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Andy_P
Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: Jun 04, 2005
Posts: 19991
Location: West and Southwest London
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 Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 2:08 am Post subject: WARNING - TomTom's fuel POIs can disrupt the Camera warnings |
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That's right...
TomTom's fuel POIs can disrupt the PGPSW Camera warnings!
Sorry if this turns into a long post, but first a bit of background....
When I was researching some of the ridiculous fuel prices suggested by TT's LIVE Services, I came across a slightly disturbing fact.
As we know, the TT 'premium' Petrol Stations POIs included with the Fuel Prices Live service use a different set of data from the ordinary Petrol Station POIs, and often they showed the same station in two different places.
How embarrassing for TomTom....
But recently, I've noticed a lot of them weren't doing that any more.
However, rather than them sorting it out properly, I found that TomTom had done a sneaky trick just to disguise the problem.
On recent software, having a premium fuel POI on screen stops the ordinary fuel POI being displayed, if it's within a certain radius.
However....when a premium fuel POI is shown on screen, it also stops ANY OTHER nearby POI's from showing too!
(Try it... If you have LIVE Services, find a "fuel prices" petrol station, and put a new POI of your own close by. It doesn't show up, unless you switch off their petrol stations!
At first I thought this might be a strange, but minor inconvenience, but since I've been looking for it, I've already seen two examples where having the premium fuel POIs enabled has stopped a PGPSW camera alert from working.
Here's one of them, and you don't even need to drive there to see what's wrong.
Look on the map at N51.50893 W0.15543. That's Park Lane in Central London, and there's a Gatso camera on the Northbound carriageway, which you'll see, if you have that POI category set to show on the map.
Now select the "Petrol Station" POI to show on the map too. One will appear on the southbound carriageway by Mount Street, but where has the Gatso gone?!?!
And it's not just on the map page. Run a demo of a route along Park lane and you'll see what happens on the road...
Here it is, with the PGPSW cameras set to warn as normal:
Now (without even stopping the demo), switch the TomTom premium Petrol Stations to show as well:
... No POI on screen, no visual alert at the top left corner and no audible warning either!
Strangely, their OWN camera alerts are unaffected by this new "feature".... Nasty, eh? |
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mikealder
Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: Jan 14, 2005
Posts: 19638
Location: Blackpool , Lancs
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| Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 10:13 am Post subject: |
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Nice finding Andy, perhaps this is as good reason as any to remove the useless fuel prices files from the device for good, I am sick of inaccurate prices and certainly don't trust the locations it offers let alone the price.
As you have found if you query any fuel price errors they ask for specific locations/ dates/ time, if you then supply this information they do nothing, fuel prices are yet another part of the Live services that are a useless waste of time - Mike |
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spook51
Lifetime Member
Joined: Mar 26, 2004
Posts: 548
Location: East Midlands
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| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 5:44 pm Post subject: |
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I experienced this earlier today or rather, it could explain why I wasn't warned of a 30mph Gatso but there was a 'squawk' for subsequent ones.
The location is on the A57 in Mottram, soon after leaving the M67. The camera (painted green) is on the opposite side of the road about 50m before the Texaco filling station.
I thought it happened a few weeks ago but it's not a regular route of mine so wasn't able to check until today. Regular drivers in the area may wish to double check. |
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Darren
Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40
Posts: 23848
Location: Hampshire, UK
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| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 7:55 pm Post subject: |
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How unusual of them to fix a bug by masking it instead of resolving the actual problem 
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Darren Griffin |
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DennisN
Tired Old Man
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
Posts: 14902
Location: Keynsham
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| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Darren wrote: | | How unusual of them to fix a bug by masking it instead of resolving the actual problem |
Yes. It makes me wonder why they didn't do something similar with the crackly volume and the battery rundown. Hang on, they did, didn't they? 
PS See my signature - The correct answer is B - you go home with nothing!
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Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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Andy_P
Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: Jun 04, 2005
Posts: 19991
Location: West and Southwest London
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| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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| You forgot the mp3 player, the FM transmitter, and maybe soon... MapShare? |
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DennisN
Tired Old Man
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
Posts: 14902
Location: Keynsham
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 12:23 am Post subject: |
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Absence makes the heart grow fonder - I'd forgotten all about those, it's so long since I used them (since I busted something trying to use them).
PS They can bust Mapshare just as soon as they like for me (but only after they get it working, of course). 
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Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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M8TJT
The Other Tired Old Man
Joined: Apr 04, 2006
Posts: 10118
Location: Bexhill, South Sussex, UK
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:05 am Post subject: |
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| spook51 wrote: | | The location is on the A57 in Mottram, soon after leaving the M67. The camera (painted green) is on the opposite side of the road about 50m before the Texaco filling station. |
Is green not an unusual colour for a speed cam?? Is this allowed? |
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Darren
Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40
Posts: 23848
Location: Hampshire, UK
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:30 am Post subject: |
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| M8TJT wrote: | | Is green not an unusual colour for a speed cam?? Is this allowed? |
There are no longer any requirements for them to be 'high-viz'. They introduced a rule requiring them to be and then they dropped it.
So as it stands they can be yellow, green or camouflage if they so please
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Darren Griffin |
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spook51
Lifetime Member
Joined: Mar 26, 2004
Posts: 548
Location: East Midlands
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:28 am Post subject: |
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| M8TJT wrote: | | spook51 wrote: | | The location is on the A57 in Mottram, soon after leaving the M67. The camera (painted green) is on the opposite side of the road about 50m before the Texaco filling station. |
Is green not an unusual colour for a speed cam?? Is this allowed? |
It's a matt pea green/light olive colour; there are a couple on that stretch of road. |
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nivek22
Lifetime Member
Joined: Mar 09, 2006
Posts: 194
Location: Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Aren't these the Watchman cameras discussed a while ago? |
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mikealder
Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: Jan 14, 2005
Posts: 19638
Location: Blackpool , Lancs
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Indeed they are Watchman cameras, that area has quite a few mostly in Green but around one of the Universities in the East side of Manchester they are dark Blue! - Mike |
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BMW330
Pocket GPS Verifier
Joined: May 20, 2006
Posts: 389
Location: Sydney, Australia
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:20 pm Post subject: Re: WARNING - TomTom's fuel POIs can disrupt the Camera warn |
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| Andy_P wrote: | [b]That's right...
However, rather than them sorting it out properly, I found that TomTom had done a sneaky trick just to disguise the problem.
On recent software, having a premium fuel POI on screen stops the ordinary fuel POI being displayed, if it's within a certain radius.
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TomTom is not the first system to do this - the Siemens/VDO-based navigation systems used in BMW, VW, Vauxhaul, Alpine etc do the same thing. Apparently it's because the POI data included with their maps is somewhat, err, "dirty", so rather than scrub the data, they simply suppress multiple POI within about a 50m-75m radius.
PS: What really annoys me is how easy it is for someone with high school maths to find POI duplicates in the data that are x distance apart, but no, let's rather write some  code... |
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M8TJT
The Other Tired Old Man
Joined: Apr 04, 2006
Posts: 10118
Location: Bexhill, South Sussex, UK
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2010 8:10 am Post subject: Re: WARNING - TomTom's fuel POIs can disrupt the Camera warn |
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| BMW330 wrote: | | PS: What really annoys me is how easy it is for someone with high school maths to find POI duplicates in the data that are x distance apart, but no, let's rather write some code... |
Even worse, they must already have the gash code do the sums on the fly in the satnav, else how would they know the 'other' poi is close enough to suppress?
Paul: 
Last edited by M8TJT on Sat Apr 10, 2010 11:08 am; edited 1 time in total |
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PaulB2005
Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: Jan 04, 2006
Posts: 9323
Location: Durham, UK
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2010 8:54 am Post subject: |
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| Please don't use asterisks to circumvent the auto censor.... |
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