Missing Feature "TomTom Services" on 2405/2505??

[Sibir Lupus]

While on TomTom's page for compatible phones that connect to TomTom units via Bluetooth, I noticed my phone (Blackberry Storm 2) has the capability to give TomTom Services to older models like the Go 730 and 920. Are these the services like Live traffic, Google Search, weather and Quickfix GPS? And if so, how come the GO 2405/2505 isn't able to receive these same services with my phone?

Adding such a feature to the GO 2405/2505 would give TomTom a major edge over the competition IMO. Why pay a monthly subscription on "Live" models when my cell phone can provide the same connection to these services for free (if that is the case here). Isn?t the $10 a month subscription on ?Live? models just to pay for the GSM cell connection anyways??

 

[Andy_P]

No, you cannot get the TomTom's actual "LIVE"services via a mobile phone. It has to use the internal SIM card and modem.

There was a way to get a "Traffic" service via a connected mobile, but it was nowhere near as good as HDTraffic from the LIVE services and it looks like you still have things like "buddies" in the US, which have been dropped in Europe.

 

[Sibir Lupus]

To my understanding, the internal SIM and modem on "Live" models is just a GSM cellular data connection, no different from any other GSM phone. Yes my Storm 2 uses CDMA when in the United States but I doubt that matters. All it sounds like is that the "Live" models just need some sort of way to connect to TomTom Services to function regardless of what kind of connection it is. The only real reason I can see why TomTom went with GSM on "Live" models is that it is universal throughout most of the world.

Okay I can understand that HD Traffic would not be possible through a cell phone but an additional layer of regular traffic info for regular roads would be nice . My real question though is how come older and lest feature packed TomTom models can have this functionality with my phone and the new GO models can't? Is it possible it'll come later in an application update for these models??

No, you cannot get the TomTom's actual "LIVE"services via a mobile phone. It has to use the internal SIM card and modem.

There was a way to get a "Traffic" service via a connected mobile, but it was nowhere near as good as HDTraffic from the LIVE services and it looks like you still have things like "buddies" in the US, which have been dropped in Europe.

 

[dhn]

My understanding is that older models used the cell phone 'tethered' to obtain what was then known as Plus Sevices.

And telecos no longer have 'tethered' plans. Or something like that.

 

[mvl]

The old PLUS system is one of the best Tomtom ideas ever made. It was Tomtom's primary live content delivery method from 2006-2008. PLUS relayed information through your own cell phone, and provided pretty much everything their current LIVE service does today.

Around 2008, the cellphone industry was beginning to fear becoming dumb pipes, and started banning features like tethering, or at least making the process very complicated.

In 2009, Tomtom switched to LIVE service, where they built their own modem into the Tomtoms. They say it was for "ease of use", but I wouldn't be surprised if Vodafone made non-tethering a requirement in exchange for providing HD traffic data.

It was an unfortunate shift. Tomtom's HD traffic is phenomenal, but the modem-based transmission service has been nothing but trouble (bugs, outages, crashes) ever since it was launched. It's really hard to make a good cellular modem, and Tomtom obviously doesn't have the knack in that area. So far, the only reliable HD traffic system is the one on the iPhone Tomtom app (eg: someone else made the modem).

I'm with you, I'd much rather prefer a PLUS-style data transport: let the cellcos do what they do best.

 

[canderson]

Around 2008, the cellphone industry was beginning to fear becoming dumb pipes, and started banning features like tethering, or at least making the process very complicated.

True enough. I think the Blackberry folks were some of the last that had the option of purchasing a tethering plan for their units. As for complicated - well, it was that from the start unless your carrier and phone could be found in the rather limited list that TomTom provided. We certainly had fun getting folks up and running with various "dialing strings", etc., didn't we? TomTom seemed unprepared to do the research necessary to really expand their carrier and phone lists here in the U.S. They did a far better job in Europe. Meanwhile, all of the fun and games we were having here were being felt exponentially by TomTom tech support in the U.S. There may have been more than Vodaphone to blame for the move to a captured service that they could control (however poorly) from front to back.

In 2009, Tomtom switched to LIVE service, where they built their own modem into the Tomtoms. They say it was for "ease of use", but I wouldn't be surprised if Vodafone made non-tethering a requirement in exchange for providing HD traffic data.

One wonders how many $ (or Euros) TomTom spent on tech support calls for this one feature. Even those carriers and phones that were on the "list" could be problematic, as we saw here for a couple of years. I can't blame them for trying to set up a system they could control without all of the wildcards of trying to set up for a couple of dozen other carriers and who knows how many different phones. I wonder how many calls they got from people who didn't even know they needed a tethered Bluetooth DUN account to even make it work?

It was an unfortunate shift. Tomtom's HD traffic is phenomenal, but the modem-based transmission service has been nothing but trouble (bugs, outages, crashes) ever since it was launched. It's really hard to make a good cellular modem, and Tomtom obviously doesn't have the knack in that area.

I dunno. It's been my impression pretty much from the start that most of the problems are happening on the back end in a server room somewhere. My service here in the Denver area has never failed to produce a connection (even when the forum here seems to indicate the rest of the country is dark), and I've never had any of the odd 1XXX errors that others have seen. Then again, I refused to update my firmware on my 740 beyond 9.054. Perhaps that helps?

I'm with you, I'd much rather prefer a PLUS-style data transport: let the cellcos do what they do best.

While I was even able to get my old Nextel phones coupled up with TomTom's servers for Plus services, I can't agree that it was a better system. If TomTom had devoted the resources necessary to keep their lists of carriers and phones up to date with current equipment, it would have been another story. As it was, we spent a LOT of time here helping people sort out the connections, and you can bet TomTom did, too. I certainly wouldn't mind relegating my connection to Sprint, but then again, I was hooking up to Nextel - something that wasn't even supposed to be possible. That kind of hunt and peck is a lot to ask of most users.

 

[techguy378]

I've yet to see a GPS manufacturer make a properly functioning live unit. Both Garmin's NuLink 1695 and TomTom's XL 340TM LIVE units get stuck waiting for SIM. That's the message Garmin's 1695 gives in the diagnostics screen. The previously mentioned TomTom puts a yellow exclamation mark in the traffic bar. On the one I used to have when I attempted to access any of the live services I got a similar message to Garmin's stating the SIM card had malfunctioned even though it hadn't. I could still connect to TomTom's live services part of the time and once I had a connection I stayed connected until I powered the TomTom off.

 

[gatorguy]

I haven't had any SIM issues at all with my 1695. Much faster and more reliable connection than my old TT740. One of the other mods here had a chance to use it for a bit, and I think he noticed the same thing, even tho both use the AT&T network.

 

[mvl]

Yes, the 1695 was very stable. I run my GO740 on app 8.312, so it's just as stable as the 1695.

But any newer GO740 apps crash all the time.

According to the Europeans, the GO LIVE 1000/1005 is just as crash-prone.

 

[canderson]

Yes, the 1695 was very stable. I run my GO740 on app 8.312, so it's just as stable as the 1695.

But any newer GO740 apps crash all the time.

9.054 still rock solid here on my GO740. NO SIM or Live related errors. I'm still ignoring the update to 9.058.

 

[Andy_P]

Navcore 9.058 is solid on three UK units here.
No delays to get Traffic bar or other issues some others seem to have.

Sorry to be smug .

 

[dhn]

Sorry to be smug .

Wasn't it your countryman, Willie S who wroted about being 'foisted on your own petard'?

 

[Andy_P]

Wasn't it your countryman, Willie S who wroted about being 'foisted on your own petard'?

not "foisted".... "hoisted"..... as in getting blown up by your own bomb.

as a pyrotechnician when I'm not playing with TomToms, that's a subject in my mind all the time!

Back to the 9.058. I've been working with a few people trying to work out why they have so many problems with it but I don't. No joy so far....

 

[mvl]

As best I can tell, the problems with the GO740 in the USA have to do with weak or overcongested AT&T signals.

AT&T's 2G data network is horrible, crashing and cutting out with the slightest bit of congestion as AT&T prioritizes all that iPhone 3G traffic.

The GO740's newer apps don't respond to the dropped AT&T packets and corrupted packets anywhere near as well as app 8.312 did.

That could explain why some people in areas where AT&T has good capacity report no problems, while there are unending issues for many others.

 

[gatorguy]

When you had the 1695 for a few days did you have any signal issues? Connection delayed at all or lost at times? Both TT and Garmin use AT&T.

 

[mvl]

When you had the 1695 for a few days did you have any signal issues? Connection delayed at all or lost at times? Both TT and Garmin use AT&T.

Yup, the Garmin 1695 and Tomtom GO740 (with app 8.312) behaved pretty much the same. It took about 2 minutes during rush hour for initial LIVE signal, and there were no noticeable drops in signal afterwards.

I know that app 8.312 "hid" drops in signal, specifically it would wait for a 5 minute deadzone before reporting anything. I don't know what Garmin's deadzone masking is.

App 9.058 is a different story: That junk app doesn't know how to recover from a dead zone, and was pretty much: 33% starts up properly, 33% needs to use weather/buddies, 33% crash/reboot.

Compare all that to my GO930 with PLUS service. Traffic connection never takes more than 10 seconds on my 3G AT&T phone. And you can see that AT&T's priorities are the real culprit here.

It's a shame that Tomtom didn't upgrade to 3G on the GO2535LIVE. While there's no need for the speed of 3G, the priority of AT&T's 3G data would have made a huge difference.

I'm really hoping the iPhone5 LTE comes out on Verizon soon, so all the iPhone users get off AT&T and clear up the network for LIVE services.

 

[Bily42]

not "foisted".... "hoisted"..... as in getting blown up by your own bomb.

as a pyrotechnician when I'm not playing with TomToms, that's a subject in my mind all the time!

Back to the 9.058. I've been working with a few people trying to work out why they have so many problems with it but I don't. No joy so far....

Actually, the quote is "hoist" not "hoisted" as my husband always corrects me on this.

 

[Andy_P]

If we're going to be accurate it's

"For tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his owne petar". (no "d")

Shakespeare, no less.... who gives the line to Hamlet.

But I think it exists as a saying in several forms now.

 

[Sibir Lupus]

Wow, didn't think such a function on the older models was such an issue to get working. I just figured it was a simple data connection over Bluetooth. It makes sense now why TomTom pulled this feature from later models. Regardless it is sad that it no longer exists seeing as I'd hardly use the extra features on a "Live" model (minus the HD traffic if I had gotten a GO 2435 Live). $120 a year for HD Traffic after the initial free year is up wouldn't be too bad but I already pay out the hole for a data plan on my cell phone. Oh well, thank you everyone for your info on this topic!