POI Addresses

[MiniTransAm]

Hey there.

Just wondering if anyone has found a way to view the address of a POI they are about to select. In other words, if I want to find a gas station, is there anyway to see the address of said gas station before routing to it and then looking at the map?

 

[digital-flex]

Hey there.

Just wondering if anyone has found a way to view the address of a POI they are about to select. In other words, if I want to find a gas station, is there anyway to see the address of said gas station before routing to it and then looking at the map?

I don't think so. Really all the POI's are is a bunch of coordinates, that's all the device cares about in order to route you to the exact location. In order for the address to show is the edit the actually POI name.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Pedro2NR]

Sorry NO.
This can only be done with custom POIs.

 

[The Spook]

You can see the location on a map though!? That is better than having the address. Addresses are not absolute references to a location, coordinates are!

Addresses are only used as a poor substitute to coordinates.

If you want to see where a gas station is located, just go to 'browse map' and then 'find' the gas station. It will be shown on the map.

 

[Pedro2NR]

Bingo!!!!!!!

 

[ThePhantom]

You can see the location on a map though!? That is better than having the address. Addresses are not absolute references to a location, coordinates are!

Addresses are only used as a poor substitute to coordinates.

If you want to see where a gas station is located, just go to 'browse map' and then 'find' the gas station. It will be shown on the map.

The OP's question is valid. I have attempted to 'find' <pick your favorite retailer> near me, only to end up with a lengthy list that's distance-based from my location, with no discernable differnence between them. This causes and endless hunt-n-peck to locate a particular POI in a specific location. 'Browse map' doesn't cut it, as (at least in Navigator 6) you can't limit it to the portion of the map that you're currently viewing.

While my experience with TomTom has been fantastic, its limitations in this respect are a definite shortfall. Perhaps that's the tradeoff for its quick response and ease of use -- but I'll make no excuses for it...


<edit>

I think the OP would like to be able to browse the map showing the POI(s) searched for PRIOR to navigating to it. I think that would be sensible -- and short of entire POI categories, there appears to be no way to do that.

 

[lec510]

If you compare POI files , TomTom's OV2 is way smaller than any other manufacture's equivalence.
That way you can load tons of POI without being tied down by the size of the card. Quantity before quality.
On the other hand, TomTom show the phone #, while some other can't. If you read the Battom post about getting lost in NH, you will realize that phone # is much more important than address.

 

[digital-flex]

Yes, the phone number is important because you can just call them.

I think though the OP just wants to know the address of the POI before even navigating or before chosing the POI.

The thing is because TomTom has general categories such as 'Resturant' they need to include the name of the resturant as a description as oppose to the address because you want to know the place your eating at.

The only way for the address to show up is to have a custom POI, where you can make a category 'Burger King' and when you choose that category you know all the items will be listed are Burger King Resturants. The descriptions will be the address.

All the custom POI's (at least the ones I downloaded or made) are like that, having the address as the description.

 

[bobaloolie]

The fact is both Magellan and Garmin display immediately upon selection the POI information: both phone number and address. TomTom does not, and I agree that that's a shortcoming. There are various reasons for needing this, and it should be available.

 

[Giorgio57]

POI address

Sorry NO.
This can only be done with custom POIs.

Actually you can! As someone said you can browse map and you can see the road it is on all you have to do is tap close to the Icon and it shoud give you a house number (you may be off a few house numbers) but it is in the general area. example the Gas Station poi is on 2010 Main St. but it's not on the poi info if you tap next to it even if there is no other icons a bunch of house numbers will pop up lets say 1900-2000
so you know that the gas station is in the Vicinity of 1900-2000 Main st.

Giorgio

 

[bobaloolie]

Well, yes, you're right Giorgio---and I've tried this. But talk about a lot of fiddling to get an address that's not even accurate, if in fact you need an accurate address for whatever purpose (such as simply knowing what street the POI is on, which is fairly useful when locating a few nearby destinations or passing info along to someone else). It's also several pages to finally bring up the POI, then zooming in to the right size to locate the cursor near it, etc. etc. And once you've lost the initial POI location, you have to go back and research it to bring it up again.

Garmin and Magellan have made it very straight forward in only a few taps. There is no reason that TomTom simply can't have a window pop up before going to the map which shows the address, phone number, and option to dial (bluetooth) right there... unless of course, they don't have that info. And what I'm finding out with these new maps is that there seems to be A LOT of info missing that is on Garmin and Magellan (missing POI's like major tourist attractions, rest stops, exits, etc. etc... but that's another thread...)

The good news is that some of the custom POI databases that people are making themselves and posting on the internet contain addresses and phone numbers. It's a step closer. TomTom will catch up to this I'm pretty sure. GPS is very competitive right now.

 

[The Spook]

'Browse map' doesn't cut it, as (at least in Navigator 6) you can't limit it to the portion of the map that you're currently viewing.

What?? If you have the POI in question activated they will be clearly visible in '..the portion of the map you are currently viewing.'! The one nearest to your position is the one nearest you.

I think the OP would like to be able to browse the map showing the POI(s) ...

This is exactly what you can do.

I still can't understand why anyone could possibly need the postal address, unless you plan to book ahead by mail.


BTW, that's a very original handle you have there 'The Phantom'!

 

[ThePhantom]

What?? If you have the POI in question activated they will be clearly visible in '..the portion of the map you are currently viewing.'! The one nearest to your position is the one nearest you.

This is exactly what you can do.

Again -- having the POI CATEGORY activated when map browsing is useless in many metro areas, as there seems to be an upper limit of concurrently displayed icons. If I'm looking for, say, Target (which is in the 'Shop category', whose dataset is like drinking from a firehose) -- having the displayed POI icons limited to my search would solve the problem, and would not increase the POI dataset.

I recently ran into a situation where the 'nearest' stores were well out of the way of my intended direction. In addition, 'POI along route' appears to have some fairly tight tolerances that won't display such things reliably. The result was endless pecking at each generically-listed POI in succession, only to look at the planned route to determine that it wasn't where I wanted to go.

It's a simple problem to fix -- and perhaps that's what a future version is for... In the meantime, I'm not going to make up "who on earth would want to do that" excuses.

I still can't understand why anyone could possibly need the postal address, unless you plan to book ahead by mail.

Perhaps the OP can chime in here, as I don't want to put words in their mouth. But I think the question was misphrased. I don't think the intent was to have a phonebook-like absolute address database of every POI. But to have some further indication of a POI (something more than simply its name) would be nice.

BTW, that's a very original handle you have there 'The Phantom'!

Apparently, it's original enough to have it registered here

 

[MiniTransAm]

My issue arose when I was trying to find a particular gas station. I'm a Sunoco whore and put that in my car whenever possible. Since I'm still getting used to my new ONE I figured I would try to find the gas station I already knew I was going to. So I pulled up the POI menu and the closest gas station was listed as a Getty mart or something like that.

Then the idea came to me, if I knew at the very least the road that getty mart was on, I could probably figure out if that was the gas station I wanted, even if TomTom had the name wrong. I have noticed that sometimes when I select the "POI along my route" option, it will display some stuff that's WAY out of my way. Sometimes as much as 15 mins. That's not really along my route if you ask me.

Another good example of using this would be if your between 2 POI's of the same name. For example walmart or another business. You could then pick the one that's less out of your way (assuming you have general idea of where they both are).

Hope that made my question a bit more clear. Thanks for all the responses so far. So far my ONE has been great even though it completely blew navigating me to a place today. Oh well, nothing is perfect.

 

[digital-flex]

My issue arose when I was trying to find a particular gas station. I'm a Sunoco whore and put that in my car whenever possible. Since I'm still getting used to my new ONE I figured I would try to find the gas station I already knew I was going to. So I pulled up the POI menu and the closest gas station was listed as a Getty mart or something like that.

Then the idea came to me, if I knew at the very least the road that getty mart was on, I could probably figure out if that was the gas station I wanted, even if TomTom had the name wrong. I have noticed that sometimes when I select the "POI along my route" option, it will display some stuff that's WAY out of my way. Sometimes as much as 15 mins. That's not really along my route if you ask me.

Another good example of using this would be if your between 2 POI's of the same name. For example walmart or another business. You could then pick the one that's less out of your way (assuming you have general idea of where they both are).

Hope that made my question a bit more clear. Thanks for all the responses so far. So far my ONE has been great even though it completely blew navigating me to a place today. Oh well, nothing is perfect.

Actually that's a good point. When I go out in downtown Toronto, to let say a clothing store or a bar, my TT1 will definitely get me there. However downtown parking is brutal and hard to find. When I pull up the parking category it will give me choices such as 'Impark' or 'Imperial Parking' both of a distance of 85 meters. It would be nice to know the address of the parking lot because maybe I want to park at the parking lot on the same street as the store or place.

 

[lec510]

Hi Digital:
I would solve your problem this way: 1- browse map 2- locate your bar 3- you'll see your bar plus the two parking lots, tap the parking lot you want 4- tap the cursor 5- tap 'Navigate there'

 

[digital-flex]

Hi Digital:
I would solve your problem this way: 1- browse map 2- locate your bar 3- you'll see your bar plus the two parking lots, tap the parking lot you want 4- tap the cursor 5- tap 'Navigate there'

Hey lec510,

Yes that does work, but what if you have POI icons pilled on top of each other? It could be very frustarting to try and tap the one you want.

Filter the number of POI's shown you say, well that's just more work. I think it's just a matter of preference really. IMHO, I agree with the OP in that I would find it very helpful in having the address shown when selecting the POI.

 

[MiniTransAm]

Since TomTom does keep track of these forums perhaps this thread will catch their attention and this can be done in later releases of the product. Maybe they'll be nice enough to include an easter egg that gives us or the website credit