Navigation engine (destinator) experiences and feedback

[DJCannonball]

Originally Posted by HiJack

Flux left cr@pinator in CF, but they also included a new powerful plugin that can easily embed most popular NAV engines. Me I am opting to go with Navmii, they are the only Nav engine company that wants to work with Flux, when it comes to licensing. That is the issue as of now, companies like Sygic do not want to work with Flux because Flux isnt a big enough company. I like Navmii because it is in progress, like CF, so they can add things to cater to us. Flux has stated that once CF3.0 is out, they will start talks with GeoLife (Navmii) to replace Destinator with Navmii instead. Lets just hope everything goes as planned. As mentioned before though, anyone that currently has CF Nav edition, will not have to buy CF3 Nav edition. Instead you would simply copy the Map Folder from CF2 into the map folder for CF3.

http://forums.fluxmedia.net/centrafu...f3-navmii.html
Sygic Feedback

ah that's some good news! Cr@pinator it is... LOL thanx

[DJCannonball]

Originally Posted by mphilip876

Nice information given. Every marketer’s dream is to capture the true global sucess. Search engine optimization, language barriers and cultural issues are key blocks to realizing that dream.

not only Search engine optimization and language stuff, but also routing!
destinator often gives me strange routes, not very handy.

[Rockabye74]

I have just started using Centrafuse, and I have to admit that I am less than pleased with the navigation, and since that is one of the main reasons I use my CarPC, I find it disturbing that the company knowing that there are serious issues here have not responded better to this issue.

All I was trying to do was to plan a route between my house in Virginia and a Campground in South Carolina. 30 minutes later while sitting in my truck, I had a route defined from somewhere in Florida to South Carolina and I wasn't sure how Florida ever got involved.

At this point I feel as a consumer, that I have completely wasted the extra money that I spent to purchase the Nav option, and wish that I had just stayed with my prior solution. I truly don't mean to disrespect the company or the product, but as a software developer I understand that the first impression of a piece of software can make or break a company. In addition, the consumer looks to see how the company responds to consumer feedback, and to find that 3.0 does nothing to address the poor nav issues, well that locks it up for me. I will chalk this up as a learning experience, but I truly doubt that without attention to the Nav component that I will ever buy this product with the nav option again, nor recommend it to anyone else.

I will say this however, that if you guys could get a nav engine that works as well as the rest of your application, you would dominate the CarPC market.

[HiJack]

Originally Posted by Rockabye74

I have just started using Centrafuse, and I have to admit that I am less than pleased with the navigation, and since that is one of the main reasons I use my CarPC, I find it disturbing that the company knowing that there are serious issues here have not responded better to this issue.

All I was trying to do was to plan a route between my house in Virginia and a Campground in South Carolina. 30 minutes later while sitting in my truck, I had a route defined from somewhere in Florida to South Carolina and I wasn't sure how Florida ever got involved.

At this point I feel as a consumer, that I have completely wasted the extra money that I spent to purchase the Nav option, and wish that I had just stayed with my prior solution. I truly don't mean to disrespect the company or the product, but as a software developer I understand that the first impression of a piece of software can make or break a company. In addition, the consumer looks to see how the company responds to consumer feedback, and to find that 3.0 does nothing to address the poor nav issues, well that locks it up for me. I will chalk this up as a learning experience, but I truly doubt that without attention to the Nav component that I will ever buy this product with the nav option again, nor recommend it to anyone else.

I will say this however, that if you guys could get a nav engine that works as well as the rest of your application, you would dominate the CarPC market.

feel your pain, but CF3 will have better nav integration for other engines. I am going with Navmii, which hopefully if Flux media and Geolife strike a deal, will replace Destinator. I am also eying Garmin because it has live traffic routing via internet, which is spmething I like.

[Reagan]

@Rockabye74 - Totally understood and agree w/ everything you said. Destinator is okay for getting around town, but really falls down when it needs to cross maps. Unfortunately, this is as good as we can do right now, so we're not letting this slow us down for the next gen of our software, and will continue to offer Destinator as something is better than nothing. Moreover in 3.0 we've made navigation an open interface whereby any .NET developer w/ the proper API will be able to write their own, which will mean more Nav "engines" for CF3 should become available soon.

[HiJack]

Originally Posted by Reagan

@Rockabye74 - Totally understood and agree w/ everything you said. Destinator is okay for getting around town, but really falls down when it needs to cross maps. Unfortunately, this is as good as we can do right now, so we're not letting this slow us down for the next gen of our software, and will continue to offer Destinator as something is better than nothing. Moreover in 3.0 we've made navigation an open interface whereby any .NET developer w/ the proper API will be able to write their own, which will mean more Nav "engines" for CF3 should become available soon.

Its not even good around town!!!!!!! The routing is so bad. To get to my house going in a straight line, Destinator will send me 2 miles around to get to the same point, turning a 2 minute drive into 15 minutes. I think it would have just been better to kill Destinator. I am sure 90% of us have other nav engines to embed into CF.

[SteveMc]

Being a new Centrafuse user I find I a little disconcerting that so many user don’t like the Navigation engine and interface. Prior to using Centrafuse I used a Becker (Windows CE Nav system) and OMG it was terrible, I find the Centrafuse interface quite simple and straight forward as for the maps I live in the UK and up to now the routes have been quite accurate I increased the Baud Rate on the serial GPS and found that the Destinator placed me quite well every one should take these factors into account including available RAM and Processor Usage. The only thing that I found difficult with the Navigation was the initial setup as there is no visible data from the serial port something to say it’s connected or not connected, as at first, the windows operating system thought my GPS was a serial mouse

[craigbrass]

Digging up a slightly old topic but I have to pipe up here. Even in V3 I am less than pleased with the nav side. Problems I have found include :-
1. Maps are REALLY outdated. For example, my home postcode is an area built around 8 or 9 years ago and it STILL doesn't have the postcode in the database. My TomTom had this in!
2. I have to use either GPS Gate or XPort just to get it working. I SHOULD NOT have to use third party software to get this working!
3. It is always giving out incorrect speed readings when set to MPH. Either this or my car's speedo is really wrong!

From what I can tell, V2 / V3 use exactly the same maps as well. I understand getting V3 out the door was important but one of the key features of a Car PC is the GPS navigation. When can we expect something be done?

[DJCannonball]

@ Craigbrass i totally agree man...

and @ Steve, Databecker nav is from the stone-ages! it's no comparisson.

[Rockabye74]

I am surprised that you even got it working ... I have been struggling for a day now to get it working in 3.0. I get the nice green arrow which I think indicates that it is getting valid data, and the compass direction changes, but alas the maps do not move.