[Closed] Would you bother with built in Sat Nav?

Well it's a fact - and I'm not sure of the relevance of a company's illogical policies (assuming they didn't mind use of built in, or indeed dedicated stand-alone satnav).

your fact may be ... but in this h and S gone mad world .... if your phones infront of you in eye line and an urgent business related email pops up(unless you are prone to setting your phone not to display your emails everytime you get in the car) - your more likely to read it/be distracted by it when its there than you are going to be able to read it off your standalone sat nav.....

thats their reasoning against your fact. I see logic in it to be fair ....if nothing else that apparently going by this thread it would really grind folks gears to not be able to use their phone as a sat nav.... 😀

When I test drove a ****** a few years back, the salesman almost derided me for asking about whether it was worth getting the SatNav-specced model. 'Use your phone, the SatNav is out of date before you get it'.

Having said that, the used Mercedes we got not long after that amusing test drive came with a Becker unit. The maps are out of date but my SO prefers it to Google Maps and Apple Maps. I create great annoyance if we need to swap cars and I don't move it to the right car.

Both cars show lane notifications and directions in the dash when they have the Becker plugged in. I like this.

If it were real money for a new car I'd not opt for SatNav unless it came as part of a more useful package. I wouldn't pay over the odds for it as part of a used car deal. And I wouldn't make it a make or break item. Maps and phones do a good enough job. Phones especially if there's Bluetooth.

bit confused by all this 'phones cr@p in tunnels' yipyap, we were going through plenty last year in spain, the screen automatically changed to 'night vision' and still worked perfectly.

it's bad enough the aircon on my Octavia sitting down below the radio, with identical flush-fit buttons that force you to look down at it if you need to make any adjustments, having my phone sat with its bottom edge a couple of millimetres above the dash in the centre is ideal,

little octavia tip. if you dont want cheap plastic phone holders on the dash, you can lift the little cubbyhole flap on top of the dash and jam a phone in there well enough for it to stay upright. well you can an M8 anyway. i do mine with no extra material needed, but ive always thought that stick a bit of felt or somethings in there too and itll never move. looks like it was made for the job 😉
like this pic ive just nicked from google.....

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little octavia tip. if you dont want cheap plastic phone holders on the dash, you can lift the little cubbyhole flap on top of the dash and jam a phone in there well enough for it to stay upright. well you can an M8 anyway. i do mine with no extra material needed, but ive always thought that stick a bit of felt or somethings in there too and itll never move. looks like it was made for the job

Might work pretty well with newer Skodas, my '51 Octy doesn't have anything like that. A couple of large blobs of blutac will do the job of holding a phone in place under that flap, I reckon.
I've just driven a Skoda Yeti back home from Truro, it's a top end one, even has a heated screen, which I didn't even know could be had on VAG cars, but it reinforced my preference for using my phone instead of the fitted unit, which is the main infotainment system.
It's a large screen, but it's set halfway down the centre console, so using the maps means you absolutely have to look down away from the road ahead, if you want to check map or direction info as an addition to the voice guidance.
I didn't have the mapping on, I was listening to 6Music, and occasionally checking track info, in the same way that you would if using the mapping, and I found it more than a little unsettling, especially as I was doing 70-odd mph on the M5, which is why I only did it a couple of times.
I honestly wouldn't be able to bring myself to use it, it's an ergonomic disaster, forcing the user to take their eyes completely off the road ahead, a major distraction easily on a par with checking Facebook on your phone.
I do get screen updates on my phone when using the satnav, [i]but[/i], I never bother looking at them, they disappear after a few seconds, and I can't actually read what they say anyway, the text is far too small.
I can read all the main text on my satnav, without much effort, with and without my glasses, and it's level with the road ahead, and in the centre of the screen, directly over the flap on top of the dash, and is perfectly placed, which is exactly where all satnav units ought to be situated.

A quick tip for anyone who doesn't feel that they are capable of using a sat nav because it's positioning takes your eyes off the road - every sat nav I've used gives you the turn you need to take and also the road number and town/area you should be heading toward.

Check the sat nav when safe to do so, have some vague idea of when you'll be approaching the junction, make a mental note of where you are going AND READ THE FLIPPING ROAD SIGNS!

[quote=trail_rat ]your fact may be ... but in this h and S gone mad world .... if your phones infront of you in eye line and an urgent business related email pops up(unless you are prone to setting your phone not to display your emails everytime you get in the car) - your more likely to read it/be distracted by it when its there than you are going to be able to read it off your standalone sat nav.....

Fair point from a business perspective then - though still not necessarily a good reason not to use a phone if you're disciplined enough to ignore the notifications. Was using my phone as a satnav this evening as it happens (on a route I know anyway, though I wasn't quite starting from the usual place so interested in seeing what it reckoned the best route was). Made use of just speaking where I wanted to go with no typing or twiddling knobs required (and I wouldn't have had a clue what the postcode of the place I was going to is, let alone that of the supermarket I decided to divert to on the way home). Got a few FB notifications pop up which I ignored, though I need to work out how to turn off messenger notifications as that leaves something on the screen. It would be nice if it was possible to disable all notifications automatically when directions are running in maps.

There's a driving mode on most phones - does that stop notifications?

Don't seem to have that option, though I think I've worked out how to disable messenger pop-up which is the most irritating (I can ignore the rest). If I CBA I might write an Automate script to do it (can trigger it when bluetooth connects to the stereo).

That's interesting. I didn't have to write a script to disable any distractions for my built in nav. Must be a plus in its favour... 😉

Someone posted on here the other day about Android Auto. Great app that will prevent distractions. I've got mine set up to turn on automatically as soon as my phone picks up the car bluetooth.

i have aeroplane mode on my phone.....

i assume planes have their own built in sat nav as turning that on not only turns off the notifications - wouldnt want a distracted pilot would we - but annoyingly also turns off the nav function.....

i guess their employers insist they use a standalone unit also

😀 😀 😀

I imagine that Google Maps routing you down a road that's too narrow could be a real problem in a plane.

I'm struggling with the concept that the supreme intelligence of the STW forum hierarchy can't cope with not checking emails whilst driving, unless they put their phone into some sort of drive/sleep/aeroplane mode. Surely the self-proclaimed gods of the road should be able to handle such a simple task of self-restraint?

I can....But not all of my old work are Stw elite.

Some are the serf class who would be straight on that email.

Do any of you that prefer in-built to using phones/google travel much distance, or encounter much traffic?

Google can't be beat for avoiding/re-routing round traffic.

Tried using the 2016 Sat Nav in my Ford Ranger a couple of times over the past few days and it didn't have a clue about the traffic on my route.

This aside, I find in-built navs invariably try and take me on some strange routes that I know aren't the quickest (even without traffic). When I know better and persistently ignore it telling me to turn round, it eventually succumbs to my route (that Google knew in the first place) and lo-behold, it adjusts it's arrival time to one that is sooner than it was saying on it's own route