combined info from iOverlander… nice for finding camp grounds etc. ![]() markings… far better than the free maps on say HERE good set of up-to-date speed, road-works, danger-zone, etc. So for quick overall ROAD route planning, garmin‘s new interface is really efficient in my opinion.Īlso it comes with a few things that are really nice: Gaia & Locus are really good for off-road things, but oftentimes the map quality (free or cheap) isn‘t great (no differentiation between trails for hiking, bicycling or actually something that‘s accessible with a motorcycle - also those maps, often are super out of date in more remote regions). Here is great & free, (it was my go to solution) - but often it has troubles finding foreign addresses, like small hotels in türkiye, where I had to switch to google maps frequently for the last mile-thing. TomTom has a good app replicating their hardware devices mostly, good maps - expensive though (subscription service, so rather not) and with a number of limitations (GPX import for example)… Secondary: choice of software… now here‘s a bit of a mixed bag.įrankly for road navigation, the current generation of Garmin‘s proprietary GPS decices (Zumo XT) is simply better than anything I was able to find on the free / paid for App market…. This is a „benefit“ of using a smartphone: they‘re easy to replace…īUT you also will need a solid wifi connection to re-download everything you had (like all the offline data for maps…) Also in between, I actually carefully used my main phone until I was able to find a cheap replacement ![]() Worked well - but again, if it would have been my expensive main phone, I‘d have been a tad more pissed. then bought a cheap second hand Samsung S8+ for that purpose in turkey. My first one (older huawei) got killed within 10 days - as I dropped it off a table at a road side coffee… screen was unresponsive and pretty useless. On my last long distance trip (switzerland - iranian border and back) I used the smartphone exclusively. One other part of this: my „personal“ main smartphone is usually a higher end model - I use it take the majority of my photos, and like most for a ton of other things… so if that thing gets damaged, it is expensive.Īt that point when I used a smartphone exclusively for navigation on my motorcycle - I always used either an older gen phone or an otherwise cheaply bought second hand phone for that purpose. I prefer to keep it on my person during rides. Simply for safety / redundancy issues / damage etc… I consider the smartphone a rather important tool, especially when travelling solo, for anything from arranging for lodging, to finding things, to act as a translator when the language barrier is too great, or in an emergency (given reception - if not there‘s the inReach) to call for help… So risking it to get damaged, or otherwise killed off by having it constantly on the handlebars/dash isn‘t something I am overly keen on. One thing I‘d like to add is that I would never want my personal main smartphone to be permanently used as a GPS on the bike. There‘s a few advantages a smartphone has over a dedicated GPS like the Garmin Zumo…and a few disadvantages. The Smartphone‘s have come a long way - and charging on the go has definitely become easier with wireless options these days. I‘ve done all three „options“: dedicated GPS only, Smartphone only, both in combination / depending on the situation… ![]() Google maps came in Handy to find addresses of guest houses, restaurants etc often. In bulgaria, romania, hungary, turkey… i used my smartphone exclusively (did not have the Zumo XT on that bike back then) mostly with here maps and with locus pro for off road topo maps… Especially as the Zumo XT easily imports GPX from my smartphone or ipad and as it also supports topographic maps and can easily be extended with opentopo maps or openstreetmap data. but for touring i find it less than idealĪlso route planning on the Zumo XT is brilliant. I use Google maps at home often for quickly finding an address. I usually download those over wifi when I’m outside of the western EU (unlimited high speed data in western EU with my carrier/contract) Free, works, offline maps of pretty much everything. When i navigate with the smartphone only i mostly use here maps for road navigation. ![]() Google maps is good - but i often don’t like it’s Routing also it’s cumbersome to manage and store offline data as well offline search is limited. It also delivers traffic reports if you have mobile data. Including coordinates- then push it directly from the smartphone to the Zumo. You can copy/paste almost anything there. With the Zumo XT try the garmin drive app…
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |