Bluetooth on Original GO

[Vorix]

So, will/would it be possible to Bluetooth enable the orginal GO, either with a Bluetooth dongle plugged in to the USB socket, or with a replacement mount with the Bluetooth gubbins built in?
It looks like the new v5 software will be great but seeing those greyed out icons will start to drive me nuts after a while. I only bought my GO a few months ago - no way the other half will sanction a new one so soon after

[Privateer]

Hi Vorix,

The best thing to do is ask TomTom on their website. I suspect that if it were possible then TomTom wouldn’t do it for a while, as that might be perceived as a threat to the sales of the new TTGO 500 and 700 models.

Don’t worry, your TTGO is just as useable now, and with the new software it will be even better.

Regards,
_________________
Robert.
iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 14.0.1: iOS CamerAlert v2.0.7
TomTom GO Mobile iOS 2.3.1; TomTom (UK & ROI and Europe) iOS apps v1.29
Garmin Camper 770 LMT-D

[lbendlin]

Sar far we are under the impression that there will be no BT upgrade to existing GOs
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Lutz

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[Jammy1]

Perhaps a third party manufacturer could develop a way of enabling a Bluetooth connection? I would certainly be first in the que, as I'm sure lots of other original GO users would be.

[DavidW]

Unless provision was made in the existing Go hardware design to add Bluetooth later, I can't see a Bluetooth upgrade being possible. The USB socket will almost certainly be client only, and anything that involves reworking or changing the main circuit board is likely to be uneconomic.

You may be surprised, but I have my doubts over this one - doubts which Lutz (who is at CeBIT, I'm not) clearly shares.



David

[Jammy1]

We can but hope. I would still be prepared to pay a reasonable sum to upgrade the current GO rather than upgrading to the new 500. The 500 seems the most comparable to the current GO i.e. 300 has no ASN. I guess the new 500 would be at least £400 so if a mount or dongle could be created for even as much as £100 I would be very interested. Its just the traffic avoidance bit that really interests me.

[DavidW]

Upgrade details for all TomTom products have not been released. Considering that adding Bluetooth to an existing Go involves hardware changes, I'm doubtful that there will be an upgrade path - unless, as you say, a plug in Bluetooth module is possible. I'd think if TomTom had developed a hardware upgrade, it would have been announced at CeBIT.


Reworking and testing hardware costs a small fortune - when I worked for a company that sold our own hardware, we didn't spend too much time upgrading and reworking boards, not least because the cost of new boards direct from the sub-contractors who built them up for us was relatively low.

For upgrades, we used to recover a few expensive socketed chips, fit them to a later revision of the board and test the product. The cost of reworking boards down to a low level was only rarely justified, though we did do a few "graft on a logic chip" mods to fix various problems (mainly upgrading SCSI interfaces on older revisions of our most complex boards).

For faulty boards, we used to spend five minutes trying to diagnose a few common faults that were easily repaired - otherwise it was a new board. Technician time was so expensive that spending ages looking for a weird fault was uneconomic.


I'd expect a Go main board to be reasonably cheap to TomTom, though I can't remember whether the GPS hardware is on the main board or a daughter board. The actual hardware costs even of expensive circuit boards are often surprisingly low.

However, if an upgrade would to involve fitting a new main board to an existing Go (assuming, for the sake of argument, that you can fit a Go 500 board to an existing Go and that all the other components were compatible with that board), the upgrade would involve retrieving a Go from the field, removing the main board, replacing it with a new one, testing the Go fully and shipping it back with a warranty.


It's a few years since I've done this sort of thing, and I'm going completely off the top of my head anyway, but I suspect that the shipping and admin could easily be £30, technician time £50-60 plus another £30 for on-costs (test gear is extremely expensive, as is providing and maintaining ESD bench facilities and training staff), contingency for the upgrade failing or the upgraded unit failing in warranty and a new unit needing to be supplied £10, plus the cost of the board. That's well over a hundred pounds before allowing for the cost of the board.

Indeed, it may be cheaper for TomTom to throw away the Go they received and supply complete new hardware, because that gets round the cost of rebuilding and testing as one-offs rather than building and testing in an automated production facility.


That hints towards the obvious suggestion - rather than returning the Go in some kind of upgrade deal, where it would presumably lose its software licence, it's far more valuable as a working unit, especially with version 5 software.

Obviously your old Go would be second hand, but far from worthless - there's many people who wouldn't want the Bluetooth features, or would be happy with getting a cheap non-Bluetooth unit second hand. Obviously the value depends on how many people are trying to sell their old Gos, the condition of the accessories and the unit, and the price of the new units, but if you could get half the cost of a new unit, that would probably give you a worthwhile upgrade path.



David

[Jammy1]

Thanks for the detailed response David. I guess I will have to think about upgrading to the 500 if I want the same features plus the traffic option. A bit annoying though. Now if TomTom were to offer a good exchange deal for its loyal existing customers...

[Vorix]

Thamks for the thought out responses everyone. There was a link from this forum to some web pages where someone had hacked into the underlying OS of the GO by using the contacts on the underside. That was what got me thinking about a new cradle with the Bluetooth module inside. It wouldn't need any new circuit boards etc. inside the GO itself. I reckon TomTom could flog thousands of them at £100 a piece.
Personally, I can't see myself spending another £500+ on the new model with this feature for a few years to come, especially as there's no real 'lock-in' with the GO in terms of subscriptions etc. However, enabling the new functionality in the v5 software would extend their potential revenue stream for the Plus functionality to the many thousands of existing users who (like me) are very happy with the current product.
When I do decide to upgrade, there's going to be a lot of competition for my money in a couple of years. The GO was original when it was launched (not quite unique) but everyone else is learning and catching up fast.
I'm a great fan of TomTom, not least because they're European rather than American, but I'm not sure they've made me a loyal customer quite yet.

[Darren]

Given the number of unit sales of GO it is unlikely that a developer would consider a custom hardware based bluetooth solution justifiable.

Even were this available, the upgrade to V5 will not necessarily incorporate the features of the 300, 500 and 700 series i.e. the Bluetooth features so it is highly unlikely.
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Darren Griffin

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