Satnav in Ireland

AlanD

Does satellite navigation work in Ireland at all? Is every housing estate, main road, motorway, back road, boreen and land mark on Irish navigation systems?

Does it depend on what car you buy? So if you buy a Mercedes/BMW with satnav, would it be better or worse than a Volvo with satnav or even a Peugeot?

Alun

AlanD wrote:

Does satellite navigation work in Ireland at all?

Of course.

Is every housing estate, main road, motorway, back road, boreen and land mark on Irish navigation systems?

Not by any means, although it's being worked on [see below].

Does it depend on what car you buy? So if you buy a Mercedes/BMW with satnav, would it be better or worse than a Volvo with satnav or even a Peugeot?

I've no experience of car specific satnav systems, only PDA based ones, but the key is who provides the base map data. TeleAtlas and Navteq are the two big players in the PDA market, and (I believe) Navteq pretty much have the car manufacturers tied up. Current Navteq data is the best of the two, and they're currently working on a complete re-survey of the whole island, but a) it's not ready yet, and b) even when it is, it will take a while before the base data is adopted by the satnav system makers and finds it's way into a product, or in the case of most car satnav systems, onto a DVD.

I can't comment on the quality of the systems themselves. In any case, you can be sure that BMW, Volvo etc. don't make them themselves but they'll be made by some 3rd party.

Also, bear in mind that in most cases you'll have to pay for updated maps when and if they appear.

unkel

AlanD wrote:

Does satellite navigation work in Ireland at all?

Yes

AlanD wrote:

Is every housing estate, main road, motorway, back road, boreen and land mark on Irish navigation systems?

No. Mapping in Ireland is very poor, let alone digital mapping. The main reason for the third world level mapping is that Ireland has never been in NATO

My estate is 6 years old and it is not on any map :rolleyes:

Alun

unkel wrote:

No. Mapping in Ireland is very poor, let alone digital mapping. The main reason for the third world level mapping is that Ireland has never been in NATO

Companies like Navteq, when they either can't fall back on data provided by third parties, or it's too damn expensive, just go out and do it themselves. They currently have a team of people cruising the country in cars equipped with GPS systems and laptops mapping the entire country from scratch, in fact I saw one of them a year or so ago cruising around our estate and went out to chat with them:) But, like I said, it can take 6 months to a year before that data actually ends up in a commercial product.

Seth Brundle

unkel wrote:

My estate is 6 years old and it is not on any map :rolleyes:

Its on the latest OS road atlas of Dublin

edit:- my in-laws used to live in the same estate and now live around the corner - Im not stalking you!
[Im stalking them]

kevmac

Make sure that any GPS system has NavTeq Irish maps.

I ditched my Navman 630 because they switched to TeleAtlas maps which were a step back in terms of coverage.

TeleAtlas tend to map areas with large populations while Navteq map a whole country regardless of people coverage.

I now use a Pocket PC with CoPilot 5 with Navteq maps; the coverage for Ireland is impressive just back from Ennis and went through east Clare and all the B roads are mapped.

The Monesterevin bypass is not there because CoPilot are using April 2004 maps - it takes 12 to 18 months for maps to be updated for each SatNav system so SatNav X might get the latest Irish maps in May 2005 but SatNav Y might not get the same maps until December 2005.

I am getting a new car with SatNav and after much searching on the net have found out that it is a Kenwood 3200 with maps from December 2004 - the only thing is that I am not sure who supplies the maps yet.

The reason that built-in car SatNav has been slow to take off in Ireland is that most dealers in Ireland haven't a clue about it and don't realise that you have to sell yearly updates for the maps - and then the average punter is aghast that he has to shell out €300 for new maps.


Best GPS site here http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/index.php the forums are especially good.

CoPilot 5 http://www.alk.eu.com/new/

http://www.navteq.com/

http://www.teleatlas.com/homepage.jsp

Unkel, no offence but you are talking rubbish; NATO has absolutelynothing to do with SatNav mapping.

What system are you using and when did you last update your maps?

My maps are very up to date with no part of Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Belfast, not fully mapped.

unkel

kbannon wrote:

Its on the latest OS road atlas of Dublin

Ah, last time I looked (in Easons about a month ago) it still wasn't. I'll have a look again - thanks for that

kevmac wrote:

Unkel, no offence but you are talking rubbish; NATO has absolutelynothing to do with SatNav mapping.

What system are you using and when did you last update your maps?

Sorry probably didn't make myself clear. I don't have satnav. Until nowish my estate wasn't even on the OS map. NATO countries have traditionally been mapped better (accurately / timely) for obvious reasons. It's good to hear private companies are now developing their own satnav maps over here. We'll just have to wait and see what quality they'll deliver...

My point is that to develop satnav mapping based on existing NATO highly accurate maps is just a tad easier than dudes driving around and doing it themselves from scratch

AlanD

That is interesting. It's good to hear that some companies are getting their maps up to date. I had heard before that sat nav in Ireland was limited to just primary routes and major towns.

The reason I was asking is that I am planning on going to the UK to buy a car and given that you can get very well spec'd cars over there for very decent money, I could try to find a car with satnav. I'm a bit of a gadget lover and would love to have a big screen with satnav in the car, but was thinking, what's the point if it's not useable.

Those links look good. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have the discs for the car I'm looking to buy. I'm looking to get a Volvo S60 D5 and perhaps getting satnav with this car would be a waste if their discs are not good enough.

It's not that I can't find my way around, but like the gadget all the same. A PDA would be a better job of course since it's moveable.

Anyway, thanks!

kevmac

Where have you got the NATO information from?

NavTeq and TeleAtlas have been going for over fifteen years and are the only major SatNav digital map suppliers.

You don't have to wait and see; I am using Ireland maps which are excellent as of now.

kevmac

Volvo RTI DVD Navigation system uses Navteq AFAIK which you get stright from the dealer NOT from NavTeq.

Alun

kevmac wrote:

Volvo RTI DVD Navigation system uses Navteq AFAIK which you get stright from the dealer NOT from NavTeq.

Yes, it's important to remember that although Navteq provide the raw mapping and POI data in the form of a (huge) database, the Satnav system manufacturer still has to convert this data into their proprietary map format first. I don't know the exact ins and outs of this process, but apparently it's not as automatic as you might think, and requires a considerable amount of manual effort to get right.

Note though that you can, and should, report any map errors you discover directly to Navteq themselves rather than the Satnav manufacturer (who will refer you to them anyway if you try!)

kermit_ie

Garmin use Data Ireland as their base map supplier for Ireland. In Dublin, every nook and cranny is in it. Actually, it's more or less the same map that Microsoft use for Autoroute 2005. The main cities are on it, for the City Centres, and the main N roads. Then again, I was in Monaghan, on a little boreen heading for the border, and it was on it!

unkel

kevmac wrote:

You don't have to wait and see; I am using Ireland maps which are excellent as of now.

Let's do a little boards live test

I'll pm you my road (9 miles from Dublin city centre and the road has been there for 6 years) and you'll see if it is recognised by your satnav system

How's that?

As said, my road hasn't even been on OS maps until very recently as pointed out by kbannon

unkel

AlanD wrote:

The reason I was asking is that I am planning on going to the UK to buy a car and given that you can get very well spec'd cars over there for very decent money, I could try to find a car with satnav

I'd be interested for that very same reason

It'll be a couple of years from now for me by which time I hope the digital maps will be perfect

BigEejit

Dunno who tomtom use but I thought my new satnav when i got it (tomtom3 + pda + bluetooth gps) was broken when i first tried it .... problem was that I was in an estate that was not mapped and the map itself was zoomed right in so all i had was a arrow in a green field .... the estate was 20+ years old too ... even Cork's mapping was fairly basic ...

Its really very badly out of date in London, I'm just waiting on tomtom5 to come out without a bundled gps receiver and upgrade then

Alun

unkel wrote:

Let's do a little boards live test

I'll pm you my road (9 miles from Dublin city centre and the road has been there for 6 years) and you'll see if it is recognised by your satnav system

How's that?

As said, my road hasn't even been on OS maps until very recently as pointed out by kbannon

OK! I can send you a screenshot from the PDA as proof too (assuming it's on there, that is:) )

BrookieD

Hi
I use Co Pilot Live 5 on my XDAII and it is great, never had a problem and maps are up to date enough for for i use them for, even has my estate in Ashbourne which i was not sure it would have at all.

Defo Co Pilot has the best map data for Ireland.

kevmac

Tom Tom uses TeleAtlas.

PM me and I will try - I presume that the estate is already in an surrounding place that is mapped and not in rural area?

unkel

Alun wrote:

OK! I can send you a screenshot from the PDA as proof too (assuming it's on there, that is:) )

kevmac wrote:

Tom Tom uses TeleAtlas.

PM me and I will try - I presume that the estate is already in an surrounding place that is mapped and not in rural area?

PM sent to both! The main road that the estate entrance is on, IS on satnav

kermit_ie

unkel wrote:

PM sent to both! The main road that the estate entrance is on, IS on satnav

Send it to me to, i'll try it with the garmin.

Alun

PM sent back with (successful!) results from Navigon Mobile Navigator|4.

unkel

Alun wrote:

PM sent back with (successful!) results from Navigon Mobile Navigator|4.

PM received with positive result

kermit_ie wrote:

Send it to me to, i'll try it with the garmin.

PM sent!

It was only a few months ago the last time that I gave somebody my address and it wasn't picked up by satnav - dunno which system they were using, but it did recognise the main road

MercMad

I've used the factory Sat Nav in the Merc, last year and everything was NOT on it, yet a month or so after they released an update and I believe the areas I looked at are now there !

Last month I had a new Discovery 3 V6SE for a weekend with Factory Sat Nav and it was incredible ! Easy to use etc. and I tried many obscure places and theye were all there, with the exception of the spot I was in, a remote and extreme part of Wexford, Carne Beach, the Nav system said " Navigation will commence once you reach the main road" which it did !

Based on this I decided I needed Sat Nav so I bought an Ipaq and GPS reciever from eBay and now just need to buy the software ?

Which is best/cheapest etc.. ?

prospect

MercMad wrote:

I bought an Ipaq and GPS reciever from eBay

How much did you pay, out of interest?

kevmac

Yep that address is there; you're at the back of the estate and the road is numbered 1-20.

CoPilot is the best for Pocket Pc and the only one for Ireland as it uses NavTeq maps.

Review here
www.pocketgps.co.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=10167

Can't seem to get the hyperlink to work.

Alun

kevmac wrote:

CoPilot is the best for Pocket Pc and the only one for Ireland as it uses NavTeq maps.

As does Navigon Mobile Navigator, Mapopolis, Destinator and possibly a few others I've not heard of ...

kevmac

Like all straight forward devices like Apple Macs to Sky+ it's all down to ergonomics and IMHO CoPilot beats everything else for sheer intuitive controls but it is a matter of taste.

DubTony

For those of you using a Palm handheld, viaMichelin have a fairly decent system.

Bought one just before Christmas. Most of Dublin is mapped in great detail and major centres, Navan, Wexford town, Cork, Limerick, Galway among others. The national routes are there too but smaller towns are just dots on the map.

Have found the sytem to be very useful although it helps to have a fairly good idea of where you're going. On a journey across the city it sometimes sends me all over the place. Have been unable to programme the software to take the shortest route. The British map is extremely comprehensive and won't fit on the average PDA so a card is required.

Tony

Renegade_Archer

GPSDrive is navigation software for Linux - relies on maps downloaded from the interweb. Used it on the laptop with a USB GPS to get me, the ex, and her Starlet from Munich to Ireland, worked perfectly(apart from the bastard tunnels in Paris blocking the GPS signal), there is a little perl script that comes with it that allows you to download maps for a whole country. There is also a version for handheld systems, so if youre running Linux on your Ipaq for instance you could use it there to.




Regards


Ewan

MercMad

Quote:
Originally Posted by MercMad
I bought an Ipaq and GPS reciever from eBay



How much did you pay, out of interest?

I paid €155 for the Ipaq (brand new) and €45 for the Reciever !

Winning Hand

Anyone in ireland do decent prices for pocket pc receiver/software or are we talking bout going online?