the latest maps on these older devices despite TT having dropped support for them a long time ago.
The second reason is that the earlier devices have the most precise 3D mapping to help you estimate the radii of upcoming corners, handy if you use the device as a co-pilot. Later devices and the likes of Google Maps and Waze are more 'zoomed out' by comparison.
And if you know how, it's possible to use the latest maps on these older devices despite TT having dropped support for them a long time ago.
Edited by plenty on Friday 6th June 11:56
plenty said:
One of the two reasons why I stick with my 2009 TomTom Go 530 is I much prefer using a simple desktop programme such as TYRE or ITNConverter to prepare my route files then side-load the files to the device, rather than bother with the cloud nonsense which the later devices force upon you.
The second reason is that the earlier devices have the most precise 3D mapping to help you estimate the radii of upcoming corners, handy if you use the device as a co-pilot. Later devices and the likes of Google Maps and Waze are more 'zoomed out' by comparison.
And if you know how, it's possible to use the latest maps on these older devices despite TT having dropped support for them a long time ago.
Sideloading (or a lack of it) is the problem I now have with my Go 5000. I used to be able to do it but it simply no longer appears in Windows explorer when plugged in.The second reason is that the earlier devices have the most precise 3D mapping to help you estimate the radii of upcoming corners, handy if you use the device as a co-pilot. Later devices and the likes of Google Maps and Waze are more 'zoomed out' by comparison.
And if you know how, it's possible to use the latest maps on these older devices despite TT having dropped support for them a long time ago.
The PC can see it because I have no issue with updating it etc, but I can't drop ITN files into it directly anymore
I also just checked with the Android App & that will not import directly from the phone, routes have to be sent in via plan.tomtom.com.
So in summary I can create routes with waypoints on both the device and the App, but I can only send them tracks from the PC.
I also find that Plan.TomTom a bit broken - it will not actually save or record any routes I construct in it (or send through it from Myroute). It will send them to the device and/or App, but not save them.
Edited by Wombat3 on Friday 6th June 12:22
Wombat3 said:
markiii said:
can you do waypoints on the Tom Tom app these days?
always infuriated me that you couldn't in the past
Yes, you can do it in the App & then you can save the route and it will save the waypoints, always infuriated me that you couldn't in the past
However, if you send any routes to it from a PC they still always come through as Tracks without the waypoints annotated. Its been that way with Tom Tom for years now - and its still irritating! It should follow the same path that you mapped out on the PC but it won't have the waypoints marked on the map.
I have an old Go 5000 which has lifetime everything on it but there seems to have been a change in some software somewhere so that the only way I can send routes to it now is via plan.tomtom.com - which means you can't send waypoints - you just get a track. You can send it routes thatyou plan in Myroute, but they still go through plan.tomtom.com, you cannot just drop files onto the device any more. The device used to quite happily read the old Tom Tom itinerary files (just a collection of waypoints) but there seems to be no way to send them to it now.
Its one of the reasons I am looking towards using the Myroute app because if you plan with waypoints with that it does pick them up on the phone. Struggling with it a bit because I am a long time Tom Tom user & so much more familiar with the logic of that.
The problem with navigating with a track (IMO) is that its just a dumb line on a map & the device will try & follow it come what may. It doesn't adjust for road closures, traffic delays or anything else. If you have a pre-planned track and there is a road closure on it on the day you want to drive it the thing will just spit out "route not possible".
You also can't do things like turn motorways on or off during a journey or use Tom Tom's "Find alternative route" which is always a good way to make sure its looking at all the options when there is a lot of traffic.
If you use a route with waypoints then essentially what you are doing is giving it a bunch of points to follow but letting the device work out how to get between them and you can adjust the thing on the fly so if you get a road closure it will just work around it & if you want to skip a waypoint or add in another stop then you can. Using a track iis much more prescriptive.
Edited by Wombat3 on Friday 6th June 11:48
NomadicTurbo said:
Surely this can be achieved on the TomTom Plan website?
Create a route, select 'Destination' or 'Start Point' then click on the map where you want a Waypoint and select 'Add To Route'
You then save your route, from there you either Sync to your mobile device, or export the .gpx file
Anything you send in via plan comes as a track, not a route and waypoints are left behindCreate a route, select 'Destination' or 'Start Point' then click on the map where you want a Waypoint and select 'Add To Route'
You then save your route, from there you either Sync to your mobile device, or export the .gpx file
Wombat3 said:
Anything you send in via plan comes as a track, not a route and waypoints are left behind
Both times I've used it, I haven't wanted to stop, so didn't realise that the Waypoints weren't there. Now I've just looked over a route I did this week and realised it doesn't show the Waypoints.
NomadicTurbo said:
Wombat3 said:
Anything you send in via plan comes as a track, not a route and waypoints are left behind
Both times I've used it, I haven't wanted to stop, so didn't realise that the Waypoints weren't there. Now I've just looked over a route I did this week and realised it doesn't show the Waypoints.
Wombat3 said:
And therein lies the problem with it ...
Did a drive out with some friends yesterday that hadn't done Wales before. This made me realise that not having Waypoints on the route is very annoying.
Seeing the time you'd get to the new waypoint would be such a useful function.
NomadicTurbo said:
Wombat3 said:
And therein lies the problem with it ...
Did a drive out with some friends yesterday that hadn't done Wales before. This made me realise that not having Waypoints on the route is very annoying.
Seeing the time you'd get to the new waypoint would be such a useful function.
Meanwhile you can add waypoints into a route you plan on the device itself. It's barmy.
I got a Garmin Drive 52 refurbished for about £90 on Amazon last year, to actually use with a motorbike. Advantages over phone is you don't have notifications, update reminders, phone calls getting in the way. Can use Garmin Basecamp on a PC to plot the exact route you want to take (although it's not user friendly I must admit and is time consuming). Its the cheapest one, can be slow to calculate but it works well and I still have my phone for Google Maps if I want to get to a specific place that's off my plotted route.
It came with a UK + Northern Europe map, said free updates but they've changed something with the maps so I think I would have to pay for a new map now.
It came with a UK + Northern Europe map, said free updates but they've changed something with the maps so I think I would have to pay for a new map now.
I've been messing about with this today because it annoyed me!
My Tom Tom Go 5000 has an SD card slot in it & I've discovered that I can load Tom Tom ITN route files into the device through that.
Couple of pointers though. If you don't use the slot for a card normally (i.e. maps on thh device) then its easy enough but I do use it because the full Euro map is now too big to fit in the device memory, so my map is on an SD card.
As such it needs a second SD card because once you have formatted a card on the device you can't write files to it from a PC, So you ned to format a second card on a PC & use that to transfer the files across. The device recognises the card and the presence of new route files when you put it in & imports them as routes with waypoints, not tracks. When you re-insert the map card it does not seem to want to recognise it immediately & so it needs a restart.
Bit of a faff but you can still do it on a Tom Tom device.
There doesn't seem to be any kind of import option in the Go App so if you are trying to use that with Android Auto/Apple car play etc then you are going to be stuck as far as Waypoints are concerned, unless you create the route on the phone.
TLDR , you can still get routes from a PC to a Tom Tom provided it has an SD card slot, if you want to use a phone to navigate then MyRoute is probably the answer.
My Tom Tom Go 5000 has an SD card slot in it & I've discovered that I can load Tom Tom ITN route files into the device through that.
Couple of pointers though. If you don't use the slot for a card normally (i.e. maps on thh device) then its easy enough but I do use it because the full Euro map is now too big to fit in the device memory, so my map is on an SD card.
As such it needs a second SD card because once you have formatted a card on the device you can't write files to it from a PC, So you ned to format a second card on a PC & use that to transfer the files across. The device recognises the card and the presence of new route files when you put it in & imports them as routes with waypoints, not tracks. When you re-insert the map card it does not seem to want to recognise it immediately & so it needs a restart.
Bit of a faff but you can still do it on a Tom Tom device.
There doesn't seem to be any kind of import option in the Go App so if you are trying to use that with Android Auto/Apple car play etc then you are going to be stuck as far as Waypoints are concerned, unless you create the route on the phone.
TLDR , you can still get routes from a PC to a Tom Tom provided it has an SD card slot, if you want to use a phone to navigate then MyRoute is probably the answer.
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