Three different maps

[brianwatts99]

Hello Everyone,
I have been a user of TomTom devices for the last 12 years, not for day to day use, but for long holiday trips in Australia, NZ, France, Germany, Norway, Ireland, UK, Canada and USA. So I have a fairly good understanding of how everything works. Before I leave home I plan the trips using the MyDrive computer application, route by route, day by day, and save them all to My Routes and "synch the routes as tracks with my devices". I have a TomTom GO620, actually I have two GO620's, one to use and one for a spare, as it is no fun being overseas in a strange country, not knowing where you are, and your device stops working, been there, done that.

The problem is, and I think the problem is getting worse, the devices have a different base map to the MyDrive application. The MyDrive web application and the MyDrive phone app seem to have the same base map, but my GO620 shows a different base map - sometimes the roads are different and sometimes the roads are there, but the GO620 won't drive on them. And as for the TomTom GO phone and iPad app, it is a different map again. I know that it uses the NDS mapping, but it is disconcerting if you plan a map on MyDrive, then jump into a car and call the map up on the TomTom Go app, and it is different.

I remember when a planned stop was a stop. A the device used to warn you of its approach - maybe it was called a waypoint, but it was there. Now the only way to be warned of a stop is to have a lot of short routes (tracks) and every important stop was actually the end of the track. Formerly, you could plan a turn up a side street, or into a carpark, but now the device just ignores that and give no indication of the upcoming stop or the turn into the carpark.

For example, in May we'll be in Scotland and want to stop at Inverewe Gardens, which has a large carpark and the MyDrive application allows you to plan a route into the carpark, as shown:

The phone app shows this: On this occasion the phone app is the same as MyDrive (but without the stop 2 number), but on other occasions it may be different.

This next photo is the GO620 screen: The device lets you drive straight past the planned stop and doesn't utter a word.

Am I missing something? How do I get the TomTom GO620 device to navigate me into the carpark, other than plan a route to the carpark where the end of the route is the carpark. If I do that, I'll have 200 routes instead of 50.

I know I can go into MyDrive, select the route and go Edit > Send Stops, but that just sends the route as a route with stops, and the navigation process is a "join the dots" exercise where the navigation is the device's choice as to where you go, not your choice as per the originally planned route. This is totally different to the original User Manual and YouTubes that show planning a route, adding stops, dragging the route to a different scenic road, etc. And I can't do the "send stops" scenario unless I am in the same country.

As a device where you can preplan 50 routes in USA and Scotland for 25 days of driving and save them to My Routes, like I have done, and expect to be able to get in the car and go on the roads you have planned and stop at the places you want to stop at, well, the TomTom is basically a failure.

Or am I missing something?

Brian Watts

 

[canderson]

@brianwatts99

Classic vs. NDS maps continue to be a bit of a mystery. I have an 'open question' of sorts at TomTom right now to try to identify how the MapShare and MyDrive online maps square with either the Classic or NDS maps. I can't tell which of the online maps, if either, really represent a current baseline. The problem is that when reporting on the MapShare system, the problem you see may or may not appear there depending upon whether you are reporting a problem with the Classic or NDS map set. Makes me a little crazy. If I ever do get an answer, I'll definitely post it here.

Just beware - even when the maps appear to agree with regard to the base geometry, there are many features that are embedded in these maps that aren't visible (e.g., turn restrictions, road class, IQRoutes data, etc.) that might be different at any point in time, causing the routing routing engines (also different) to produce significantly different routes. Road class errors are the most pernicious. A decent 4 lane road can accidentally be classed as a 'goat track', and the routing engines will assign such time penalties to it that it will not be used for routing except under the most stringent circumstances - for example, your destination is ON that road!

You do, however, have a problem that must have a real answer, and that's shown in your screen shot from your GO 620. Are you saying you created a route with stops on the MyDrive web planner and the stop did not appear when the route transferred to your 620? Or was this planned on your phone. Or ???

 

[brianwatts99]

Canderson, thanks for your help. Yes, I only plan routes on the MyDrive web planner.

Back 4 or 5 years ago, planned stops stayed embedded in the route and were reflected on the TomTom device, I think the stops were called waypoints. The navigation instruction would be something like "you have reached your waypoint". The stops (or waypoints) were also visible on the vertical progress bar up the right side of the device screen.

Since then, when a route was synched with a device, the route (with stops) changed to a track (without stops). That's when I first realised that a route was different to a track, and these weren't interchangeable words. I think a track is the actual precise roads that was planned, but with no stops, and a route is a series of planned stops where the device decides what way to go between those stops, but completely ignoring your route planning.

And recently I've noticed that if you plan a stop down a side street, and that stop clearly shows up on the MyDrive web planner, the deviation down the side street, and the stop, completely vanish off the track on the device. The track line goes straight past the side street as if it didn't exist. Sort of like the example with photos I showed in the initial post. This didn't always used to happen.

I think that the TomTom product is no longer what is was. It might be OK for day to day going to and from work, etc, but it is not the product it alleged it was, which was something upon which a road trip could be planned with personally selected roads with nominated stops, and that precise route could be driven and the planned stops were shown on the device and announced as a part of the verbal instructions.

 

[canderson]

Bed time here in Colorado, but I'll get back to you tomorrow. I'd be surprised if TomTom called anything a waypoint -- although it's a very useful word with a very specific meaning. The *.gpx format that uses <wpt> tags really popularized it for GPS devices quite some years ago, but VERY few TomTom units know anything about a *.gpx file, and certainly not one that contains <wpt> data! Setting up waypoints alone means that a specific road not be followed, and that the routing engine can, for any given point in time (including the variables of traffic, road closures, time of day, etc.) pick the best route to get from one to the next.

The similar thing that TomTom USED to properly support on all of their devices were the *.itn files (itinerary files) that defined only the waypoints in a specific order. It's a bloody shame they've completely ignored those features for many years now - along with custom POI files, which at least manually, made a useful substitute if you named your points properly to indicate sequence. TomTom was once a truly feature rich product. Not so much these days. That's what happens when some people in this business drive desks and don't own cars. That's not how it works in Olathe, believe me. TomTom may be ahead in many ways on the data side, but not the hardware side.

 

[brianwatts99]

Yes Canderson, the word "waypoint" is not used in any manual or on the web planner, but if I plan a route with stops on the MyDrive planner, then hit the "Send Stops" button, I end up with the route as a route (not a track) on my GO620 and when navigated, as each stop is passed, the verbal navigation says "you have reached your waypoint".

That is the only way that stops which are planned in a TomTom route actually get a mention. If you activate the slider on the MyDrive web planner for "Sync this route as a track with my devices", the stops remain on the planner, but disappear and do not appear on the device, and are ignored by the navigation. Therefore the claims by TomTom that you can plan a route with personally selected roads and planned stops that are announced during the navigation process are totally false.

Actually, you have a choice of two options:

1. Hit the "Send Stops" button on the planner and get a route with your planned stops (that are announced as waypoints) but the roads used between stops are selected by the device and may be different to the roads you planned, OR

2. Activate the "Sync this route as a track with my devices" slider and get a track with the roads you wanted, and basically going via the stops you planned (unless the stops are up a side street) but the problem being that the stops are kept a secret from you.

The MyDrive web planner and TomTom device navigation could be brilliant for extensive travel planning with dozens of saved routes with scenic tourist drives and points of interest, but it really falls short and everything becomes a compromise.