Why buy a bike specific sat nav?

So what is the latest on this issue, what cheap as chips perfectly functional bike specific sat nav would one buy today in 2017. I'd be looking for a bright screen as unlikely to bother with bluetooth. Unlikely to fiddle with the buttons on the move so little or no buttons suits me. Use an old TomTom in the car and that works just fine for me.

The three big advantages of a bike sat nav are
1) it is waterproof
2) it will Bluetooth sound to your helmet-mounted BT device.
3) it is compatible with route planning software to allow you to get from A to E , via B, C &D.

Your could sort out 1) with a waterproof pouch 2) You don't need 3) even the cheapest car Satnavs are compatible with Basecamp (and other) route planning software.

If I was in your position I would go with a car Satnav in a waterproof pouch or look for a second-hand Garmin 340LM or equivalent TomTom, depending on your budget.
 
I haven't read the whole thread so most probably repeating info here,

I was impressed with the free navmii app on my iPhone, don't think you can plot routes but great for take me there stuff, also doesn't need data roaming to work. You will need a bike mount and if its long distance travel a usb power outlet on your bike.

Also a few years ago we toured Italy with a colleague who wanted to take the cheapest GPS so he bought a cheap one from Halfords and a cheap bike pouch that sat on the handle bars.
He couldn't hear directions as no blutooth so he kept missing junctions, the pouch kept drooping every time he accelerated so much that he couldn't view the screen, after a couple of days he gave up with it. When he got home he ordered a Garmin 350LM.

Sometimes cheap is a false economy
 
Spent the summer with a dedicated bike GPs unit on one side of bars and phone on the other side. Most of the stuff I was looking to navigate to were fairly obscure places or places where I didn't have a name but knew what I wanted to see such as an ancient historic site. Well, the phone won most of the time for simple reason that I could google search within the nav free app and then tell it to route me to the thing I'd found on google search. Phone is waterproof Sony mounted on a fairly cheap phone holder. I don't think Sony make their latest phones waterproof which is a shame as it looks like dedicated waterproof cases with built in power cable are only available for some apple and Samsung phones. Ideally, I'd like a locking mount for the phone as I've forgotten to dismount it when leaving the bike a few times but nobody tried to remove it.
 
The thing that gets me are the people who spend 12k - 20k on a motorbike then piss about to save a couple of hundred on a cheap item that is not designed for the purpose they use it for just so they can have a go at people who do the opposite :confused::confused:
 
The thing that gets me are the people who spend 12k - 20k on a motorbike then piss about to save a couple of hundred on a cheap item that is not designed for the purpose they use it for just so they can have a go at people who do the opposite :confused::confused:

I'd have thought that any bike costing that nowadays will have nav units built in, even fairly basic cars now seem to have nav built in.
 
The thing that gets me are the people who spend 12k - 20k on a motorbike then piss about to save a couple of hundred on a cheap item that is not designed for the purpose they use it for just so they can have a go at people who do the opposite :confused::confused:

Maybe they just spent so much on the latest Iphone that they can't afford a decent Satnav!
 
I'd have thought that any bike costing that nowadays will have nav units built in, even fairly basic cars now seem to have nav built in.
They do. Its the maps that cost the earth...

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I find the live traffic updates that either Google maps or the Tom-Tom app use are brilliant. I'm using my garmin less and my phone nearly all the time now ... :thumb2
 
Do the latest bikes with LCD screens and computer graphics for instruments switch to sat nav mode? If not why not?


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I find the live traffic updates that either Google maps or the Tom-Tom app use are brilliant. I'm using my garmin less and my phone nearly all the time now ... :thumb2
As above, by the time I've paired my Rider 400 to my phone to get live traffic updates makes me wonder why why not just use the phone and have 1 less gadget?
The TomTom app works just like the TT but costs £15/yr, cheap compared to a bike specific sat nav.
There is however, an inherent simplicity to clipping/unclipping a bike sat nav to it's powered mount.

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Do the latest bikes with LCD screens and computer graphics for instruments switch to sat nav mode? If not why not?


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Because some bikersmtes:


1. Wouldn't know how to work it, even if it did

2. Some would rather use their phone, even if it did

3. Some wouldn't use it, even if it did
 
Because some bikersmtes:


1. Wouldn't know how to work it, even if it did

2. Some would rather use their phone, even if it did

3. Some wouldn't use it, even if it did

Have you started abbreveating even bikermates nowadays :D

I've a posh, by 2015 standards;),in car sat nav and most of the time it does the job fine however a bit of knowledge about where the fuck you are actually going and even, in some cases, where on earth you have started from can help in cases where your average shat nav is still a bit thick.

It may come as no surprise that the £100 quid portable car garmin I use on the junior tourer, whilst it's stuffed into the clear pocket on my tankbag, looks better than my plumbed, in positively antediluvian, NAV 4, as supplied for free ;) when I originally purchased the TC 'all those many years agooo oh o oh' ( copyright YES).

I guess I think just use what you've got. I for one am awash with obsolete kit (stares fondly at XDA phone) but as long as it still works, keep using it is my philosophy and keep the cold, dead, tech in a little shrine in anticipation of armegeddon or to facilitate interesting stories for granchildren.
 


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