Caravan Sat Nav - recommendations please
Comments
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Cant argue about the additional functionality of a tablet if you don't already have one but your price is way more than a basic TomTom loaded with European maps (TomTom start 25 £79.99 at Argos).
but the cost to upgrade or switch to other mapping Apps like Google Maps or OsmAnd can be cheap or even free and also facilities to receive traffic reports have been included in the costs.
peedee
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Thanks all,
I have gone with the Co-Pilot option...
- New Sumsung Tab 4 7inch Tablet - £99
- Co-Pilot Full Europe app, with traffic etc - £26
- 64GB micro SC card - £18
- Mi-fi (mobile Wi-fi) - £30
Total price c£170 - i.e. £100 less than the Tom-Tom / Garmin alternative, plus a whole load more functionality on top! I will let you knwo how I get on!!
Cant argue about the additional functionality of a tablet if you don't already have one but your price is way more than a basic TomTom loaded with European maps (TomTom start 25 £79.99 at Argos). We use a TomTom loaded with Archies POI files and wouldn't
be without it even though the new car has the maps and POI's we need, we still carry paper maps but dont know how we ever managed without SatNav(TomTom start 25 £79.99 at Argos). Best buy has everything you want bought mine at Halfords same price would not go anywhere with Ordance Survey Maps 1-5000.
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For the southern mediterranean. Place a chilled 250g block of butter on the centre console of the car. When it melts, you have arrived.
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cyberyacht - that is the best advice yet, thanks!!!
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Bought the Co Pilot app yesterday for our galaxy tablet, the Europe wide version. It cost £34.99. It worked very well yesterday on the first leg of our journey to Ferry Meadows.
The maps loaded to our sd card. The options include a motorhome setting. The points of interest include caravan sites. Sunday we're off to France so we'll see how well it works there.
It sits nicely in the dropped down glove compartment lid, and the cab overhang doesn't seem to impair the gps connection.
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Interesting chasncath, I have been looking at the CoPilot free version and have been quite impressed with it. We do have a sat nav which I can program the van specs into but have been thinking about something for the tablet. It will be good to hear
how it performs for you in France0 -
Co Pilot got us to Soissons today. Samsung 'voice' can't pronounce French words properly, but she knows the way! Got us from J11 on 'Ah' 26, via D1, including the hiatus when the D1 turns into the D1023 and back again. Finding lots of features, including
a bell which rings when speed limit exceeded by pre-set amount
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Co Pilot let us down this morning going through Soissons: she didn't warn us of an upcoming 'prioritie a droite'. The ensuing emergency stop rattled the cutlery a bit! Is that too much to ask of a satnav?
We were on the road for 7 hours today (in gales and downpours) on our 250 mile journey to Beaune, and Camping Les Bouleaux. At the end our tablet battery was issuing battery warnings so that's a problem to be solved.
The samsung lady pronounces French words as if they were English. When we pulled into the campsite she said " You have arrived at les bollocks"!!
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Co Pilot let us down this morning going through Soissons: she didn't warn us of an upcoming 'prioritie a droite'. The ensuing emergency stop rattled the cutlery a bit! Is that too much to ask of a satnav?
It probably is, you must have missed the road sign as well.
We were on the road for 7 hours today (in gales and downpours) on our 250 mile journey to Beaune, and Camping Les Bouleaux. At the end our tablet battery was issuing battery warnings so that's a problem to be solved.
Tough trip eh? You need to buy a 12volt to USB converter and then use your normal charging lead. I have wired mine permanently in leading to the tablet cradle.
The samsung lady pronounces French words as if they were English. When we pulled into the campsite she said " You have arrived at les bollocks"!!
Perhaps you should change the language to French.
peedee
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I used to use a Garmin but like others here I have moved over to CoPilot. Excellent mapping, very quick recalculation, choice of 3 routes (or drag & drop for even more choice), set your own speeds for different vehicle types etc. Even the pronunciation is
better than the Garmin.You don't need mobile phone data as you load the maps from wifi then they're held on the phone.
You can load your own POIs from a CSV file - eg Archie etc.
I haven't yet used it with the caravan but after some very poor route suggestions from Garmin it can't be worse!
It cost me around £20 for full Europe but that might have been a special offer. You can try it free for a week and the basic product (without turn by turn guidance) is totally free but just for one country.
I use mine on a Motorola Android phone and am a satisfied customer. Add a cheap windscreen mount at less than £5 and you're all set.
Write your comments here...
i use the sat nav on my windows phone at home, and understand that maps can be loaded on wifi. My question is; can my phone work on the continent the same ie signal and without mobile data for the gps tracking ?
thanks
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Just a word of caution, according to Internet posts, the basic iPad does not have a GPS module. The cellular version has a GPS built into the chip which you can use without the data connection.
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If you drive to the Southern Meditaerranean! This will be the coast of N Africa! Your butter would have melted a long time ago, I think you need a satnav!
BillC
Sorry to hear your aircon's broke.
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Just a word of caution, according to Internet posts, the basic iPad does not have a GPS module. The cellular version has a GPS built into the chip which you can use without the data connection.
If you tablet does not have a GPS there are many options to add one. Check out
>Globesat<peedee
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Today we travelled 269 miles from Beaune to Camping Domaine de la Bastide near Nimes. To overcome the battery problem we switched off for much of the journey on the A7 until the turn off north of Avignon.
Co pilot tried to take us through the centre of Lyons, which we avoid, rather than our preferred route around the 'Rocade Est'. We ignored Samsung Lady's instructions and she quickly got the message. There must be a way to avoid city centre routes!
Our Samsung Voice is having trouble with 'third exit' at roudabouts; it comes out a bit like 'Strund' as if a combination of second and third!
We've realised that we're travelling routes that we know well and could find our way without any maps. We've yet to rely totally on co pilot. The verbal instructions come so quickly that us oldies are finding them a problem to follow.
However, for £35 we're having a lot of amusement and help from this App.
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chasncath,
Thank you so much for your reports on actually using CoPilot - I am looking forward to a few laughs over her foreign
pronunciation!Sounds like with a little common sense it is a really use piece of kit!
Hope you are having a fab time too!
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chasncath,
Thank you so much for your reports on actually using CoPilot - I am looking forward to a few laughs over her foreign
pronunciation!Sounds like with a little common sense it is a really use piece of kit!
Hope you are having a fab time too!
Thank you for your good wishes.
CoPilot is easy to use and we're finding out more about it each day. Using a tablet means that we have a big 3d map display and we've stumbled onto how to have a large-text instruction on-screen as well. When picking up a tablet one must ensure that your
thumbs don't touch the screen: we've had one or two inadvertant menu selections!Tried to change the voice by downloading additional files. 'James' sounds like someone doing a poor impersonation of Sean Connery, so no thanks.
CoPilot knows about campsites; however, if you type in Camping Les Olivers instead of Oliviers she won't find the POI (note the satnav jargon). We're here at Les Oliviers, at Le Boulou, by conventional means. Tomorrow Spain and our usual stop at Camping
Cala d'Ocques, at Hospitalet de l'Infante, which CoPilot found in her list of Leisure POIs. So some Spanish place names for Samsung Lady to mangle!0 -
A final note about using 'co pilot' on a samsung galaxy tab3.
We changed the voice but only the samsung voice is able to add street and place names. CP got us around Barcelona and didn't attempt to take us through the city centre - ditto today for Valencia. We've got the 3d display and large typeface instructions just
as we like it.
CP had a problem getting us to Cala d'Ocques campsite and tried to take us along a beach track! We assume all satnavs do this sort of thing. Took control and got there in the end (as we know the way well!)
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Thanks again, all useful to know. Photos are great, good to see you have some bright and sunny weather!
We set off on our European adventure 7 weeks from today... I am taking my family (wife and two young children, aged 9 and 7) away for 6 months, starting in Bilbao, and travelling through Spain, Southern France, Italy, and then up through Eastern Europe to
Sweden, Denmark and the home... I hope Co-Pilot has the stamina to keep up with us!It is our first trip abroad (after only owning our caravan for 6 months!) so we are excited and terrfied in equal measure, but can't wait for the adventure to begin!
All the best for the rest of your trip
Matt
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Thanks for your good wishes Matt!
We've just found out that Samsung Tablets only charge properly from Samsung chargers. The cheap 2€ 12v socket charger from a chinese shop won't charge properly ( it's to do with earthing the data lines).
So top tip is to buy a samsung gizmo before you leave UK
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