What satnav bracket are you using please ?
Sorry, I don't know. I'll take a picture next time I'm on duty with an RT.
What satnav bracket are you using please ?
Back from a nearly 200 mile day out from London E1 to Mildenhall, Suffolk. The route up was A13 > M25 > A12 to Chelmsford, then country roads through Essex and into Suffolk, so a good mixture and a reasonable test of any GPS device / navigation app. The route back was a straightforward reversal of the route up, simply for consistency.
On the way up to Mildenhall, I had my Samsung S10 phone in the cubbyhole and my brand new XT on a bespoke mount, screwed into the steering column. On the way back, I had the phone in my tank bag and the XT in the map case on my tank bag. I was careful to be only running the Connected app and didn’t bother with any phone calls, music or anything like that. Similarly, I had my XT set not to recalculate but to warn me if I went off route. I did not recalculate the route at all. As far as I can tell, it was a completely fair test of both the Connected app and the XT.
There is good news and bad news. First, let me say that I am not about to knock BMW, for the sake of it. When the Connect app works properly, it is very good. I like the TFT screen and its choice of views, whether that be the screen with 2/3 rev counter counter and 1/3 navigation or the full navigation screen option. Both are very good and clear. Similarly, the connection and reconnection to the Connected app with my S10 phone is very good. This not the same if I use my iPhone.
First, I checked what figure Garmin give for the accuracy of their latest GPS devices. Garmin says:
Garmin GPS receivers are accurate to within 15 meters (49 feet) 95% of the time. Generally, users will see accuracy within 5 to 10 meters (16 to 33 feet) under normal conditions.
So, I should be seeing something near enough in that range all the way through the day.
First the good news. The return journey was, as far as I can tell exactly right with no deviations from the route, accurate speed measurement, presumably accurate height measurements (I’ll mention that later) with very good satellite acquisition and lock. I had the XT set to just show the satellite screen all the way back. I would say that the worst I saw was 45 feet, the average about 25 to 35 feet and the very best 15 feet. In short, just as Garmin said it should be. Similarly, the display / cursor on the display of the Connected app, never missed a beat. No problems at all. In short, both devices ran the A to B route perfectly.
Now the bad news. The outward journey was good (ie both the Connected app and the XT worked as they should) sometimes. That really is the best I can say about it.
The rest of the time, one or other would lose satellite lock and / or position, sometimes by well over 100 feet. The best distance accuracy I saw regularly was 75 feet; a lot of the time it was north of 100 feet. Both figures are well outside Garmin’s own base figure numbers. On other occasions, the XT flashed up off-route (I wasn’t) or ‘searching for satellites’ or ‘lost satellite connection’. Eventually, the XT just couldn’t find its satellite lock at all, the cursor and the map both stationary between near enough Newmarket and Mildenhall. Similarly, the display of the Connected app, regularly showed me in fields or many many tens of feet away from my true position. There was no clear correlation between when the Connected app display played up and when the XT played up, they were both independent of each other. The speed estimation was sometimes way out, well below actual speed, whilst at some points my height was shown as below sea level. I know Essex and Suffolk can be flat and not far above the high tide mark but I was apparently lower than Holland!
To cut to the chase. I would have absolute confidence in using the Connected app and the XT to take me all the way to the bottom of Italy, providing neither of them are anywhere near the front of the bike. In other words, nowhere near where they are designed for and meant to be.
I would have zero confidence in using either the XT or the Connected app, to take me to the edge of London (let alone Naples) if either of them were anywhere near near where BMW or Garmin intended them to be located.
I will download the track log at some point. But, a very quick view of the recording on the XT for the corrupted journey up to Mildenhall, shows far more straight lines (ie no satellite signal) and many more segments (ie the track recording is broken up, due to satellite loss) than would be normal on a 100 journey. When touring in Europe I regularly record reliable track log lengths of well over 250 miles; in other words an absolutely strong and reliable satellite lock, all day.
I think we know the cause and effect of the problem. Now BMW needs to find a reliable and effective cure, please. It’s not good, I’m afraid and it’s definitely not working.
It’s certainly something on the bike.
Heavy aluminium cooking foil would do it. I did ponder doing it but then thought, why bother?
My dealer has been, and continues to be, excellent but the issue persists.
At the request of BMW UK Technical, they first verified that there was an issue with a phone in the phone compartment losing its positional fix with the first replacement TFT on the bike. As a result of doing so Technical asked them to refit the original ex-factory TFT and test the navigation with that, which they did, confirming that a phone in the phone compartment now didn't lose its positional fix. Their test results correlated perfectly with mine - which was reassuring - and as a result Technical told them to order and fit another replacement TFT which they did. The bad news is that, just as with the first replacement, a phone in the phone compartment loses its positional fix.
In summary, we have:
Original TFT fitted: Phone navigation doesn't lose position (but there are other intermittent faults including connection drops which is why he TFT was replaced in the first instance)
Replacement TFT #1 fitted: Phone navigation loses position
Replacement TFT #2 fitted: Phone navigation loses position
So the good news is that we've established that the fault is TFT example dependant.
Unfortunately, 100% of the - admittedly small sample size - replacement TFT's exhibit the problem, so my dealer has nowhere to go with the fault and it's now back with BMW Technical for resolution.