Just want to add that I used Google maps as a sat nav in Australia, New Zealand and the USA (twice) without any problems. It’s ace 🙂

GPS doesn’t use data.

using google maps on an HTC here & it really doesn’t use much data at all, no need to download routes beforehand at all, just pop in the postcode for my appointments in my diary & it’s easy peasy

What I still don’t understand is that the phone knew where he was and gave him timely directions without using data – presumably GPS doesn’t gobble data?

No data at all for GPS.

[Otherwise you would need a SIM card for a standalone SatNav.]

i use it all the time, but found on a drive from le havre to les arcs last week, it seemed to eat data, which was odd…

only thing i don’t like (in addition to the lack of speed/speed limit) is that it zooms in on the map as you approach a junction – for a motorway slip road, where it’s obvious where you turn off, zooming in often means you’re halfway up the slip road before you know which way you might be turning on the forthcoming roundabout… in busy traffic it makes last minute lane switching a pain!

can’t understand why anyone would bother with a traditional GPS now though…

I use mine all the time – way better than the TomTom I used to have and the sat nav built into my truck. I’d say it’s on for around 400+ miles a week and this is my data usage for a month…

Satellite layer turned on?

So that’s why I used 800mb recently on a weekend in Cornwall where I did 300 miles at the most 😳

Better turn that off quick 😆

Got to be honest, I always assumed it would use way more data than that. But I suppose my Navmii maps were only about 600mb for the entire country, and it’s gonna take you fair bit of time to do that much driving. And they’ll be cached too, so if you drive the same places, I guess it uses hardly anything in the long term?

You can send a location from your desktop to your phone by clicking ‘Send to device’ option that appears under the location address. You get a notification which you can click on to open the location in maps.

Sending a route isn’t quite so easy. First sort your route out on the computer. Then click on the menu icon and go to ‘Share or embed map’. Click on the short url box and then copy the link. Paste it into an email and send it to yourself. Open the email on your phone, click on the link and choose to open it in maps.

Starring locations also works well as they appear on your phone. I use this a lot when going on holiday. I’ll spend some time on the computer finding local places of interest and star them. Then when i’m out it’s much easier to find them quickly in the maps ‘your places’ list and get directions (these days most of them have website links attached as well).

I thought Google Maps used vector maps and cached the maps on the phone? They refused to offer that to Apple which was why Apple developed their own version and went solo. I used Apple Maps and turn by turn navigation in the US, when I’m over there and it works fine without using any cellular data. I plan the route in the airport/hotel on free wifi then drive using the cached maps.

I use Navigon. Google maps ain’t much use in much of Australia & it’s burned through my data before.

ok, back from holiday now and been trying some of these out. i think im more impressed with google maps, and as has been mentioned above, the data usage isnt bad (although id already downloaded the map offline)

couple of questions tho. cant find any way of it showing speed cameras, petrol stations, restaurants etc. part of me thinks well, thats maybe cos it isnt a dedicated satnav, its just a map app, but then again if its trying to be as good as one, shouldnt it do this?
a quick google suggests theres apps that can run alongside maps to do this, do any of you use this sort of thing?

navmii didnt show the speed cameras effectively either. when coming up to one i know about, it warned me about a mile away that one was coming up but didnt show it, or give any further mention to it, just that one was coming up somewhere.

waze didnt show any at all.

ooh, one other thing too, the orange/red sections for traffic. im assuming orange means slow moving traffic, red a standstill? i always thought that was clever stuff before i actually used it, now ive found out its not accurate at all. my understanding is that its reading data sent from phones travelling, but from how long ago?

today i was just using it on a route i use a lot, and there were plenty of orange sections when it was totally clear, and with hardly any traffic on that road, id be quite certain nothing would have been held up there at all at any point.

anyone else found the same?

still playing around 😀

Sending a route isn’t quite so easy. First sort your route out on the computer. Then click on the menu icon and go to ‘Share or embed map’. Click on the short url box and then copy the link. Paste it into an email and send it to yourself. Open the email on your phone, click on the link and choose to open it in maps.

just tried this, it works a treat, thanks for the tip.

any answers for the questions above? ^^^

I’ve playing around with using my iPhone 5S as Sat Nav as my Tom Tom is getting on for 10 years old and pretty knackered.

I’ve found both Google Maps and Apple Maps are pretty good not a lot of difference between the two. Both give clear instructions and have easy to view maps. Both will check traffic conditions and give you the quickest route.

The only down side is that they both use the cloud to calculate the route so they need a data connection. If you start off somewhere with no data connection it won’t find a route, even if you have the map data cached on the phone or you save a map tile offline on Google maps.

Recently discovered Nokia Here maps, which has the option to download whole UK and to route with no data connection. When starting a new route it will check for traffic and give you options to choose different routes. But will not auto route if a traffic jam occurs after you have started your route. You can manually check alternative routes but that’s more interaction than I would like when I am already driving. Apart from that performs similar to Apple and Google maps.

cant find any way of it showing speed cameras,

I know you’re back from holiday now and don’t know where you’ve been, but for future reference speed camera alerts are illegal in France and the traffic police are empowered to crush your device at the roadside.

“can’t understand why anyone would bother with a traditional GPS now though…”

Still find the larger screen , easier to use interface, Larger on screen keyboard , louder speaker , lane indicators ,speed limits , current speeds

all better than google maps – that and i dont hit the home button accidentily on the GPS.

Of course someone will be along shortly to tell me im wrong. – wrong but happy 😉

The only down side is that they both use the cloud to calculate the route so they need a data connection. If you start off somewhere with no data connection it won’t find a route, even if you have the map data cached on the phone or you save a map tile offline on Google maps.

Recently discovered Nokia Here maps, which has the option to download whole UK and to route with no data connection. When starting a new route it will check for traffic and give you options to choose different routes. But will not auto route if a traffic jam occurs after you have started your route
yeah i think most times ill use it ill make sure area is cached over wifi first, and let the data sort the route out on the day. wish there was some way of saving routes tho, thatd be perfect 🙂

just installed nokia here today, ill have a play with that too.

I know you’re back from holiday now and don’t know where you’ve been,

twas rhodes, and i didnt use the maps for a route over there, but…. it did come in handy when we were sort of lost and wanted to know which way would be best to go. just put the gps on and bobs yer uncle, helped us out that day 🙂

but for future reference speed camera alerts are illegal in France and the traffic police are empowered to crush your device at the roadside.

yeah?? they dont make any pretence then that theyre placed to catch you out and youre not allowed to be warned 😉 surprised at that tho.
back to my point on the cameras tho, theyre standard on satnavs here obviously, so wondered if any of you chaps use anything with google maps to show them…..

yes I’ve found the orange/red/blue hit and miss. It is very very accurate on motorways I’ve found, hitting traffic at orange and then we can see there’s a bit of red coming up and almost exactly at the point it says the red will end, it does. BUT on rural roads somtimes it will show orange and then the road is completely void of any cars whatsoever, go figure.

You can save area maps on Google maps – I think it is in ‘my places’…

I tried to use it to cycle back from an event the other week, phone in bag, one earphone to hear directions.

I set it to walking directions as that followed the quiet back roads i would have chosen if plotting myself, rather than the road route of motorway. Can you guess what happened? yup, after about 100yds it switched to the road directions (i noticed as it missed a the first turn, so i stopped to check it was on), set it again and sure enough re-set to road directions.

I wonder if it was changing due to my speed?

You can save area maps on Google maps – I think it is in ‘my places’…

yep, ive been doing that, itd be lovely to be able to save routes tho.

still nobody using speed cameras with Maps?

“yes I’ve found the orange/red/blue hit and miss. It is very very accurate on motorways I’ve found, hitting traffic at orange and then we can see there’s a bit of red coming up and almost exactly at the point it says the red will end, it does. BUT on rural roads somtimes it will show orange and then the road is completely void of any cars whatsoever, go figure.”

Bunch of cyclists were going past with their android phones in the rural area slowly so to google/android data fishing it looked like slow traffic/a jam….

Bunch of cyclists were going past with their android phones in the rural area slowly so to google/android data fishing it looked like slow traffic/a jam….

aye, spose that could explain it, thanks.

still nobody using speed cameras with Maps?

Nokia Here has an option to give you a warning when you exceed the speed limit for a road but doesn’t have speed camera locations.

I’ve been trying out Waze after Cougar’s suggestion. It has traffic camera warnings, lots of traffic information and can find a route without a data connection. Obviously the routing around traffic won’t work without a data connection but its happy enough to plot a route.

I’ve only recently got it so still playing around with it but I’m not sure if there is way to pre download the map or if it just caches areas you recently searched for.

be interested in finding this out. i thought i was committed to google maps now that ive got the workaround for loading routes created the night before on a laptop.
but, if this genuinely can work out routes with no data i may give it another try. im pretty sure you cant download an area tho so dont know how it can find a route without data.
speed cameras also a bonus.

thanks

“im pretty sure you cant download an area tho so dont know how it can find a route without data.”

My mate was downloading areas on wifi on his S5 before we left hotels in perth AUS and usingthem to navigate us around without data so it is possible.

i cantsee how to do it on my Iphone 4 though.

My mate was downloading areas on wifi on his S5 before we left hotels in perth AUS and usingthem to navigate us around without data so it is possible.

ahhhh i misunderstood. wifi’s same as data to me, i was thinking he meant no need for any external connection, just whatevers already on the phone.

just had another quick play with waze in the local area. good point is it pinged up with a warning ‘hazard ahead’ for some roadworks that have been there a while.
not so good for me was no ‘ping’ for speed camera, it just came up with a screen message, whereas id hope im not needing to look at screen that much so easily missed. yep i know as long as im not speeding whats the problem, but if youve got speed cameras on there you may as well have audible warnings?
also i found the scale too far out, side roads not very clear. i tried pinch zooming the screen in, but as soon as i removed my fingers it zoomed out again.
another point is that the warnings stay on screen right in the middle and its a faff to try and remove them. i ended up tapping around it to see if it went but messed the screen up.

may just need a bit more practice tho.

not so good for me was no ‘ping’ for speed camera, it just came up with a screen message,

OH was Waze-ing me somewhere the other day, and it gave an spoken “speed camera ahead” warning. Maybe it’s a setting somewhere?

OH was Waze-ing me somewhere the other day, and it gave an spoken “speed camera ahead” warning. Maybe it’s a setting somewhere?

thats promising then. its possible i messed up cos i wasnt getting any spoken directions so realised i had sound turned down. its possible i turned it up too close to the camera and i missed the verbals.

have you compared the zoom view to google maps? gmaps is ideal to me, itd be good if waze was the same aspect.

So, having used Google Maps (on an iPhone 6+) for two epic cross-Europe motorbike trips this year, I can report it works brilliantly.

I have the phone in a waterproof case, mounted above the instruments on my BMW GS Adventure and have soldered up USB power to it from the GPS power outlet on the bike.

I have a bluetooth headset in the helmet for directions and it takes off a lot of the stress of riding, not having to worry too much about directions.

The first journey, via the Channel Tunnel, through FR, BE, DE, LX, CH, SI to Hungary and back.

The second journey was more leisurely, including ES, FR and Andorra. Much more offroad, though.

Google maps always got me to where I was going. I did find a few businesses, like little B&Bs, were not exactly where they were indicated but I sent updates as I went.

As I’m on the Three network, I was able to roam for free in most countries visited and then just buy a daily pass in the others.

The UX on the Google Maps app is good and is getting better all the time. I particularly like the slightly more “looking down” approach to the 3d view as I can see more easily quite how severe each hairpin is in advance when giving it some up the big passes in Alps/Pyrenees. The voice instructions are pretty good and even the estimated travel times seem reasonable.

Rachel (who, after a Summer of 6000 miles, is happy to leave Feargal in the garage for a while now…)

As an aside, what case / mount did you get? OH is looking for one.

I have a Lifeproof Nuud case. Really like it.

thats promising then. its possible i messed up cos i wasnt getting any spoken directions so realised i had sound turned down. its possible i turned it up too close to the camera and i missed the verbals.

just tried it again with sound up. spoken directions at roundabouts etc but nothing for the camera except a silent popup. cant see anything in settings either.
shame as the traffic info seems to be far more accurate with waze, but im also getting things pop up that i dont want, blocking parts of the screen i want to see. this morning i got a big ‘add photo’ banner across the top of the screen. it hadnt gone after a few minutes so i tapped it to see whatd happen and ended up in a world of pain 😀

this all sounds like alot of distraction while your driving TBH.

another + for the dedicated satnav – it also doesnt start ringing just as your about to enter a complicated round about your not familiar with 😀

Only problem I had with it was it doesn’t calculate the route on your phone, that’s done in the cloud, so on a trip to Scotland or wales if you miss a junction and there’s no signal you’r buggered.

thisisnotaspoon, which app are you talking about? Already stated earlier in this thread, both Google and Apple maps will only perform routing with a data connection even if you have the map saved offline or cached.

Nokia Here app (available on Android and iOS) supports downloading of full GB offline map and will route without data connection as will the Waze app. But I’m not sure if Waze can only cache maps or has ability to save maps offline.

Obviously when routing offline neither Nokia Here or Waze apps route around traffic it’ll be a simple shortest route.

thisisnotaspoon, which app are you talking about? Already stated earlier in this thread, both Google and Apple maps will only perform routing with a data connection even if you have the map saved offline or cached.

Which is it’s only downfall compared to the garmin in the car, in every other conceivable way it’s better. But then compared to the garmin so is looking at the sun and navigating by the lichen growing on lamposts.

have you switched your garmin on….. or is it terribly out of date ?