Navevo Launch ProNav PNN-200 - HGV SatNav

[Darren]

Navevo unveiled their latest satnav for the HGV market yesterday, the PNN-200. Building on the original ProNav, the PNN-200 adds a range of new and improved features through a revised user interface, improved routing engine and updates to its transport dataset.

Feature highlights include Bluetooth handsfree, a media player, video player and ebook reader and free map and transport updates during 2009.

The ProNav device is aimed squarely at professional lorry drivers. The navigation platform allows drivers to enter their vehicle weight, height, length, width and classification of the load they are carrying so that routes are offered that are suitable. Other road users such as caravan's, motor homes, horse transporters etc can all benefit from the enhanced routing information available.

Pronav's website can be found here and the device will be available at Maplin stores from Monday 15th December priced at £199.99 inc VAT.
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Darren Griffin

[GJH]

Have you received a unit for review Darren?

Also, do you know if they have introduced a facility for users to add their own sets of PoIs (as can be done with TomTom & Garmin units for example)?

Graham

[Darren]

[GJH]

Thanks. I'll look forward to the results - hope it ticks the boxes.

Graham

[dopey]

I have nothing to do with these guys (honest guv'na) but if your on a budget the snooper sirius truckmate seems a good bet, i got mine for £250 ok a little more expensive but you get free camera updated for the life of the unit, so you could save in the long run ???

My personal view is the truckmate seems a lot better, i had the other one and took it back to Maples but its your choose

[Bigtrain]

Sorry to be a numpty but could someone direct me to the reviews of these truck drivin' god sends......?

Cant comment on this version cos I haven't tried it
(I bet it's complete and utter s#%T)

[ozace]

interested in knowing whether there is a way to add user POI's to the database - I see they are .cpd's ? Is there a comnversion of any of the other POI's to this cpd format ?

Jim

[Darren]

[RoyC]

I plead guilty to being 100% cynical about this company and it's products.

How many revamps are there going to be before they are able to provide you with a working demo for review? - as far as I am aware it never happened with their earlier model even though I believe that Alix completed a 'less than complementary' review which never got published. I wonder how many users bought the earlier model only to find they have wasted a lot of money and were effectively used as beta testers.

Like a lot of Motor Caravan users I have been waiting for ever to get my hands on a credible , affordable 'Truck' solution. None of the 'non Truck' solutions claim to handle vehicle size/weight or road sizes so they can be excused but I have been loathe to spend my 'kids inheritance' while I evaluate their incomplete Truck products. I was given a 60 day trial of one such product but it didn't cut the mustard although in other respects it was good.

I would like to have an offlist discussion with someone who has Snooper and is technical enough to carry out some tests by which I might evaluate that unit as I have read good reviews of it. Similarly, I would be happy if Navevo would like to send me an evaluation unit to satisfy my doubts about their product but I doubt they will do that.

Roy

[Darren]

Roy, have you considered TomTom's TRUCK software or hardware solutions?

They combine TT software with the custom vehicle options of width/length/height/weight and maps with the specific data?
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Darren Griffin

[RoyC]

Thanks Darren

I am aware of it and at £170 I don;t think it is too 'out of court' but - well several but's really.

First I have used TT happily in the past but became totally desenchanted by their lack of support even though their product still remains the best of those which I have tried.

The main problem however, is that I really need any solution to run under Windows Mobile on my HTC TYTN2 phone.

Now if someone can show me that it is either simply not possible to achieve what i want on such a device - or a more uptodate equivalent - then I would be happy to buy a TT Go or similar and try the truck add on.

The third BUT is that I would need convincing that it solves the problem first and the experience I have had so far with a different product suggests it wont be easy to please me.

It is possible that the road which I use as a test case simply hasn;t been mapped yet but I dont plan to buy it just to find that out.

I will continue to monitor.

Roy

[Darren]

I think a Windows Mobile solution is unlikely TBH but you never know.
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Darren Griffin

[RoyC]

Hi Darren

I have some sypathy with that view but until the day someone admits to it I will hold out the hope.

If you believe that the HTC phone simply doesn't have the power to run such intensive calculations then I am surprised. I don't know which processor is fitteed into a TT GO device but surely it is of a similar technology?

If the issue is not a technical one but more a marketing decision - again I still am surprised. Every day we see ever increasing power on such devices and with the IPhone and the various Android driven devices that seems to me where the thrust is going for future development.

I can see an argument that says that the IPhone and Android Platforms create a more attractive environment and so that is where the effort will go and not on WM which is currently looking a bit 'old hat'. HTC appear to be putting a more attractive front end on 6.5 to the point where it gives WM a similar visual appeal to the IPhone or Android. Until WM7(?) this may continue to be the case but I cannot see MicroSoft giving up on this one.

I have tried the Directions Ltd Navigator 9 solution which has a Truck solution available . I tried this on a trial basis and I did like it, especially with the Desktop Route planning software. The routes which , for me, are problems all failed under this product. I created a vehicle wider than sensible and tried to route it though a road which was ridiculously narrow ( known to me) and it did it quite happily, when a true Truck solution would have had to find a longer alternative route.

If this was down to inadequate map coverage of road widths etc then fine - perhaps someone will wake me up when the UK coverage of roads for Trucks is 100% - anything less is meaningless as a solution unless I know exactly which roads have not been mapped. On the other hand if the algorithms were to blame that is a different matter and there is no way for me to know.
In the case of this product it is true that by using a Truck it did create a different route to that which it did with a car but so do other systems but they use a different method to do that which do not use - or imply they use - vehicle size and road dimensions.

Sygic , for example, do a pretty good job of routing suitable for a Truck simply by giving priority to A roads and avoiding B roads whereever possible. They do this by allocating unusually high road speeds to A roads and very low speeds to B roads - I think. This tends to solve the problem except in rare circumstances but in this case it is done at the cost of widely wrong ETA times.

When these systems can cost many hundred of pounds, no one is going to buy one on the basis of a manufacturers blurb - especially those that have failed to deliver in the past. As a member of various Motor Caravan related groups numbering many thousand members I can assure the manufacturers that there is a large market out there waiting for a credible solution - just prove to us that they do actually solve the problem please.

Roy

[GJH]

Isn't the real problem that the mapping available for any product just isn't up to the job when it comes to road widths?

It doesn't matter how good the hardware and software are if the data are not accurate enough to provide a correct result.

Is there any sat nav product which uses maps which have accurate widths for all (or, at least, a high proportion of) UK roads or do they all simply flag narrow roads based on legal orders?

Graham

[RoyC]

Hi Graham

Certainly up until a year or so back , as far as I was aware, all roads were simply categorised - Motorway, A road etc. I believe that TeleAtlas maintained 9 different road categories although not all users of TeleAtlas maps used all 9 . Again I understand that TT only use 6 of them and amalgamate some or perhaps just ignore them. In fairness to TT their routing has never seemed bad to me when I am in the car.

A couple of years ago Navteq announced their TRANSPORT system where
in addition to categorising the roads they would also maintain road widths , bridge heights etc. Then the Satnav suppliers could , by asking the user for his vehicle dimensions, detemine the best route taking into account the special needs of a large vehicle.

TeleAtlas have also followed this trend by announcing similar capabilities in their maps.

Of course it then requires the SatNav supplier to make use of that extra data and so far only a few have.

As far as I am concerned mapping say 60% of UK with road widths etc is almost worse than the old system of no road widths. With the old system when I drove my Camper Van I knew I had to beware of the risk of being routed into a minor road which would not be suitable for such a large vehicle. With the 'Truck' satnav systems I am seduced into believing that those little issues are dealt with and I can simply go where I am instructed. Sadly this isn't the case because without knowing which 60% of the UK roads is covered means that I cannot take any risks anywhere.

It would seem to me that if the Truck software did a route based on vehicle dimensions, road widths etc BUT when it came to a road which had not been mapped it identified it, then I would know whether I could depend on the routing or not.

In the case of the Directions Ltd Navigator 9 Truck solution there was evidence that they had made an attempt to do that but it wasn;t consistent. As I said I was able to encourage it to send a VERY wide vehicle ( 30 ft ish) though a road gap I knew to be just over 8feet. That is wrong. There was an alternative , longer, route which it should have used but didn;t. Now if that narrow gap had been mapped it would have rerouted but if it hadn;t been mapped it should identify the route as containing roads which have not been mapped for dimensions. Clearly this must be done at the initial route calculation stage because once you have driven to the 'problem road' it is too late.

The example I have used above is a real one on the road outside where I used to live. Daily a large lorry would try and get through the 8ft gap and fail. Some lucky ones realised early and could reverse out - up a very steep hill, but most could not reverse out and had to be towed out. Once a week the road was blocked for some hours while this vehicle was removed. This country is littered with such situations and we have all seen them on the news. My point is simply that if you launch a TRUCK solution it either has to be launched with 100% coverage or at the very least identify the non mapped areas - otherwise it is no solution at all.

Roy

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