GPS Alternative

Top bars a little more manageable. But the street names need to be way larger. I got the speed limit and highways signs to small already. And I do run it in landscape.

I do agree with wheelman. I don’t care about seeing odometer or the distance to the waypoint. Should be able to toggle what we would prefer. I just like eta and distance. I can live with time remaining. But compass I don’t need either

 

That side bar you swipe to access during nav menu. Another very useful feature would be to add option to show hazmat on it. Someone who pulls hazmat every other load it’s so much easier to swipe click and go. Can easily toggle it on or off and choose classes without having to keep go into the setting and truck profile

 

>>>Bottom left corner. it tells you which way you are pointing.
its right above your time to destination

that's another spot that could be smaller and could be used for something else.

 

One issue i have notice which to me i find annoying at the very least and sometimes a major issue. in my directions the SM2 will announce and show a name (exit or street) that is NOT on the signs. For example it seems to love to give me street names instead of saying Rte 60. or it will give me a name for an exit that is not on the sign and didn't give me a number so i have to watch the count down distance and hope i did it right and there are times when there are 2 or 3 turns close and i guess wrong. I do send in reports when i find these, but honestly use the State Rt # or interstate # instead of a street name. those are way more common on the signs.

 

I run a smartphone, 3 tablets and a standalone GPS. I'm not real thrilled with SmartTruckRoute II but it's viable. My main complaint would be it's interface. It's just not real user friendly while moving. It's mostly set it and forget it. It's routes are not the best but it can find about anywhere, even when given the wrong town and company name. That being like Xpo versus Conway and rural locations not technically in any town, but close to several. Running west of the Mississippi that live connection is an issue as well.

The single feature I like best is showing hour markers on the map. Coming out of sw Kansas can I make Davenport? Not even close short on my 70. I haven't found a good trip planning tool but that feature helps a lot. You can set speeds for routing and etas. Real trip planning requires setting stop minimum durations, I. E. 30/10, maximum run durations, I. E. 8/11, must arrive/depart by times and such which seems to only be found in combination with elogs.

Honestly though I mostly just use the bottom bar. My Garmin Dezl and Copilot just do much better with navigation assistance. Yeah it's got lane indicators but that's about it. Copilot has the best traffic. It just has a bar showing the next 75+ miles of your route shaded to show congestion with an estimate of total delay. That's just a great way of doing it. It also let's you zoom the entire route and leave it there as well as a split view showing the next several turns.

The biggest drawback with SmartTruckRoute II is that interface. Why do I have to hit navigate? Because to do anything else I have to exit navigation and use little tiny menus and dialogs. Once rolling it's useless. Lots would be useful except for the small "feature" of running off the road trying to use it. If I could get to it what is the point of the next 75 miles? I'm looking for a stop 100-500 miles out. Even with 2 70 gallon tanks low on fuel means next 100-200 miles.

The most important part is it works. It's a good tool, you can rely on it. Every GPS has errors which is why I run three of them. They certainly put the effort into maintaining their maps so it's no worse than any other GPS and better than many. Most complaints I have about routing isn't invalid routes just ill advised routes. Like routing me down the Dan Ryan to save 10 miles in rush hour. It is legal but it is also a really bad choice.

 

I'm going to try that. I currently own a really old iPad, Gen 2 I think, so it doesn't exactly do well on the new OS and the corresponding apps. I've had many issues with my Rand McNally TND, and it would even spontaneously change the route as though I had somehow mysteriously gone off route somewhere and do that thing mentioned above where it will run you around several blocks or around an entire county instead of going to the destination. That is, if it can accept an address in the first place. I quit using it when I was getting GPS coordinates from Google Maps to type into it. Mostly it is just good for an approximate ETA once I set the destination, and has a fairly cool dashboard feature that I found a bit handy. Otherwise, it's like someone said: $500 decoration, more trouble than it's worth. My experiences with customer service were the same also, frustrating and pointless. I recently hooked it up to the computer after 2 years and put updates on it, but I haven't tried it out yet to see if they even helped. If it doesn't then it's going to the thrift store. I'll just put that app on a new tablet and see how it works out.

 

I love hearing the ol timers complain about GPS. Show me a atlas that has restrictions, closures, detours, traffic conditions, etc. I'll wait

 

>> Wow, I had reported the sudden rerouting to Mark well over a year ago thought i was going nuts. Glad to see someone else had the same issue. Welcome to the world of Current GPS