When using AA and Google Maps for Navigation are you using your cellphone data? I have 2.5 GB of high speed plus unlimited at a lower speed.

 

Of course it's contextual. That's the point! When navigating to a thing called "DMV" the top result is probably Dept of Motor Vehicles. This is pretty much exactly how humans do it. If I was rolling down the street in my vette and dropped the window to ask somebody on the street "Hey where's the DMV" I will be this month's entire invoice payment that the person would respond with directions to the Dept of Motor Vehicles and not Downtown Mt View (especially since I'm now back in San Diego and not in the Bay Area) nor the center for the nearest Disabled Military Veteran.

You're welcome to your opinion but I do not agree with you. It's no trick to use context to say fill in the missing subject based on the previous question you asked (e.g. Who is the current president? Followed by How old is he?). In fact it's pretty much exactly what humans do.

Yeah and I've been the computer field since the 70's.

I await your AI solution...

Meantime, I didn't say the computer was "smart". I said it was getting good at voice recognition and how to use context. In any event, it's clear that Google's voice recognition is head and shoulders above GMs. And, after all, that's the point here.

I didn't say the computer "thinks" at all. You did!


Again, I'm looking forward to your AI solution and I'm wondering why those very smart people with high IQ's aren't working for companies like Google (Oh wait - they probably are!)

Why should I be asking that question? Truth is I don't really care - see below. I have never and I refuse to live my life in fear.

Ah the paranoia comes out. Your statement doesn't make any sense. You say that you don't buy into an ecosystem yet say you use Google services. Huh? Do you use Gmail/Maps/etc but just constantly feed it data that has nothing to do with you? Might explain why you're unimpressed...

Hmmm... Doesn't sound smart to me! Of course nothing is free - never said anything was free. But do I care if Google knows that I have a Nest and that they will then send me an ad about how to get more products like that? Not in the least! If I'm interested in it I'll read it. If I don't want to be advertised to a simple few clicks of the mouse and I will never see ads from them again.

It's not like big bad corps are to blame. Hell I get crappy spam email from even little companies. For example, Mor Furniture keeps sending me spam even though they've been on my blacklist(*) since about 2011 when I bought some furniture from them. Does it bother me? Not at all. I never see their spam.

* I have my own, homegrown spam filtering system written by me in Perl with a MySQL back end, etc. It's a whitelisting system with a twist - if you want to be on my whitelist then you do the work! I can block whoever I want with nice Perl regex's. I've been getting between 200-500 emails each and every day since 1998 and yet my system insures that only about 1-10 emails, of registered users (IOW people I want to hear from), ever trickles through. I can block texts, phone numbers, etc. IOW if I don't want to hear from you, either because I don't like you personally or if you're spamming me with your ads, trust me, you will not get through. It's not hard.

 

Let me explain. Normally I'd try once or twice and if it failed I'd give up and go to Google Maps. This time, however, I was parked outside my house and made a determined effort to try different things to see if I could get it to work. That's how I figured out I needed to say "McKnee Ranch State Park" instead of just "McKnee Ranch". It was a deliberate test and why it took me several minutes (maybe not 10 - maybe 5 or 8 or so). But I tried over and over again saying to myself "this should work. Hmm. Let me try <x>". It's also why I remember this specific example vividly.

 

GM uses the data connection for maps data and realtime stuff like traffic. Note, however, that you can download the map data for different areas ahead of time. I do this for some of the places where I go hiking because connections can be spotty. Recently I did this for South San Diego/Tijuana area as when you get within a few miles of the border I lose my cell connection and I really don't want to add and international plan nor use roaming.

If you don't have a connection but have downloaded the offline map beforehand, I suspect you won't get traffic information (nor be able to search for things like McDonalds, etc.)

 

I have NEVER had a problem with my Nav system....and I use it A LOT. First of all...you don't say "NAVIGATE" !!!! It asks for a city...you SAY the city...it asks for the street ...you SAY the street...it asks for the NUMBER..you SAY the number....just that easy. As far as the POI's are concerned....I haven't taken advantage of that as much as the address's However, before I leave the house I get the address of the POI I want to go to....Sorry some of you are having a problem using yours....but compared to the one in my C6 ...this one is a absolute pleasure to use.

 

One thing i really like about the OEM nav is it shows turning directions near the speedometer. It's a useful visual cue and you dont have to look away. I wish 3rd party apps could do that. I mostly use Apple Maps.

 

Netgear Push to 2TV. I have a rooted Android S6 Edge and using Tasker, I rigged it to automatically connect to the NetGear on car start. There are two limitations.

1. Screen Off - if you turn the screen off, you will loose the display on the center screen. There is root software called Screen Standby that can be used to darken the screen and enabling the Screen Mirror to continue.
2. Audio - software like Pandora will attempt to send their audio to the screen mirrored device instead of sending it to the car via bluetooth. I never hooked up the Netgear audio so I get no sound from apps like Pandora. Waze still speaks through the phone if the right options are set. Phone calls work fine via BT. I don't mind this problem as I mostly use XM on the car anyway.

 

I've used my phone through the Apple car play. Comes up right on the screen on my 2017. Only had the car 6 weeks so haven't used it much. Only problem I can foresee is if the signal is weak in some areas.

 

Yes but with Google you can download maps for offline use.

 

At my wife's urging, I looked into this and it quickly became my preferred nav tool/ method.

 

I don't have enough experience with the various systems, but I appreciate the thread because NAV is something I use often. Hope all your questions are answered.

 

Thanks for all the responses, some great information has been passed along!!!

I'm a big nav/traffic user myself and just trying to decide how I would like my c7 equipped potentially broadening my search inventory. I do want something that is integrated or can integrate into the car vs 3rd party. Thanks to all for the great information, I feel like PDR/Nav is not a must have for me but a like to have, as long as I get a 2016+.

 

You may use it "a lot" but you don't use it much really. In my DMV example, I don't know the address! That's one of the reasons I have a Nav. It knows.

With AA I can be out and about and simply say "OK Google, Best Buy" and it'll show me the nearest 3 or 4 Best Buy's in the area of where I'm driving right now. I can select one and it'll add it as a stop.

I can stop at say my friend Mike's house. We can go out for a ride when he says "Hey I need to get some strings" and I can say "OK Google. Navigate to Guitar Center in San Ramone" and it'll say "Guitar Center is 5 miles from your location by car. You will get there in 15 minutes in light traffic. Alright. Let's go!" and then set the navigation and navigate me there. Or if I don't say the city it'll show me the 3 closest ones. One tap and I'm off.

And if you ever did start using the Nav to help you find places as opposed to telling the Nav exactly where you want to go by precise address, you'll see the factory Nav falls flat on its face. Searching for POIs using voice sucks and trying to use the screen to type it in can only be done when the car is not moving.

 

If I ever need guitar strings I'll use your Google...but so far in my 72 years...guitar strings are something I haven't needed.

 

I have been rerouted by nav units several times and none of the reroutes were any good. Once I got some place where I could look at a map I quickly saw the nav system chose a roundabout way that took me far out of the way when a much better route was available. The last time that happened a Garmin took me 30 miles out of the way from an Interstate that had a huge delay due to construction. There was a nice road 3 miles from the interstate and running parallel to it. However, I got to see some down and out PA coal mining towns that probably hadn't seen a North Carolina license plate in 50 years.

Bill

 

Voice works with carplay.........just hit the mic icon.

 

It's called an EXAMPLE! Substitute Depends diapers for guitar strings...

 

I've been re-routed very nicely by both the factory nav and GM. GM tends to be more accurate IMHO. If the re-routing is due to traffic then the most up to date traffic will win out. If it's due to construction and the like all I can say is MyLink tends to have more errors in their maps then GM.

 

Indeed so does Google Maps in AA. The real challenge is does the voice recognition understand what you said? In my experience MyLink is right about 40% of the time while Google is right about 95-99% of the time.

 

http://www.oemautopartsco.com/