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Damn you TomTom

15K views 21 replies 14 participants last post by  chinyun02 
#1 ·
So this weekend was my first experience using the tom tom navi in the new 6 for a long distance. I started my drive in north jersey and plopped in the address for my friends apt in Boston. I trusted the navi to lead me to my destination. . .oh lordy was I wrong.
So if anyone has done this drive up the new england way, you know there are a few highways that will get you there/back. First off, tomtom took me on the Tappan Zee Bridge (success number one) then the highway splits and it directed me to get on the saw mill parkway. This is a two lane highway with streetlight stops at random intervals. This was not the funnest experience in rush hour.(fail one) After about 30mins on this highway, it dirrected me to get off the highway and go into one of the little towns there.
Not questioning its advice, I exited the highway only to be led down winding 35mph local roads with no highways and no cell service around. My girlfriend copilot talked me out of continuing this route for the next few miles.
At this time, we inspected the route details of what roads were to be taken the rest of the route and it was a lot more backroads. My thoughts are that tomtoms traffic sensing features were bugging out due to rush out and thus gave us the route that would have less highway traffic yet more backroads.
At this point, we are in the middle of the woods somewhere and I just want to zoomzoom on the highway. We hop onto googlemaps and that takes us back much of the way we came and got us back on a highway.
All the rest of the way, tomtom kept trying to direct us to exit back onto side streets. Finally it got the hint and just stopped trying.
This event of going off the highway lost us about 45 minutes which mildly ticked me off. Tomtom finally got its self righted about 3hours into the trip and told us the way we already knew to go. Thanks Tomtom.
The only saving grace to this fail was the navi voice I programmed in was GlaDos from the game Portal. Her talk of cake and enivitable doom kept me from much mental stress.
If there is a way, I am going to try and wipe the tomtom platform and get like google maps, the superior mapping system.

I shall attempt more times or read the route details prior to blindly following its directions.
Geez already up to 1300 miles on her. She's growing up so fast. . .
 
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#2 ·
I think all GPSes have their moments. I went to visit a school in Pittsburgh, and mine took me through the middle of Beavertown. About 15 miles into the middle of nowhere, we come onto a bridge that's out. Had to turn around, drive all the way back, and take another route.

It ended us taking us to a middle of a field and telling us wed reached our destination. I had to bring up the map on Google (we actually had 4G somehow), and manually navigated until we came out on the other side of the bridge.

Sent from my VS920 4G using AutoGuide.Com Free App
 
#5 ·
I've noticed the same thing with TomTom trying to direct me through a lot of side streets rather than sticking to the major highways. After a week or so of giving it the benefit of the doubt, I decided that maybe I needed to update the maps and software.

This led me through a whole other debacle where the map SD card wouldn't update properly and after multiple attemps and phone calls to TomTom tech support, I now have a newly formatted map SD card that can't seem to install any updates....so now I have no maps at all. TomTom tech support closed for the weekend, so I won't be able to get this figured out until Monday.

Looks like I'm going back to my trusted Google maps on my Samsung Galaxy S3. This was my first time using TomTom and so far I hate it compared to my phone and even my old Garmin 205 device.
 
#6 ·
I'm pretty happy with the stock GPS on my speed6. Basic, but works pretty good in my opinion.
 
#7 ·
You came to Boston and didn't give the #NEM6 guys a holler!?!?!?! :)

We had a mod meet all day - and honestly depending on WHERE in Boston you are, it's impossible to go a direct route. But when you say "middle of the woods" - you'd have to be FAR away from Boston for that to be true lol.

Anyways, sucks your GPS had problems - I installed GlaDos today and noticed that she isn't good with giving directions. She doesn't have enough voice commands programmed to give you adequate information on when to turn and such. She also cannot give you the streets or paths that you're supposed to be going onto, only tells you to "Turn Left."
 
#10 ·
You came to Boston and didn't give the #NEM6 guys a holler!?!?!?! :)

Oops my bad haha. I am hanging with a friend right near Fenway and stayed at the Hilton last night. Fancy huh. You going to the parade today?
 
#9 ·
Do any of the tech masterminds know if its possible to reformat the tomtom SD card (always remember to back up the provided data first) so that it can run something like Google Maps? Or Garmin software? I am going to further investigate it after this weekend.
 
#12 ·
Yeah I saw that while playing with it. I still have hope for it. Thanks for the info :):)

Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App
 
#17 ·
i thought the voice recognition was crap too..but i realized that i was using it incorrectly

if you want to navigate to an address like 1234 main st. miami, FL :

you first need to say "drive to an address"...then it will prompt you for the address.. then say "1234 main street, miami, FL"..it works pretty good.

it hasnt gotten anything wrong for me yet even with very obscure street names. actually surprising how well it works.

without first saying "drive to an address" you are only able to say POIs and locations that it has in its database (proper businesses and brands..best buy, target, walmart, etc)
 
#19 ·
i was convinced it was crap too..but it honestly gets every single street and location correct on the first time (ever since i started saying "drive to an address")
you cant open with the actual addresss..as the nav isnt ready for that info until it prompts
 
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