POI Question

[Larry Laffer]

Have a recent 2535M in the car. Have taken it out to AZ on vacation and this is the first time I have been able to use some of the options. Traffic works fine as well as traffic cams etc but there seems to be a shortfall in the POI search Dept.

My wife loves her old Garbage... I mean Garmin.... But I have to admit it has a distinct advantage when looking for restaurants.

With hers we can search for different types... Italian, Chinese, Seafood... whatever. I can't seem to find such an option with the 2535M. Conversely there is always a lot of TomTom bashing going on. I can also find POIs using my telephone's Sprint navigation that do not show up with the TomTom.

Any ideas on how to improve this situation???

Thanks,

 

[Andy_P]

Where are you based?
In Europe, the built-in POIs are very poor and like you say, you only get one category for "restaurants" (and that seems to be mainly fast food rubbish!)
But I thought in the US it was better and you did have sub-sections for different restaurant types.

But what most people tend to do is supplement the built-in POIs with third-party ones for whatever fields they are interested in.

If you let us know where you are, someone can probably come up with some ideas for POI websites that might have what you want.

 

[- et -]

Where are you based?
In Europe, the built-in POIs are very poor and like you say, you only get one category for "restaurants" (and that seems to be mainly fast food rubbish!)
But I thought in the US it was better and you did have sub-sections for different restaurant types.

But what most people tend to do is supplement the built-in POIs with third-party ones for whatever fields they are interested in.

If you let us know where you are, someone can probably come up with some ideas for POI websites that might have what you want.

Personally, I find that the "POI-Factory" web site has a good selection of specialty POI files for the US and Canada in almost every imaginable category, with the data supplied by the general public like you and me. I have several food POI files from there on my unit, including "Mom & Pop Family Cafes", "Independent BBQ Restaurants", etc. and have contributed several locations there from my personal experience.

The address is:

POI Factory | new & interesting places for your GPS

With best wishes,
- Tom -

 

[Larry Laffer]

Thank you...

Thanks for your replies. I live in Rhode Island but right now I am in Arizona for a few more days. I will look into that web site as it sounds GREAT but I don't know if anything can be added to the 2535M unit. Perhaps someone with some great insight would care to join in???

 

[Andy_P]

I don't know if anything can be added to the 2535M unit. Perhaps someone with some great insight would care to join in???

Will I do?

Yes you CAN add these third-party POIs to your 2535.
It's done using the MyTomTom PC/Mac software, and the bit you're looking for is "Add community content".

So first, you need to download MyTomTom from the TT website here:
https://tomtom.com/en_gb/mytomtom/getstarted/

Once it's installed and running, you then need to click on the icon in the PC's system tray (next to the clock) and select "Add community content"

From there, you will get a browser screen (yes, it uses your web browser...) that looks something like this:

(as you can see, I've already added some speed camera warnings for the UK from PocketGPSWorld.com)

Click on the "Add POI" box and you can add all the .ov2 data files AND the .bmp icons AND for things like speed camera POIs you can also add warning voices in .ogg audio file format.

It's not immediately obvious on the file selection window, but you can click and drag (or hold the 'Ctrl' key down and click) to select multiple files for uploading at the same time; but apparently this sometimes won't work if you use Internet explorer as your browser. It works fine in Firefox, Opera etc.

 

[Larry Laffer]

Wow

Thanks for all that info and even a pictorial!!! This will certainly help things tremendously.

Still looking for a way to have the restaurants divided into categories. Any insight into that happening or is it just Garmin that has those capabilities???

 

[- et -]

Thanks for all that info and even a pictorial!!! This will certainly help things tremendously.

Still looking for a way to have the restaurants divided into categories. Any insight into that happening or is it just Garmin that has those capabilities???

Any GPS that allows you to upload your own POI files would have this capability - although it is actually implemented by separating restaurants into categories prior to upload to the GPS. On the GPS itself, you just call up the appropriate POI file, such as "Family BBQ", for example.

If you go to the POI-Factory web site, you can go to their page for restaurants at:

http://www.poi-factory.com/taxonomy/term/7

As you will see there, they currently have 874 categories of restaurants, many of which are just local to a limited area, but many of which are nationwide.

As a different approach, some of the TomTom models have LIVE services that include Google search. With that, you can specify your requirements as with any Google search and it will return the results in order based upon distance from the reference point. The reference point can be your current position, your destination, a specified city, etc. I am not familiar enough with the capabilities of the various TomTom models to know if your particular unit can include the LIVE services such as Google - for which there is an annual fee.

 

[Andy_P]

HaHa, yes I was too focussed on POIs and forgot to mention the Google search if your's is a LIVE-capable model. Much easier!

If you continue with the restaurant POI search, you might find a little utility program called "POIEdit" useful if you need to merge several POI files together or split them up into separate ones.

You can download it from http://www.poiedit.com/downloads.htm but DON'T accidentally download "MyPOIManager" using the blue button at the top - that's just an advert.
Use one of the white download links below.

 

[Larry Laffer]

Thanks again

I appreciate the assistance from both of you. I do have the TOMTOM 2535M which has Google and the live options. I did not try to use google as a restaurant specific search engine but I will give it a try.

POI editor will not install on my Win7 64 bit computer though. I get errors upon installation so it appears that the program will not be an option for me.

I will try getting into the unit with My TomTom after I get back home.

Another thing I have noticed is that on a few occasions the device has taken me in a round about route to a location even though I have the fastest route chosen as default. Probably just due to the complexities of electronics!

 

[- et -]

POI editor will not install on my Win7 64 bit computer though. I get errors upon installation so it appears that the program will not be an option for me.

There are alternative free editors available. There is one called "Extra_POI_Editor" that is very popular among people who frequent the POI-Factory web site. Its author is active there, and helps people through the installation process if they encounter any issues. He is also open to suggestions for additional capabilities and improvements.

BTW, most of the people who are active on the POI-Factory web site appear to have Garmins, and sometimes they offer advice that is Garmin-specific without mentioning that it may not apply to other makes of GPS. That should not be a real problem as long as you keep this in mind.

Another thing I have noticed is that on a few occasions the device has taken me in a round about route to a location even though I have the fastest route chosen as default. Probably just due to the complexities of electronics!

I have had that happen, and after thinking about the specific routing, I realized what was happening. The GPS was using speed values for the freeway and surface streets that made it quicker to drive in the opposite direction from my destination, because that put me on the freeway about a mile earlier, and also avoided a couple of stop lights. I would drive farther, but in slightly less time.

 

[faw13]

That is called IQ Routes i guess and works funnly good, it collects data from you and all TT users, when you connect your device it shares those info with TT and TT sends those data to other users so, even if you dont have TMC (which we dont have here at Turkey yet) its a good alternative to pass through traffice jams (its not live but if a road gets jammed at 3pm every weekday for the last 50 days, it will get jammed at 51st too, the system depends on this)

for example yesterday i was taking my car to my home back from my car service i was on a motorway as TT suggested then suddenly it took me out of the road to the sideway i thought it was gonna take me from another main street but no, it took me from the sideway back to the motorway saving me at least 10 mins if i went straight on, i would be in the middle of a jam while the sideway is empty so it took that course

and it depends muchly on traffic lights, if a road is 4km but has 5 traffic lights on the way, and the alternate one is 6km but no lights on the road, you will probably be on your destionation much quicker on the 6km way compared to the 4km one

 

[Andy_P]

I'm afraid you've got it a bit wrong about IQ Routes, Faw13....

Yes, TomTom collects information about road conditions such as the different travel times at different times of the day and EMBEDS that historical data into the map which you have installed on the device. So each new map version will have better information about the best route to choose.

But it doesn't send that data to other TomToms when you connect them (I think you're thinking of MapShare which is a very different thing?).
The only way you get updated IQ Routes info is by buying a newer map.

If you want to get CURRENT up-to-date traffic conditions you either need an RDS-TMC receiver, or a TT model that has the "LIVE" Services including HD Traffic.

 

[faw13]

I'm afraid both are not available here, well it should collect some data and send them to TT to collect that information, even if they include in the next map update, like i said i dont have both rds-tmc and hd live traffic but it took a different route today on a road other than it suggested on saturday, and again saved lots of time, the road was empty on saturday but jammed today

map share is about closed, under repair, temporary closed roads bla bla afaik, even if it loads iq routes data with a new map, it should collect info from users right?

 

[Andy_P]

Yes, that's right.
Usage data is uploaded, but only gets used for IQ routing info for the next map.

IQ *does* store different info for different times of day and days of the week, so that should explain your routing change.