It is my understanding there are three navigation options, PDR/Nav, On star Nav, and Car play leveraged with your smart phone. What are the pros and cons with each? Ease of use with each? On the fly use? Which is the better Nav option and why?

 

Never heard of 3 Navigation Options.
3LT/3LZ come with Navigation/PDR
2LT/2LZ you have to order Navigation/PDR as a stand alone option.

I believe OnStar is available as standard equipment. But, not 100% sure.

Apple Car Play/Android Auto became available with the 2016 MY, and forward.


I have a 2016 Stingray Z51, 3LT, A8, Apple Car Play/Android Auto. The Navigation/PDR are nice features. IMO, the Navigation is easy to use, and pretty accurate, and ties in nicely with HUD and onboard systems.

No experience with Apple Car Play. I am an Android user. I have used Android Auto, Goggle Maps. Its not bad, but again, the OEM Navigation is robust and works with onboard systems (i.e. HUD). Was worth it to me, plus it was included with my 3LT.

 

If you have CarPlay, or even if you don't, your phone is by far the best nav tool to use. It's always up to date, calculates routes based on traffic and routes you around potential problems. Also, I think it's a lot easier to load a destination on my phone than try to punch it in on the nav.

 

 

Kinda sorta...

Those are options, plus you could buy a Garmin.

Pluses:

OE nav/pdr.. adds resale value, mostly works, pdr works, factory support.

OnStar: it mostly works, costs $40 a month. They know everything...

Carplay/Android... only on 16+, mostly works, uses cell data, might not work every where.

 

You can always use the Chevy app to send directions to your car from your phone. OnStar is NOT required (well for the first 5 years you own the car as the send from app is a part of the basic service).

I'm of the opinion, no matter what mount you use, that your phone's navigation is distracting and dangerous to use in the car. The new Android Auto interface on the phone may alleviate this, but I'm an iPhone guy so I can't see it in person to decide.

 

Yes, the PDR/Nav unit will do OK if it has up to date local info. However, GM doesn't seem to be able to pump out timely updates so you may go several years before you get an update that includes any major roads that have been added in the last two years.

Onstar is great and it can download to your PDR/Nav or can just download to your radio if you don't have the Nav. I found out calling and have them dump the info to my car Nav unit helped cover the gap in current info. If I stored the directions across a road the Nav unit didn't recognize it would remember the road when I asked the Nav unit to plot a course to someplace. The big advantage I found with OnStar is there was a person on the other end. One time I called in to find directions to a mall that my wife wanted to visit. The guy on the phone said you are within a mile of it and should be able to see it after the next traffic light. Sure enough we could see it about a half mile down the road after the next traffic light. I imagine that personal touch can really help when you are stuck in traffic on a strange interstate and want to find a detour around that section of the road. Regular Nav units are pretty poor at that even when they have some sort of capability.

Bill

 

I like to look at the map when I'm looking for a place, not just listen for directions. I can't do that safetly on the phone.

 

With the built in Nav system on the C7 ...you can SPEAK your destination. POI's...Intersections...or address's. Works great. Just press the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel .... wait for the tone and say NAVIGATION and then follow the prompts....couldn't be easier....

 

Both MyLink and AA re-route you based on current traffic condition and are very good at it.

 

Works great my ***! I spent about 10 minutes saying "Navigate to DMV", no go, "Navigate to the Department of Motor Vehicle" - nope. Navigate to Department of Motor Vehicle in Santa Clara, California - nope. Whipped out my Android phone "OK Google, navigate to the DMV" - OK... I also could not get Navigate to McKnee Ranch to work for crap. Turns out I had to say Navigate to McKnee Ranch State Park or it wouldn't work. I found that if you didn't say the plural form of some places it couldn't find it. The voice recognition of MyLink is total crap! Couldn't be easier? Of course it can - get Android Auto instead. It's 10x better than MyLink.

 

AA/AC are the best because they are constantly updated and traffic info is free. My XM traffic subscription has expired and I see no need to renew since it's available on AA and can be seen even on surface streets,

 

That's actually a common thing. The iPhone and Google are "guessing" what you want (as you actually didn't say the right thing). Typically they guess right (because they build a database of what the likely guess is based on other users), which is why people prefer those types of systems. The fact is in this case the issue isn't with the voice recognition, it's with the user.

You want a computer to respond to you like a human, it can't, it's a computer. I'm not a fan of the guessing, especially for navigation, as when it's wrong, it's so wrong it's hilariously bad. The thing is unless you kinda have an idea where you are going, you don't know it's actually that wrong.

The systems work as designed when they are used as designed. The issue since GUI based technology is that people now assume that the machine will change to them. No you must change to the machine. Unless you'd like to sell all your data to someone, then I'm sure someone could make a personalized database of what you actually mean when you say what you say. A sorta "translator" for the machine.

 

They also take unlimited data. All this data you guys who use phones are using is taking up bandwidth and clogging things up. I have no idea how it gets paid for (I have a 3GB a month plan, I won't even stream music).

Local copies are always better, even if they are out of date. If you need to bridge the gap between the data provided in the system and reality; you can with the most powerful computer of all, your brain.

This is my issue with these complaints; #1 people should generally know the area they are driving in, #2 if they don't they should before they leave home consult a map (paper or internet), #3 once on the road the navigation screen and information can be used to augment this data but in reality you shouldn't need navigation.

Traffic? That thing isn't even right 50% of the time, even on the phone, its a crap shoot at best, useless technology. It usually tells me what I already know, and that is that I am stuck in traffic.

Sorry for the rant, but these navigation threads always degrade into how great phone navigation is, when in reality it's just a slightly better pile of garbage versus any other forms of navigation. A static map (memorized preferably) and your brain is the most advanced. If you are the computer, you don't need to rely on a computer.

 

I respectfully disagree. Recognizing the non-plural form in addition to the plural form is not really guessing, rather it's smart! Requiring that the user type in (or speak) the city and state in order to find a nearby intersection is dumb! And that's what MyLink does. Recognizing that DMV is a common TLA for Dept of Motor Vehicles is also not guessing but intelligent. There is not one "right" thing and wrong things. There are subtleties and nuances in the English language (and other languages) where native speakers understand phrases where not all of the clues are there may be viewed as guessing but I wouldn't think of it that way.

It's getting real close!

I'm not a fan of constantly asking over and over again and it getting it totally wrong when you find out that it's merely because you didn't say "State Park" at the end of it. When a destination is offered or even selected it's trivial to look at the map and say "Yeah, that's it". Or at least "that looks like may be it" as opposed to "WTF? That's not even in the same state!".

AA and Google's voice recognition is quite frankly amazing and I can't help but feel that people who bemoan it also tend to bemoan "big corps stealing your identity and personal information for the purposes of improving your life by offering you things you really want and use" and as a result, strive to not be known or heavens to murgatroid even login to Google services. Then, of course, Google doesn't know when you say "X" you mean that event in your Google calendar that you put the correct address in and will offer that as a destination. I'm in the Google ecosystem, pretty fully now with AA, Google Home, Android, just ordered a Nest and many Google Calendars, Contacts, etc. As a result Google is highly accurate for me. And, as always, YMMV.

This is not true. Google uses the inputs you allow them to use to fine tune results. While logged into Google, if you do a Google search you will often get vastly different results based on your prior search history. What you see as results will not be what I see as results. The machines (or rather the human engineers AI algorithms) are adapting to us.

Ah and there it is. Called it! Sell all your data to someone? No, not really. If you participate in the Google ecosystem it will serve you very well. If you stick your head in the sand don't be surprised if you don't see the light.

 

It's a acronym for many things, how can you be sure DMV is department of Motor Vehicles? It can be entirely contextual. You are making a gross assumption here.

It's actually not at all close, the guys at Google (and Apple, and even Microsoft) are getting very good at "tricking" you into thinking its good. I'm a Computer Engineer by education and have done a fair amount of coding in my life. I'm not impressed by current technology, specifically since with the amount of processing power and memory that is now available the optimization of processing data has gone in the toilet. If you gather enough data from enough people, it seems like the computer is smart, when its not it really could be doing something as simple as a binomial sort.

That's an issue with how you organize data versus a computer, you don't think like a computer and a computer doesn't think like you.

It's not amazing, what is amazing is that they do SO LITTLE with the data they have. If your brain could store that amount of information it would blow Google away. Some smart people with high IQ's already do this relational sorting in their own minds. I know I do, until Google is better than doing what I do in my own head, I'm frankly unimpressed.

It is true, all Google did was leverage data. And leveraged it (as I've said) poorly. The question you should be asking (and we get to below) is why do they have all this data.

I use Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Translate (because there big data is important). But I refuse to buy into an ecosystem. This is how you become a "slave" to the machine, it could be Apple, Google, Microsoft, or even Facebook.

Nothing is free, you give up things to get things. I'm of the opinion giving up access to all of my data so a company can figure out what I mean instead of me getting smarter and learning how to use the tool better is dumb. I'm not going to make Google smarter, I'm going to make myself smarter.

 

If it likes your voice. If it DOESN'T like your voice the results are, at best, comical. For me, personally, it's useless and sits unused. After a few attempts I gave up. I don't have the patience. You can blame the user if you want, but that's just ignorance. Unless you have been in MY car and observed how the system reacts to me, personally, you don't know. It's not a matter of enunciation or speed of voice. The system simply is as yet incapable of dealing appropriately with voices like mine. For those people where the system works, that's great. Good for you, but don't assume that because it works for you, it is a universally good system.

 

I think I see the problem.

 

Another vote that the GM Nanny Nav, just like most other OEM Navs, are useless at best, and their voice interfaces work ok for some and are totally useless for others. I have no accent either. Only way I can get destinations into the crapulant GM nav is OnStar, which works well, except if you are driving the car when you attempt to enter a destination. Even trying to enter the destination from the screen is iffy. It will find destinations in other states or a thousand miles away but will not find the one around the corner. Either way once the destinations are entered, the directions the OEM nav often sends me the longer way, the slower way, or completely in circles!

Garmin units are good, but aftermarket.

The best is Waze. Just mirror you phone onto the center display using NetGear and your favorite Corvette AV Interface device (I will not recommend the vendor who shall not be named as they are crooks).

 

Waze is my absolute favorite but hate being tied to the phone interface. What NetGear device are you using?