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Just thought I would give you all a post to let you know how my new xmas pressie is going.
Wayfinder is a GPS solution for smartphones and for me that's my trusty P800.
For the money, £331 when I bought it, you get the following:
12 months subscription to the wayfinder service for the whole of western europe
Emtac Bluetooth GPS receiver
Car and Mains chargers for the GPS receiver
Couple of manuals.
Activating the software requires you to log on to Wayfinders website and enter the code supplied in the box.
Once activtated you are guided through a process to register the software against your mobile number and then you download the software to your phone 700k(ish)
Once installed the software offers a very simple interface.
New Search
This allows you to type in the address or company name / Town and Country. The search is carried out by GPRS against wayfinders servers (mapping info provided by teleAtlas). You can then pinpoint the location on a map, which again it downloads via GPRS or calculate a route to get you to that destination from your current location.
Favourites
Here you can store searches that you have found for ease of route calculation. I for example have my home and work locations in Favourites so that where ever I am I can find my way there. Favourites can also be stored on your personal wayfinder webpage and so you can sync them to the web.
Call Centre
This feature is useful for using whilst on the move. You can call the call centre and give them your destination. Once you have given the operator these details they will send your phone an SMS with the route details on which will then be processed.
Now out to the car to test it out!
The GPS receiver is about the size of T68i and works best if turned on outside of the car so that it can get a clear lock on some sats. Once the green light starts to flash I just placed the receiver on the dash. The receiver comes with a velcro mount but also 2 non slip pads. So far I have found the pads adequate so haven't gone the velcro route.
Place the phone in my car holder and using the search function I selected a destination and a quick GPRS call later (5k) had the route downloaded to the phone and a directional guide on the screen.
The guide screen provides the following information:
Estimated arrival time
Distance to next instruction (inc a countdown meter)
Name of current street
Direction of next instruction
Name of street you will be navigating onto
Direction of the instruction after the current direction
The guide has successfully routed me to about 10 different locations with 100% accuracy.
The system has a map view also but for the P800 this is somewhat limited. You can get an overview of your position for the entire route or a more details GPS FOLLOW map. The maps are downloaded again via GPRS and so using the GPS FOLLOW map can consume a fair bit of data.
So far I have been very impressed with the product and know that for me it will be a fantastic addon to my phone.
As a summary I would like to give a Pro's and Con's list.
Pro's
Compact - only need to carry the BT GPS receiver in addition to my phone
Portable - I can use it whilst away on busines or on holiday by foot or in a hire car
Traffic Info - At some stage (the have put this back again) we will have the routes calculated based on traffic conditions and this will be a godsend!
Con's
GPRS Data - As the details are stored on a central server then data costs are involved. However with it only being 5k for a route then I don't see this being a massive overhead. I am on the Orange World 3Mb package anyway.
Maps - If you are someone who likes to look at the map then in it's current state you won't like it! I find it adequate for what I require.
Subscription - 100 Eur for the second year. If you do a lot of travelling then you will always need uptodate maps for whatever solution you choose. Wayfinder will always have upto date maps
If you have any questions about the system then feel free to give me a shout!
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Originally Posted by David
