Garmin Live Traffic: The good and bad

I'm sure it will become way more accurate once there are thousands of units on the roads and they can gather more accurate data.

The most irritating things about Garmin is their utter fear of right hand turns at unmarked intersections. Mine insists on routing me 3 blocks out of my way on the way to my house just to avoid a right turn.
 
Why pay for a service if you can get free live traffic updates on your phone with twitter. There is a service running in Cape Town with live updates on traffic incidents on the highways. www.twitter.com/capetownfreeway
 
IMO, Garmin sucks. I'm not saying that Tom Tom works well, 'cause I haven't tested it sufficiently, but I definitely don't trust Garmin.

As far as I can tell, their suckyness stems from their raw street level data, which only has 5 categories of street. Yes, you read that right, 5 categories! Now I've seen more that 5 different speed limits in town, without even getting on a highway, so obviously their algorithms are crippled before they even run. Then they go and apply their multitude of categories according to some government road classification plan. Not speed limit, not average speed, not whether the road's a winding sand road or a straight 5 lane highway, but some arbitrary road classification scheme. :wtf: Once you push 'route', all this information is forced onto a second hand XT chip, and the not-much-better-than-a-broken-compass route is thrown onto the tiny screen mere seconds later.

So how on earth is sketchy traffic information going to make anything better? Until they sort out their street level data, whatever they do is going to be wrong!
 
Hang on.. we have to pay to use the system, but the system needs us to use it in order work properly? :rolleyes:
 
Madman88 said:
Hang on.. we have to pay to use the system, but the system needs us to use it in order work properly? :rolleyes:
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This isn't my understanding of the system. From their press release and looking at the information on the GPS itself the Garmin gets its info from Altech Netstar Traffic which gets its data from vehicles fitted with Netstar tracking devices.
 
Though i must agree with Madman88, sounds to me like we are paying them to use us to get their data delivered.

I was going to invest in one of these, but not so much now.

C'mon lets get a Durban Live Traffic reporting system and other major areas, screw these people over i say :D
 
Yuu said:
Though i must agree with Madman88, sounds to me like we are paying them to use us to get their data delivered.

I was going to invest in one of these, but not so much now.
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If that's your only reason for not buying then you should reconsider. You're actually buying access to the information on the Altech Netstar Traffic system which seems to come from Netstar tracking devices, not Garmins.
 
Jan said:
If that's your only reason for not buying then you should reconsider. You're actually buying access to the information on the Altech Netstar Traffic system which seems to come from Netstar tracking devices, not Garmins.
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I respect you Jan, however i must stick with what i have said above, if there is already a system that is working and is being served by us the community then i would rather support that and perhaps even donate some money for whatever reason should it come to that.

They should not charge us soo much :/ and getting lost means either being late for a business meeting , airport (my Live Tracker was incorrect thats why i missed my plane :/) is not going to suffice.

I shall wait and see what comes to be after thousands more unknowing people start to use this device but for now, a better community deserves my support (and others).
 
I have a Garmin and a Nokia E72 with GPS. The latter fires up in less tan 10 seconds, the Garmin generally takes about 5-8 minutes to find satellites. The Garmin's battery doesn't last more than 10 minutes after 2 years, and to replace it is a mission, unless you buy the battery in Hong Kong. The garmin requires exppensive updates every year, the Nokia's free. Bye Garmin
 
Antonf said:
I have a Garmin and a Nokia E72 with GPS. The latter fires up in less tan 10 seconds, the Garmin generally takes about 5-8 minutes to find satellites. The Garmin's battery doesn't last more than 10 minutes after 2 years, and to replace it is a mission, unless you buy the battery in Hong Kong. The garmin requires exppensive updates every year, the Nokia's free. Bye Garmin
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Yeah for starters, once the Garmin obtains lock it uses much more sattelites and has a better sensitivity and position resolution, and is purpose built for road navigation. Also, only very recently did Nokia start giving their maps out, and your Garmin doesn't need GSM signal to assist the GPS. Good luck getting lost, with a tiny screen.

You don't say what Garmin you're even talking about, but after 3 years my Nuvi 210W battery is as the day I bought it and it doesn't take longer than 30 seconds to get lock unless it's overcast and I'm in a concrete parking garage. Maybe you should look after your stuff better? Maybe you should position it correctly on your windshield so it's not under the metal roof?

As for the people who can't read and don't understand how it works at all. Data is collected from Netstar car tracking installations not your Garmin. It stands to reason that the add-on would be substantially larger and more complicated if it was feeding your positional information back to them on top of everything.
 
cda said:
R299 a YEAR. I think you're being ridiculous, or your parents are paying for your internet access.
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I am referring to the cost of the device :o , the yearly subscription is affordable.

Truthfully, my dad pays for my internet......for now :/
 
Yuu said:
[...] if there is already a system that is working and is being served by us the community then i would rather support that and perhaps even donate some money for whatever reason should it come to that.

[...] and getting lost means either being late for a business meeting , airport (my Live Tracker was incorrect thats why i missed my plane :/) is not going to suffice.
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Fair enough. As stated in my review: Unfortunately there are no guarantees that the Garmin will warn you about traffic problems in time.
 
@ AntonF

I have a Nuvi 610, which does not support traffic, and my battery lasts about 5 minutes when not plugged in. It does however pick up satelites within a minute or so. I also have a Nokia E72. I use both the Ovi maps and the Garmin online maps. The E72 takes up to 10 minutes to get satelite reception (on a good day), and sometimes I have to remove the battery to get it to work, and when using the Garmin maps it constantly closes the program whenever the phone feels like it.

I have resorted to using my Nuvi, and only using the phone to check the traffic updates manually, ie zooming out and checking if there are issues on the road I intend to travel. Most of the time I have a fair idea of how to get to the area I am going and only use the GPS to get to a specific adress.

One day when I upgrade the phone to something a bit more reliable, I might actually subscribe to the service. Currently still using the 30 day trail
 
cda said:
That's really strange. My Nuvi lasts an entire trip from Joburg to Durban with some battery left over.

Put your serial into http://www.garmin.com/nuvibatterypcbrecall and see if it's effected.
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Thanks, I will have a look. It worked fine when I bought it, but has gone down dramatically in the last 3-4 months. It will start up, and I can search all I want, but as soon as I open the GPS ariel at the back, it only has enough time to get decent reception before it dies.
 
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