Does anyone use car navigation anymore? My car has it and I’ve used it maybe 5 times and generally use my smartphone vs that clunky nonsense.
Does anyone use car navigation anymore? My car has it and I’ve used it maybe 5 times and generally use my smartphone vs that clunky nonsense.
I sometimes do.
If I'm using a navigation system to actively guide me somewhere I usually use CarPlay.
If I'm just using it to display where I currently am and let me see the nearby roads sometimes I use CarPlay and sometimes the built-in Hyundai system.
CarPlay has a nicer looking map, but when not actively navigating it updates the display noticeably slower when I'm turning.
CarPlay's compass sucks--it just shows the heading as N, NW, W, SW, S, SE, E, or NE. Hyundai's does the more traditional spinning indicator that points North and has way better resolution. It's way better when I'm driving in some twisty place and am trying to understand my orientation--I can see at a glance rather than having to read CarPlay's text direction and translate in my head to a visualization.
CarPlay is quite a bit better at labeling streets. It usually names the side streets I pass. Hyundai tends to only name the bigger ones, and when it does the typography is less readable than CarPlay's. CarPlay is also more likely to show buildings.
Hyundai's colors are better at night.
Hyundai shows traffic lights, whereas CarPlay only shows them when actively navigating. I prefer to see them even when passively navigating.
The car is an EV and I think the Hyundai nav system has some features to help with finding chargers, but I haven't looked into that. I've got 48A @ 240V (11.5 kW) charging at home and in the nearly 6 months I've had the car I've never charged anywhere but home.
I do on occasion, because the navigation gets thrown onto the HUD of our Ioniq 5. That said, our new camper van (ProMaster chassis) apparently interfaces with CarPlay, and so the navigation gets put on the dashboard (no HUD) without using the built-in nav. That seems to be the optimal solution for me, interface with what I'm going to use anyway. But that doesn't pull in those sweet subscription dollars, I guess.
My older Toyota has a DVD for its maps and works without any comms — I use it all the time (and even pay to update the maps from OEM every few years).
I would LOVE to be able to use my modern Toyota's navigation system; unfortunately, this requires you to connect a modern cell phone (cannot use without it) which I don't own.
So for my new vehicle I instead purchased a stand-alone GPS unit ($60) which comes with lifetime map updates.
Well Tesla's built-in navigation is the best solution I've ever seen by far. Much, much better than any phone. But then you have to drive a fascistmobile. And they charge for it now. I'll keep my 2017 Tesla until it falls apart, with its free-data-for-life.