Recommendations for GPS units and mounting options

Your inane comment has nothing to do with my wow. My "wow" has to do with a good value for money over time for the poster.

That you want to use dated overpriced hardware with no future it is your choice.
Thousands of riders know better.
OP wanted a cost effective solution - an older iPhone represents that as well as having mulitple other uses.

In other times the term luddite comes to mind when it comes to resisting moving forward with change..
Lots of people still use paper maps after all...

Even Garmin knows it's glory days are long past...

Not only have smartphones seen record-beating adoption among consumers (see “Are Smart Phones Spreading Faster than Any Technology in Human History?”), they have also become the Swiss Army knives of consumer electronics, doing a decent job at dozens of tasks once reserved for specialized hardware like cameras and GPS systems.
The effects on Garmin’s business have been withering. The company is worth less than a third of what it was in 2007, and its sales have shrunk by 15 percent. “It’s not a mystery that the personal navigation market is in a period of decline,” says Dawn Iddings, Garmin’s vice president for business development. “Mobile has permeated each one of our markets.”
Hardest hit have been Garmin’s sales of GPS devices for vehicle dashboards, also its biggest line of business. Sales in its automobile and mobile division fell 6 percent last year, to $1.5 billion, and the company predicts a bigger drop of 15 to 20 percent in the next 12 months.
Even so, Garmin has fought a successful rear-guard action by grabbing business from other GPS firms, launching top-shelf products for sportsmen and sailors, and diversifying. (In 2011, for example, it acquired a company that makes GPS-enabled training collars for dogs.)All that has served to cushion what the company calls an unstoppable decline in demand for stand-alone GPS devices. “It’s still a really large market,” Iddings says, “but I wouldn’t want to be number 2 or number 3 [in personal navigation] at this point, that’s for sure.”
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http://www.technologyreview.com/news/511786/a-shrinking-garmin-navigates-the-smartphone-storm/

I'm sure they appreciate your undying loyalty in their decline. :rolleyes:
 
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MacDoc said:
Your inane comment has nothing to do with my wow. My "wow" has to do with a good value for money over time for the poster.

That you want to use dated overpriced hardware with no future it is your choice.
Thousands of riders know better.
OP wanted a cost effective solution - an older iPhone represents that as well as having mulitple other uses.

In other times the term luddite comes to mind when it comes to moving forward with change..
Lots of people still use paper maps after all...

Even Garmin knows it's glory days are long past...


http://www.technologyreview.com/news/511786/a-shrinking-garmin-navigates-the-smartphone-storm/

I'm sure they appreciate your undying loyalty in their decline. :rolleyes:
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I've played with smartphone nav programs, having used dual sport maps, Google nav, Bell Mobility nav, and lately Garmin Viago.

I'd buy a Garmin dedicated nav product before relying solely on my smartphone. That's just me and the lack of cell towers where I want to ride, and the fact that my gps is waterproof and has multiple power options. And I'm comparing a decade old 60cx with a Samsung Galaxy S3.

Just my two cents.
 
And macdoc returns with his preacher like habits -- when you don't agree with him about iPhones, burgmans, then you must be a luddite or too worried about your image or care too much about about a mechanical clutch, etc.

Wouldn't the world be a pretty boring place if we were all just like you mac?

I, for one, like my dedicated waterproof GPS on my bike that I leave on my bike. I turn the key and the GPS is on and tracking. I can wear any glove and still press the screen or buttons. So simple. So perfect for me. But I know it is blasphemous in the church of macdoc.
 
I prefer paper maps to my gps. With a quick glace of a map, I can come up with a great route. On a GPS, I need to zoom in, zoom out, scroll from screen to screen.
 
matthew said:
I prefer paper maps to my gps. With a quick glace of a map, I can come up with a great route. On a GPS, I need to zoom in, zoom out, scroll from screen to screen.
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Truth is many seasoned motorcycle riders use paper maps. My friends that tour on motorcycles either use paper maps or gps units. Some use both. I use GPS as a moving map and almost always have the voice muted so for me it is effectively a moving map centred on my current location.

..Tom
 
V-Tom said:
Truth is many seasoned motorcycle riders use paper maps. My friends that tour on motorcycles either use paper maps or gps units. Some use both. I use GPS as a moving map and almost always have the voice muted so for me it is effectively a moving map centred on my current location.

..Tom
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this is the way it is for me! Paper maps and gps together works great. I can't stand the voice navigation - much prefer uninterrupted music.
 
shanekingsley said:
this is the way it is for me! Paper maps and gps together works great. I can't stand the voice navigation - much prefer uninterrupted music.
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Voice nav? What's that?

I use paper and Google maps to plot a route, then I convert it to a track and load up my gps with the track. It's accurate within about 40 metres, and over a 600km day on a preplanned route leading seven other bikes in New Brunswick I made three wrong turns caught within the first 300 metres while riding the Dawn to Dusk rally.

I doubt you could do that with a smartphone, but I could be wrong.
 
The only time I let the GPS calculate a route for me is when I'm tired and I press the "Go Home" button; aside from that I always use a paper map and just use the GPS as a moving map to feed my ADD.

I dont know how a smart phone functions, but unless they have a built in GPS receiver, I would hate to rely on one based off of cellular network coverage.
 
if it's good enough to run the Baja course.....

eno
Posts: 1579
Joined: 12/30/2010
Location: San Clemente, CA USA

1/22/2014 8:11 PM


Peelout- I know you said no phones, BUT...

I pre-ran the Baja 1000 with an iPhone 5 mounted on the handlebars in a Ram case. I use the $1.99 Motion X GPS app.
This setup is amazing, and IMO blows away the Garmin eTrex that my friends use.

Here's my top-five favorites with this setup:

1. Maps are free. You can load topo and satellite images.
2. Works outside of cellular range.
3. Send and receive track logs via email- no cable or laptop needed.
4. Color display is large enough to view at a glance while on the bike.
5. Send and receive text messages while riding!



For power I use a USB power port mounted to the front of the triple clamp. It's hard-wired to the battery. It's actually a product that I'll be selling on my website starting next week.
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MacDoc said:
if it's good enough to run the Baja course.....
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For power I use a USB power port mounted to the front of the triple clamp. It's hard-wired to the battery. It's actually a product that I'll be selling on my website starting next week.
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No vested interest there....


..Tom
 
Rotten_Ronnie said:
To each his own.

I assume his app can handle gpx files and tracks then.
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It doesn't need to.. It can give voice commands when hiding from the elements in a glovebox! :)

..Tom
 
I use a Garmin 660 now. It's expensive but it does the job. I hate Garmin - they have the worst product testing and earlier this year they bricked my unit with an update. Luckily they replaced it free even though it was out of warranty. If any of you guys want to keep updates on the Garmin products theres a good independent forum called "zumo forums" that gives the low down on all things garmin.
 
kiwi said:
I use a Garmin 660 now. It's expensive but it does the job. I hate Garmin - they have the worst product testing and earlier this year they bricked my unit with an update. Luckily they replaced it free even though it was out of warranty. If any of you guys want to keep updates on the Garmin products theres a good independent forum called "zumo forums" that gives the low down on all things garmin.
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I only did the last update for the Zumo because the reports were that it fixed some bluetooth playback issues that I was having, which it did. I won't be updating the software anymore on my 660, everything works perfectly, from navigation to music playback.
 
wonderings said:
I only did the last update for the Zumo because the reports were that it fixed some bluetooth playback issues that I was having, which it did. I won't be updating the software anymore on my 660, everything works perfectly, from navigation to music playback.
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It was the one before that was bricking the 660. Worked out ok for me as I only update when not in critical use
 
kiwi said:
It was the one before that was bricking the 660. Worked out ok for me as I only update when not in critical use
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I have had updates completely mess up my bluetooth streaming. Music pausing every 30 seconds or so, very annoying. So now that it is all running perfectly I am not going to do any updates unless they add some must have feature, but I am not counting on that.

Thankfully you can go back to an older version if the update does mess up your unit.
 
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