Semi OT: Tesla Model 3

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- kevin93
  
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posted
6 years ago

Wed, Aug 23, 2017 8:46 PM

On Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 1:23:03 PM UTC-7, rickman wrote: ..

I'm not sure what you're saying here. I stated you could use an app on your phone that uses locally stored data - how is that a problem if you change routes?

The app I used required something like 4GB to store the map for England but that's not a problem these days, my phone has 64GB of storage.

...

The one in my Toyota does reasonably with data over FM radio. The traffic info seems reasonably up to date but not as good as Apple Maps.

kevin

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- rickman
  
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posted
6 years ago

Wed, Aug 23, 2017 9:58 PM

I've not seen an app that downloads the map data for the entire country. I guess that would be a bit harder for the US although my outdoor GPS has a base map of the entire country, it isn't very detailed with no info on smaller roads. My friend used a program that would download the maps for a route. We had to go off the route because of traffic and without the cell connection it didn't have map info for that route.

I've always wondered how that get that info. I've seen that they have an antenna in the power cord, now I know why, it's FM band. Still, the Garmin didn't give you much info on the nature of the congestion and the times I've seen that in use it didn't warn you until you were on top of the jam. It didn't seem to have a map display where you could see the congestion like Google shows.

Most GPS devices are instruction oriented which is what most people want. I do *much* better with maps and will find the maps provided in the large Tesla display to be far superior to any GPS in a car or phone I have ever seen.

--

Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998

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- Clive Arthur
  
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posted
6 years ago

Wed, Aug 23, 2017 10:18 PM

I have a Nokia/Windows 32GB Lumia 'phone bought cheap on ebay because the sim slot is damaged. Works great as a sat-nav and music store, all the maps are free to download via wi-fi. The USA maps tend to be split up into states, and larger European countries might have separate north/south maps etc but it's seamless. Even tiny roads on Greek islands are shown.

It's fun on a 'plane too, if you have a window seat.

Cheers

--
Clive

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- mike
  
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posted
6 years ago

Wed, Aug 23, 2017 10:50 PM

Mapfactor navigator free is pretty good. Maps are crowd sourced, so missing stuff off the beaten path. Actual GPS units with maps are dirt cheap at garage/estate/goodwill sales.

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- Dave Platt
  
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posted
6 years ago

Wed, Aug 23, 2017 10:51 PM

Check out OSMAnd, which runs on Android and on iPhones. It downloads vector versions of the OpenStreetMap data (organized by individual state or region), and its trip planner can run effectively on the Android device and will figure, and recalculate routes without needing any on-line access at all.

There are both "major roads only" and "detailed" maps available for the U.S. The detailed maps (which are what you'd want for serious driving-around) are not small... the one for California is around 600 megabytes. You might be able to fit the whole country's detailed maps onto a 32-gig SD card, if your device can take one.

The route planner isn't perfect, but I've found it to be quite acceptable. I used it to get my wife and me through southern France a couple of years ago, and I just used it again on my drive from California up to Oregon for the eclipse - both in areas where there was no cell service, and no hope of using an online-only device.