My "wish I hads" with TomTom

[drewmutt]

1. Auto color switch from night to day. (I understand there's some hacks to do that)

2. It pronounes the entire full name of freeways. Instead of the "four-o-five" freeway it says the "four-hundred and five saun-ta-moan-uh-cuh freeway". Oh, and speaking of freeways, the "keep left" thing gets annoying, and I wish it would tell you the distance to when you have to change freeways as opposed to telling you when the next freeway merges with the one you're currently on.

3. Auto-turn-on when power is applied. It does the auto-turn-off, but pressing the little button for a few seconds (mind you, my TT is jammed in a little corner) is a hassle.

4. Can I pan on this thing? What if I want to see some streets a block over? I gotta drive there? (Might be a really easy feature I'm missing)

5. The "link to speed" volume setting doesn't seem to work too well, wish I could adjust that. Would be clever if it had a mic, and could sense what volume it had to be at. My aunt seems to have that feature when she comes over for dinner.

6. Sorry, this is just a rant. But seriously, give me traffic, and don't make me pay for it. You are already making me pay for the data you use through my phone, gimme the traffic. Oh weather? How nice, I could of found that on AM.

7. It seems that it oversimplifies the streets (maybe my zoom level), but I would like to see the names of more streets, there's a competitor that lets you set the detail level.

I'm a pretty savvy programmer, maybe I could just write these things if they're not out there.

Thanks in advance,
Andrew

 

[rickety]

Re #2. I emailed Loquendo and asked about the more colloquial way of speaking highway numbers. Apparently they do support such a style, but TomTom would have to make some changes to use that capability. He said he would pass on my comments to the TomTom product manager.

So, I agree with your point of view on that specific topic and wondered if we were to raise it to TomTom more directly, it sounds as if it is something they could arrange.

 

[melodious]

My wishes

1. I want my blue tooth hands free conversations to go through my car speakers.
2. Separate volume settings for music, instructions and phone
3. Don't speak random instructions every time I adjust the volume when the juke box is playing music
4. Automatically connect to the remote control
5. Have the option to quickly disable bluetooth temporarily without having to repair later.
6. More, better computer voices

 

[drewmutt]

Re #2. I emailed Loquendo and asked about the more colloquial way of speaking highway numbers. Apparently they do support such a style, but TomTom would have to make some changes to use that capability. He said he would pass on my comments to the TomTom product manager.

So, I agree with your point of view on that specific topic and wondered if we were to raise it to TomTom more directly, it sounds as if it is something they could arrange.

Sounds awesome! Any idea on a direct contact or should I just send it through their page?

 

[cputrdoc]

Auto color switch from night to day. (I understand there's some hacks to do that)
My 920 has a light sensor on it. It's not real accurate; a cloudy day is "dark" to my device, but then again I have tinted windows.

I wish it would tell you the distance to when you have to change freeways as opposed to telling you when the next freeway merges with the one you're currently on.
There's a "suppress 'continue on the current road'" that I've got turned on, I'm afraid to find out what happens if I turn it off. If I have computer voices enabled it *also* tells me how long I'll stay on the current highway (total distance on that highway, not just to the next highway junction).

Can I pan on this thing? What if I want to see some streets a block over? I gotta drive there? (Might be a really easy feature I'm missing)
There's a "browse map" feature

The "link to speed" volume setting doesn't seem to work too well, wish I could adjust that. Would be clever if it had a mic, and could sense what volume it had to be at.
My 920 can act as a handsfree Bluetooth speakerphone but it seems like it's not using that microphone to calculate the appropriate volume.

Automatically connect to the remote control
That's on my list too.

My list
Menus that are not so deep. "Yes, I'm sure." "No, I still don't want to use the voice I recorded." "Yes, I still want the same voice settings." "Yes, I'm done with that menu." "Yes, I'm done with the menu under it too."

POI quick lookup. "I see there's a store a block over, but as far as I know, there's nothing like that over there. What's it supposed to be?" (tap on POI) "Oh! I never realized that was there; I'll have to remember that..."

Slide show on desktop. When I have my TomTom sitting on my desk in its cradle, I'd like to run the slide show, without turning off safety features ("you shouldn't look at your pictures while driving, so we'll turn that off for you... even when you're standing still"), without it trying to claim I should go 50 yards to my destination, and without the device turning itself off. In short, I should be able to make it my digital picture frame.

Screen off when playing music. I thought MP3 player support was a dumb feature on my last GPS. ...until I trained my daughter to sleep to the tune of lullabye music; now I use my GPS as my portable boom box when we travel. ...but unlike my last GPS, I can't play just music and turn off the screen. The battery is sucked dry trying to triangulate the location of my daughter's bed and showing the player screen.

Smarter traffic announcements. The on-ramp to highway 101 is called what? Highway 101 of course. ...and sometimes the offramp too if the road is split & shared. So "slow traffic on the highway one hundred one ess bee between highway one hundred one and highway one oh one, San Jose" -- that doesn't help me much. Between which highway *exits* is the slowdown?

Lesser wish -- I'd love to have a miles per gallon tracker so I can refine my fuel-saving driving patterns. Calculating at each fill-up is probably as close to real-time tracking as one could hope to get without the car reporting fuel usage live.

Sounds awesome! Any idea on a direct contact or should I just send it through their page?

Your best bet is an internal contact (I don't know of any) but their privacy policy says the support page is the best place to submit suggestions.

 

[Birdman]

I wish POIs had one more level of categorization....i.e. instead of just Restaurants, have something like Restaurants/Pizza, Restaurants/Itallian, Restaruants/Chinese, etc.

 

[dhn]

I wish the unit's firmware came with a back arrow for each of the preference screens.

 

[crash893]

I wish POIs had one more level of categorization....i.e. instead of just Restaurants, have something like Restaurants/Pizza, Restaurants/Itallian, Restaruants/Chinese, etc.

My garmin i5 had that very nice

1) auto on and off
2) auto day night settings
3)sub cats for poi
4)better 3rd party suport for installing and more importantly UNINSTALLING 3rd party poi and apps

 

[Ricochet]

I wish the unit's firmware came with a back arrow for each of the preference screens.

If you're into customizing menus, you can add a "Back" button to any menu page (although, it deprives you of one more icon slot, which means even more pages to scroll through...):

MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE{n-1}|"back.bmp"|"go back"

where, "TASK_PAGE{n-1}" is the number of the previous page, for example TASK_PAGE3 placed on Page 4.

Place the back.bmp image in the SDKRegistry folder. (I haven't tried this, but you can probably copy & reverse the existing 'Next" buttom in a graphics editing program).

R?

 

[Ricochet]

I recently switched to a ONE 3rd edition from a Garmin StreetPilot, which had a terrible user interface and few user preferences.

My top three TomTom ONE annoyances are:

1. Lack of Auto-power on/off. This missing feature was nearly a deal-breaker for me. With such a small battery capacity, I'm amazed that this unit doesn't have more comprehensive power management capabilities. At least the screen eventually powers off, when the source is removed.

2. No fixed zoom-level. Auto-zoom is probably helpful to some users, but is my line of work it's a hindrance. I've had to move the "2D View" button up in the menus, due to frequent use. IMO, auto/fixed zooming should be a configurable option.

3. No Left/Right Destination announcements, ie. "Drive 400 yards to destination on Left." This information is available, as checking the final "View Route as Images" slide shows the route arrow terminating to the left or right, beneath the "destination flag." Again, so much for 'hands-free' operations.

 

[james stone]

"2. No fixed zoom-level. Auto-zoom is probably helpful to some users, but is my line of work it's a hindrance. I've had to move the "2D View" button up in the menus, due to frequent use. IMO, auto/fixed zooming should be a configurable option."

I don't know about the ONE 3rd, but my 920 has the option to turn off "Auto Zoom". I usually set mine three levels back from default.

 

[Ricochet]

I don't know about the ONE 3rd, but my 920 has the option to turn off "Auto Zoom". I usually set mine three levels back from default.

I don't think it exists for the ONE. I've searched through a bunch of menu customization websites, as well as the 6.0 SDK docs. None of them have the name for this Task (or for power management, either).

R?

 

[Nacron]

1. Auto color switch from night to day. (I understand there's some hacks to do that)

2. It pronounes the entire full name of freeways. Instead of the "four-o-five" freeway it says the "four-hundred and five saun-ta-moan-uh-cuh freeway". Oh, and speaking of freeways, the "keep left" thing gets annoying, and I wish it would tell you the distance to when you have to change freeways as opposed to telling you when the next freeway merges with the one you're currently on.

3. Auto-turn-on when power is applied. It does the auto-turn-off, but pressing the little button for a few seconds (mind you, my TT is jammed in a little corner) is a hassle.

4. Can I pan on this thing? What if I want to see some streets a block over? I gotta drive there? (Might be a really easy feature I'm missing)

5. The "link to speed" volume setting doesn't seem to work too well, wish I could adjust that. Would be clever if it had a mic, and could sense what volume it had to be at. My aunt seems to have that feature when she comes over for dinner.

6. Sorry, this is just a rant. But seriously, give me traffic, and don't make me pay for it. You are already making me pay for the data you use through my phone, gimme the traffic. Oh weather? How nice, I could of found that on AM.

7. It seems that it oversimplifies the streets (maybe my zoom level), but I would like to see the names of more streets, there's a competitor that lets you set the detail level.

I'm a pretty savvy programmer, maybe I could just write these things if they're not out there.

Thanks in advance,
Andrew

The 720 can autoswitch from night to day based on the light from the car.

Go to settings > Brightness settings > check switch to night view when dark

 

[SkipP]

Unless I'm missing it, I wish my One XL had the altitude indication that my old Magellan 760 had.

 

[Ricochet]

Unless I'm missing it, I wish my One XL had the altitude indication that my old Magellan 760 had.

Iirc, TripMaster displays this info.

Here's a dedicated 3rd-party Altitude app on TomTom Heaven.

R?

 

[Gilbert]

I wish I could make a permanent road avoidance for routing. I also wish, for long trips, I could have a refueling warning. I could put the fuel consumption, gas tank capacity, warning level and be able to indicate refueling done. It could even turn on the Gas station POI warning with the low fuel warning.

 

[Ricochet]

I wish I could make a permanent road avoidance for routing.

Here's a thread about Navcore 8's "IQ Routing" which "learns" preferred routes (based on time of day & traffic conditions). No such luck with 7, tho: https://www.tomtomforums.com/showthread.php?t=9260

R?

 

[Gilbert]

Here's a thread about Navcore 8's "IQ Routing" which "learns" preferred routes (based on time of day & traffic conditions). No such luck with 7, tho: https://www.tomtomforums.com/showthread.php?t=9260

R?

AFAIK, IQ routing presently only recognizes workdays and weekends and not time of day. It does not allow you to ban a road from routing. I know roundabouts to prevent going thru a road but I'd like something permanent and not have to do it everytime I have a route going thru a certain road.

For instance there is a numbered road close to my home which is no different from the street next to mine. I'd rather not have the system constantly recalculating to get me on that numbered road as I don't want to use it cause it is a detour.

 

[Michael Quinlan]

I wish I could make a permanent road avoidance for routing. I also wish, for long trips, I could have a refueling warning. I could put the fuel consumption, gas tank capacity, warning level and be able to indicate refueling done. It could even turn on the Gas station POI warning with the low fuel warning.

Why not just use make a Map Share correction and block both directions of travel on that road? When asked if the change is permanent and valid for passenger cars, answer "NO". If you have your TT set to ask about sharing map corrections, you could also say "NO" there too. This way you can make changes to your own maps, but not propagate them into the Map Share system.

I do this to block roads where commercial vehicles are prohibited. Be advised though that your changes will be lost when you update to a newer map, and it can get tedious when there are many road segments. For limited-access roadways with defined entrances and exits, I usually just block either entrance or exit ramps, leaving no need to block the individual road segments.

 

[mrp]

What I wish for is a repeat last instructions button