Just now smart are these things?

So, yeah... I actually bought a NEW GPS, instead of my usually pattern
of killing one and buying a model a few years old from someone else.
I've own before this a StreetPilot, a ColorMap (think SPII), and a 2620.

The 2620's autorouting was pretty straightforward. You told it where you
wanted to go, and as long as the same settings were chosen, it gave you
the same route back, every time. When there was variation, it's because
you told it "shorter" instead of "faster", or "avoid highway" or some
similar thing that you knew that you did. And if you came back to the
settings you had before, it'd give you the same route it had then
before. Sensible enough, right?

Enter the Nüvi 785WT. This has all the same widgets, plus the
"eco-Route" which the manual explains as the most fuel-efficient route,
basically looking for straight lines, bigger roads, and a target speed
of about 45 MPH. Nice. Not exceptionally exciting because I drive like
an old man and the fuel difference between 45 and 53 ain't very much
anyway, but fine.

The thing that's gotten me to thinking is the 785 seems to like...
exploring. There's a particular thai grocery that I like that's about 7
miles away. With the 2620, it gave me one of two routes, depending on
whether I picked: An L-shaped route on two interstates for the fastest,
and a zig-zag route on shortest. The 785 has now made about five trips
to the grocery and is now more or less settled on a simplified version
of the zig-zag for "fastest" on the way there, and gives me a different
route for the trip home every time, still on "fastest" selection.

If I'm according the thing the maximal amount of smarts, I'd swear it
was hunting through roads it thinks are likely to be fast, then having
me drive down them to see how much time it REALLY takes to drive chunks
of them. The home routing has developed an affection for part of the
zig-zag route that it didn't start out knowing was 55 MPH (no little
signpost on the lower left), and only tried a chunk of another road
that's actually residential a single time: after stoplights ever 1/4
mile and 30 MPH speed limits, when the stretch gotten to by turning a
half-mile later is 40 MPH and stops only twice a mile, it's seemingly
decided that THAT was a bad idea, and resolved to never think about it
again. And, it's never seemed even interested in the interstate highway
option, though it's only ridden down it once.

So, does anyone know if this thing actually DOES experiment, take notes
and remember what roads seem to work well?

--
I think I'd like to see a Simpsons episode starting up with Bart Simpson
writing "I will not attempt to undermine the Usenet Cabal".
-- J. D. Falk

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:43:58 -0600, "Peter H. Coffin"

Yes, of course it does, and it actually knows if you stopped to take a
shit along the way, and remembers where the good toilets are, hahaha!


If you ever have, and actually use, something that tells you your
instantaneous fuel consumption, you'll find that rate of acceleration,
coasting well before and up to a stop, and hills and head or tail
winds, make a bigger difference to mileage than the factors in that
manual.

You need to get the GPS with anemometer and pitch meter built in,
hahahahaha!

Peter-

Doesn't the "T" indicate traffic? If the Nuvi was really smart, it
might take alternate routes when there were traffic jams.

My new 1490T did not volunteer to take alternate routes during a recent
trip across the state. Twice it warned me in advance that there were
accidents on the road ahead, but indicated the delay would be in the
order of a couple of minutes for each. Had I chosen to avoid both
accidents, the trip would have been about an hour faster!

Fred

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:16:41 -0500, Fred McKenzie wrote:

The T does indicate traffic, but only the interstate route would have
that data. And at least two trips were during times I'd not expect there
to be any traffic flow issues. It might explain why the interstates were
avoided, but not the latest variation (which prompted the question,
actually) of taking that favored 55MPH road an extra two miles before
turning south onto a designated US highway that added about ... (let's
see, sqrt of this over that...) a half mile to the total distance.


There's certainly some lag between how fast the information goes from
whatever monitors the speed of flow, to the data publication, then to
whatever reads that and sends out the information to the recievers.
Maybe it was only a few minutes delay 10 minutes ago, before the fire
trucks arrived and blocked two lanes. (:

--
Technical points aside, you could probably beat someone to
death with a Newton if you had to. Try that with a Palm Pilot!
--Dan Duncan in comp.sys.newton.misc

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:43:58 -0600, "Peter H. Coffin"

(snip)


Despite the cynicism of some posters, I'll relate an experience with
our 760.

Had occasion one evening to drive to a workmate's place I hadn't been
to before. It was in a "jungle" of twisty turning near-urban roads.
Part of the area I knew, a lot was new to me. Told the 760 "shortest"
and away we went.

Still in familiar territory, it wanted to send me around two sides of
a triangle. I chose the third side, which was shown on its map and
was also shorter than either of the others. On the return journey
"destination: home" it used what it had learned and sent me back the
road I had used.

Make what you will of that, and be sceptical if you wish, but it did
"learn" a shorter route.