Sat Nav in Car

[#1]

Sat nav works fine, to update it requires a new memory card, cost around £70, even a new one is likely to have maps at least a year old.

A number of people use a sat nav app on their phones, how do these work, I do not mean how do you use the sat nav, I mean how does the system work, does it link to phone mast signals and if so what happens if you are in a area where no signal is available, thing is I have a PAYG card in the phone, if the phone was used would the charge be the same as a ordinary phone call.?
I accept I could switch to the many deals on offer for a fixed monthly fee but infrequent use of the sat nav would not justify the cost as I rarely make any calls.

The alternative is a new stand alone sat nav with free updated maps for the lifetime of the product for around £70 for UK maps.

Appreciate any comments or advice.

Thanks.

[#2]

It uses GPS like all other SatNavs.
What uses the phone data would be the downloading of the maps as you go, but you can pre-download those.
Other data might be used for traffic updates.
If your car supports Android auto or Car Play you should be able to plug your phone in and use the in car display.
I bought a sat nav app and life time maps update for about £35 or you can use google maps / waze for free.

[#3]

Google maps works quite well. I've also used Co-pilot which was very easy to use. Map updates were via WiFi to wherever I was storing them on the smartphone. While the actual location is done via GPS, the data allowance is used for getting live traffic updates (Active traffic) - if you subscribed to it (£10 a year). I would say it was a very handy feature to have and worked far better than the built in SatNav that I currently have. You could get it to look at the route X miles ahead and if it flagged up, say a traffic incident, it would then 'on the move' recalculate the route to go around the problem area with no real input from me.

My built in satnav does have the same sort of feature but the range of that is pretty naff in comparison. No point telling me with less than 2 miles to go that there is a traffic incident ahead - by then I'm invariably in the queue of traffic!

But yes, for free do give Google Maps a go. You do have to download the maps if you want it to work off line though.

[#4]

@idonno 

Google works well for us also using the mobile even though the screen is a bit small for our old eyes. It also seems to run in real time with traffic updates - once ignored leaving us stuck in traffic for two hours. Our 'old' Tom Tom's screen was not a lot larger truth be told, but as it can no longer be updated anyway...

Funny thing is that even with all this high tech now taken for granted, some of us just cannot bear to part with our old paper maps in the car.  Back in the day I would never drive anywhere without my trusty little London A to Z tucked inside what we used to call the glove box!

Just a thought, but can you buy SatNavs that incorporate a dash cam?

[#5]

Garmin do a range of Sat Nav's with a dashcam but they aren't cheap.
The app I use (Sygic) can use the phone as a dashcam too - but I haven't tried it as I need to investigate a decent mount and then a long cable to connect it.

[#6]

Thanks to all for the feedback

🤙

[#7]

There are free sat nav apps (with adverts) that allow you to download the entire UK maps onto the SD card, via a home wifi connection.

Not very good - but OK for occasional use.

[#8]

If it has adverts then it's not free... or is it. 🤔

[#9]

Not free - but it doesn't cost me anything, at least not directly.

It's probably indirectly linked with all kinds of databases (ISP's, governmental, multinationals etc).

Since there's no money in the mobile or any banking things, I can't pay for any rubbish that people send me, even if I wanted to.

[#10]

like dvorak and others said, your phone will use GPS but downloading maps on the go will use your data - you connect via wifi and download the maps you need if possible. EG download the UK if you do your driving here and not abroad - but if you travel abroad, download that country before you go.

On a side note, you ask how they work.. I have a very old 1998 sat nav in the car outside that still has an infra red remote control instead of a touch screen. It also has a CD-rom mini computer in the boot which has built in gyroscopes so that it can work in underground tunnels. To say the accuracy is amazing would be an understatement. Although old and not used as the car is sorn, it was an amazing bit of kit when i last used it. Yes mobile phones are great for sat nav but their GPS receivers can be very hit n miss.