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Convince me to buy a Nav V / Nav VI vs another GPS
- Thread starter zenwhipper
- Start date
Emoto
New member
I have a 660 and a Nav 5.
I use the 660 in the car and the Nav on the bike.
If I had a do over I would just have a 660. I can do without everything in the Nav 5 and I mean wonder wheel and all that.
I see 660's going for 450-550 range with LM (Lifetime Maps)
Cheaper if you look around or even go refurbished.
My 660 has been bullet proof. The Nav 5 also.
I like them because of the water resistance but they are not water proof. I road some bad storms and never a water issue.
I got the Nav 5 at a great price when I bought the bike and am all right with the cost of it at that time.
Like I say though if I had a do over I would just have the 660. You can only use one or the other at a time anyway.
You don't like being able to zoom in and out easily with the wheel? I use that ALL the time when meandering.
FWIW, you can indeed run two GPS units. I run my Nav V in the factory GPS Prep mount and a Montana running topo maps in portrait mode on a handlebar mount.
An option based on experience......
I did a 10,500 mile in South America last fall with a dozen other guys, top to bottom, from Cartagena to Ushuaia, all on BMW GS's. A few older oilheads but mostly new bikes. Have always had Garmin units on my bikes and there was a mix on this trip - lots of 660 and some BMW branded versions. One thing I learned on this trip is I will never, NEVER, rely on a Garmin unit to get me where I am going. From now on my primary navigation tool will be my phone.
Nothing was more reliable and more accurate than the phones. Period. And the maps for any country in the world are free and constantly updated. Always the most accurate directions were from using the app Maps.me, followed closely by Google maps. Can't tell you how many times Maps.me saved our butts and kept us from getting seriously lost. Half the group had the phones mounted various ways on the handlebars - no phones fell off, no phones were lost. Lots of off-road riding - Bolivia was brutal. I didn't do a survey of the phones but did notice that most of them were iPhones. Most everyone had Sena headsets and it was my first time using one. Sure was nice being able to listen to music via Bluetooth, check a map and charge my phone while riding.
No cell service is required or used in following the navigation on the phone. Maps.me uses the GPS in your phone. Yes you do need a cell or internet connection to download the base maps for wherever you are but that was easy and you only do it once obviously. I think the whole US is about 62 mb in maps.me which is nothing when most newer phones are 128 - 256 g. Also easy to share your location with others in the group. Came in handy when we were separated at times. Also was introduced to Rever on this trip and want to use it more.
IIRC Google Maps was very accurate when we were in a major city and needed to find our way around or through town. I distinctly remember leading a couple of buddies in my small group through La Paz, trying to find where we had planned on staying and my Garmin was changing it's mind constantly. One of the other guys had his phone mounted next to his Garmin, consulting both. He took over the lead, followed the phone directions/maps and we were fine. It was then I decided to stop trying to rely on the Garmin.
I plan on getting a new GS this spring and I will not be getting a NAV of any kind. Even if it was free. Don't care how integrated it may be with the bikes display. Doesn't mean much if the info is not accurate.
Just a nice solid mount for my phone (they all seemed to have a quick release) and I know I am good to go. Would definitely consider a second back-up phone for an trip out of the country before I would buy a NAV.
Just my 0.02.
I did a 10,500 mile in South America last fall with a dozen other guys, top to bottom, from Cartagena to Ushuaia, all on BMW GS's. A few older oilheads but mostly new bikes. Have always had Garmin units on my bikes and there was a mix on this trip - lots of 660 and some BMW branded versions. One thing I learned on this trip is I will never, NEVER, rely on a Garmin unit to get me where I am going. From now on my primary navigation tool will be my phone.
Nothing was more reliable and more accurate than the phones. Period. And the maps for any country in the world are free and constantly updated. Always the most accurate directions were from using the app Maps.me, followed closely by Google maps. Can't tell you how many times Maps.me saved our butts and kept us from getting seriously lost. Half the group had the phones mounted various ways on the handlebars - no phones fell off, no phones were lost. Lots of off-road riding - Bolivia was brutal. I didn't do a survey of the phones but did notice that most of them were iPhones. Most everyone had Sena headsets and it was my first time using one. Sure was nice being able to listen to music via Bluetooth, check a map and charge my phone while riding.
No cell service is required or used in following the navigation on the phone. Maps.me uses the GPS in your phone. Yes you do need a cell or internet connection to download the base maps for wherever you are but that was easy and you only do it once obviously. I think the whole US is about 62 mb in maps.me which is nothing when most newer phones are 128 - 256 g. Also easy to share your location with others in the group. Came in handy when we were separated at times. Also was introduced to Rever on this trip and want to use it more.
IIRC Google Maps was very accurate when we were in a major city and needed to find our way around or through town. I distinctly remember leading a couple of buddies in my small group through La Paz, trying to find where we had planned on staying and my Garmin was changing it's mind constantly. One of the other guys had his phone mounted next to his Garmin, consulting both. He took over the lead, followed the phone directions/maps and we were fine. It was then I decided to stop trying to rely on the Garmin.
I plan on getting a new GS this spring and I will not be getting a NAV of any kind. Even if it was free. Don't care how integrated it may be with the bikes display. Doesn't mean much if the info is not accurate.
Just a nice solid mount for my phone (they all seemed to have a quick release) and I know I am good to go. Would definitely consider a second back-up phone for an trip out of the country before I would buy a NAV.
Just my 0.02.
ncpbmw1953
Member
That must not apply to the US and surroundings. I did a 9,163 mile trip last summer and Nav V never let us down except on occasion a Chevron station would turn into a Shell station unannounced! Whereas Googlemap Nav on my iPhone getting me out of San Fransisco was a total nightmare of inaccurate untimely prompts! Normally it's great but she got real confused in the downtown area. Googlemaps is so much more elegant a GPS solution however. You need a PhD in Basecamp just to get to the corner store!
alancoles
Dress for fall & avoid it
My experience is the same. I covered about 7,000 miles last year using the Nav-V and about 8-9,000 using my 56LM. All of that was in Europe, Canada and the US. Were there times the Garmin didn't give me what I was looking for or got confused, absolutely. However, over the past few years I've made a habit of running two and sometimes three GPS units (counting my phone GPS) at the same time to see what the strengths and weaknesses of each were. In almost all of those times the cellphone based GPS was the most problematic. There were a few times (no more than 20%) where the cellphone won out, but that was it.
In September we were in Southern Florida, just south of Ft. Lauderdale and with four of us in a car, neither the Garmin, nor the three cellphones we were using could direct us to our location (nothing is perfect) but the Garmin got us closest and was noticeably quicker to get us rerouted.
I've found in Europe, especially in the mountains where you may drop in and out of satellite reception, that the Garmin works best as it seems to extrapolate better. Around Monaco going into and out of long tunnels with direction changes immediately after while travelling at speed was a problem for everything, but again, the Garmin was the quickest to recover. YMMV, but no GPS or GPS app is going to work properly 100% of the time, we are after all asking them to do some major stuff in a pretty quick and helpful way.
Perhaps it's a Garmin - South America issue. I can tell you that I have tried to report to Google Maps their omission of a street that Garmin recognizes, and Google Maps couldn't even respond to my help properly, so I gave up. It was obvious from their response that they didn't even read my short/simple email properly!
Did you guys update your GPS's with the latest maps? What map packs did you buy and how old were they? Even if you had old maps, it will still bring you pretty close, within a block or two in a crowded city. I'm not questioning you but it seems a bit off that ALL the GPSs in your group were bad. Did nobody in the group use Base Camp and plan a route? Traditionally bad navigation is due to poor Sat reception and incorrect destination co-ordinates.
As for Google Maps in smartphones, sure it works but you do need an active cell phone data plan to get the navigation solution. Even downloading the maps for offline use and getting some free Wi-Fi before losing all connectivity will wreck the navigation solution once you go off the stored direction routing... Google Maps and a cell phone GPS won't be able to navigate you without cellular service, it will only be used as a Situational Awareness tool. Now that is a good back up... seeing your location and following along will allow you DF homing (direction finding).
I'm curious how you were able to share you location on your smartphone with other smartphones if you didn't have a cellular connection?
I've had my Garmin nuvi 66LM spin out of control downtown Toronto. I've had Google Maps on my cellphone send me on city block detour loops in Olso Norway because of one way streets and U-turns and street signs blocking access during certain times of the day. I've had motorcycle GPSs get to within 200m of hotels but then get confused with left and right turns, one way streets etc.... Couldn't find
Heck, I trust the GPS more than myself and road signs at times and I will get burned by putting faith into the machine... Point being is do a route study, read road signs and have some city names and highway/street names memorized on your route.
Also, I have n-Com B5... so I can Bluetooth to the smartphone and have the phone paired with a gps that is mounted on the bike.
Disclaimer: no experience with maps.me .... and what's Rever? Now I have to Google that.
Just checked Rever - $60 USD a year for offline maps.
If you are using your smartphone... Waze - GPS, Maps & Traffic has good reviews for traffic and apparently good nav solutions. Can't speak to the offline capability.
ncpbmw1953
Member
You can also scroll up/down with the wheel as well as page changes and that is useful. I use the +/- zoom in the twisties to be able to tell how tight curves are before I get there which is nice.
alancoles
Dress for fall & avoid it
That definitely works very well. I've actually travelled across the continent without even a map or any other aid, just used road signs and got directions at every gas fillup. A very fun and interesting way to travel. That being said it does take longer to travel that way and so if you've got a bit of time you can decompress better. ;-)
Unfortunately for me, my vision has deteriorated sufficiently that I can't read a map very well from a tank-bag anymore and road signs at speed are iffy, so GPS for me it is. I'm still legal to drive/ride, but near the limit, so I'm trying to make sure I get as much riding in just in case someday I can't ride. Thankfully, good and quite accurate GPSs are available and fairly easy to setup with communications, ranging from a few $100 to many, depending on what one needs/wants/prefers.
alancoles
Dress for fall & avoid it
That is good, but you also want to make sure that you actively continue to exercise and develop your ability to read the road ahead of you.
Hopefully, you already do this by merely using the GPS to verify what you've already deduced about the next corner and if there is any variance than we know we need to adjust/hone that part of our riding. This is a function where the GPS can serve as an excellent tool to help each of us improve our riding ability. Reading corners properly is an art form that I am still only okay at and will never ace, but will continually work on with great pleasure. ;-)
ncpbmw1953
Member
Every ride is a realtime demand to read the road, the traffic, the everything. I use Nav V as a warning about what's coming down the road else why use it at all. My ability to read the road is only enhanced by seeing there is a tight curve ahead well of where I would be able to read the road. No worries though Alan, I am of the belief anyone who rides twisty roads like they are on the track are doomed to an early demise, so that's not me. My one and only goal after starting up the bike is to return home unscathed, period! I don't normally have Nav V installed unless I need GPS for directions, or if there are substantial twisties involved, and I definitely find it a plus to see what's coming way before I get there.
I used to drive like that (twisties like on a track), then came to my senses.
So now I follow your approach, well said. Oh, and "have fun!" too!
zenwhipper
Member
OPer here... I've been hesitant to finally bite the bullet and have a GPS on the bike. I've done pretty good with just a tank bag map over the last 15 years of riding. But, where a GPS seems very useful is when you get closer to your destination for that day, say on an overnight(s) trip, you can bring up the hotel and the GPS will guide you in. Nice.
I've also been hesitant to get yet another electronic device I need to maintain (charge, ensure firmware is up to date, know how to use etc).
My other issue I've had with GPS use is I've seen in the past, with folks I ride with, an over reliance on the GPS and allowing it to be a riding distraction (sometimes dangerously so). I have seen my fellow riding blokes, ahead of me scanning there GPS while not paying attention to the road.
But I suppose this can happen to myself as well- as I crane my neck down to view the map in the tank bag plastic cover!
I've also been hesitant to get yet another electronic device I need to maintain (charge, ensure firmware is up to date, know how to use etc).
My other issue I've had with GPS use is I've seen in the past, with folks I ride with, an over reliance on the GPS and allowing it to be a riding distraction (sometimes dangerously so). I have seen my fellow riding blokes, ahead of me scanning there GPS while not paying attention to the road.
But I suppose this can happen to myself as well- as I crane my neck down to view the map in the tank bag plastic cover!ncpbmw1953
Member
Fortunately, as long as you haven't crashed, you can hardly avoid having fun!
alancoles
Dress for fall & avoid it
Agree completely, many of us are fortunate to be here in spite of ourselves when we were young, certainly me. For the past 20 years+ my riding style has been safety first.
nelliott, I used to ride some of the roads in your area in the mid-late 70's on my GS750 that I club raced at the old race track at Westwood. There are some phenomenally great and sometimes treacherous roads through there, as well as up through Squamish and Whistler and on Vancouver Island. I'm sure the traffic level has changed some of that 40 years later, but they were definitely great and very sparsely travelled 40 years ago.
My comment on using one's mind and eyes to analysis the corner and using the GPS to verify what I'd deduced or modify it, was regarding doing so at normal to slightly spirited road speeds, and having it be an additional tool in the ongoing quest to always be improving, not to go faster, but to ride better and safer.
You are quite right that the level of distraction is rider dependent and totally a function of how one decides to ride and allocate their attention. The majority should always be on the task of riding.OPer here... I've been hesitant to finally bite the bullet and have a GPS on the bike. I've done pretty good with just a tank bag map over the last 15 years of riding. But, where a GPS seems very useful is when you get closer to your destination for that day, say on an overnight(s) trip, you can bring up the hotel and the GPS will guide you in. Nice.
I've also been hesitant to get yet another electronic device I need to maintain (charge, ensure firmware is up to date, know how to use etc).
My other issue I've had with GPS use is I've seen in the past, with folks I ride with, an over reliance on the GPS and allowing it to be a riding distraction (sometimes dangerously so). I have seen my fellow riding blokes, ahead of me scanning there GPS while not paying attention to the road.
This is where I really like my GPS because I use a Sena communication system and so the verbal prompts are often sufficient to give me exactly what I need without having to look at my GPS nearly as often as I would a map. Especially since Garmin introduced their "Real Directions Prompts". These will give you an initial verbal prompt of say "turn left onto Main Street in one-half mile" (distance out is dependent on travelling speed), then the next one would be something like "in one-quarter mile turn left onto Main Street after the Shell Station". That way I don't need to be able to see and read the street sign (especially at night), I just know that it is the left turn at the cross street 1/4 mile up with the Shell station on the near-side corner. Far better than a map at night in a strange city when you're tired, especially if road-work, etc., has re-routed you off your pre-chosen course.
A few weeks ago I was in Las Vegas for several days and rented a bike for two days. Due to a number of things, I didn't have my helmet with me, but did have a Sena SPH10. They are designed to be used for a wide range of outdoor sports and motorsports activities and work well with a half-helmet (not what I like to wear but it was that or not ride).
Anyway, I knew the bike wouldn't have a mount for my Nav-V so I decided that I'd take the SPH10 and the Nav-V and simply put the Nav-V in the inside breast pocket of my riding jacket and get all my navigation through verbal prompts without any visual input. Everything worked fine. Preferably, I'd also have the visual assistance, to make things even simpler, but I had to work within the constraints I had, and everything worked as I'd hoped it would.
On my way to return the bike I simply:
- pulled up the destination from the recent destinations section and clicked on that. Once it calculated my route
- I held down the "back arrow" on the lower left of the screen to go directly back to the opening screen
- and tapped "Where To?"
- then tapped "Searching near" in the upper right of the search screen
- and tapped "My Destination" on that screen which takes you back to the search screen
- then I tapped "Gas Stations", selected the one I wanted, and tapped go
- then hit the prompt "Add to Active Route"
That process (far quicker to do than describe
) took me through city streets, on two highways, and then to a gas station about 10 blocks from the rental place and finally, directly to the rental. All on voice prompts and without having a tank bag for a map, or being able to see the GPS.
Last edited:
Emoto
New member
OPer here... I've been hesitant to finally bite the bullet and have a GPS on the bike. I've done pretty good with just a tank bag map over the last 15 years of riding. But, where a GPS seems very useful is when you get closer to your destination for that day, say on an overnight(s) trip, you can bring up the hotel and the GPS will guide you in. Nice.
I've also been hesitant to get yet another electronic device I need to maintain (charge, ensure firmware is up to date, know how to use etc).
My other issue I've had with GPS use is I've seen in the past, with folks I ride with, an over reliance on the GPS and allowing it to be a riding distraction (sometimes dangerously so). I have seen my fellow riding blokes, ahead of me scanning there GPS while not paying attention to the road.
It is a tool like any other, and it is up to you to not fixate on it. Pull over, if you need/want to do anything elaborate on it. I've had GPSes for maybe 8 years now, and still like and use maps. Still keep them in the tank bag window. They are better for a large overview of an area than a GPS is.
My units charge in the cradle while riding, so that is not an issue. I plug them into a USB port periodically and they get updated. Pretty painless.
ncpbmw1953
Member
Alan, I don't get the chance to ride w/ others very often. If I may for 'normal' riding, what is your typical curve entry speed relative to the posted speed when posted speed is available, in dry conditions, lets say in the posted speed range of 25-45? How about 'slightly spirited' in your mind? For typical/normal riding for me, it's around 20mph over the posted speed. Spirited gets up to about 25-27mph over the posted speed, and that IMO is already touching on safety risk for the unexpected around the bend. ABS Pro might tempt me up a little more, but that's not an option for '16 models unless it's retrofittable, and if it is I'd probably go there.
After a 28y layoff from riding, and recalling not once when I sold my Kaw 1000LTD, nor the other bikes before, did I ever think of anything safety related, I'm now hyperaware of risk and what to do to lower crash risk. It's a jolly good thing IMO when you're older especially as we absolutely injure more easily and heal less easily. I read several books on riding 3y ago and follow the basics for how to manage curves, late-apex turn in, keep my weight inside the bike's midline to reduce lean/enhance traction, and many more to and including avoiding high risk deer/other collision scenarios and dense traffic settings. My guess is I'm probably about average or a little faster than my age/experience average, but I don't really know.
alancoles
Dress for fall & avoid it
My entry speed is likely pretty close to yours. In general I ride about 10 MPH over the posted "Speed Limit" for the road, so a 60 MPH road might see me maintaining between 70-75 MPH depending on conditions. For the turns, if I had to guess at an average it would be, like you around 20 mph over the posted suggested corner speed, but it varies greatly on conditions (weather/visibility/traffic/etc). Spirited follows very closely to your thinking as well, 25-30, but again, very dependent on what it actually is. My experience has been that Speed Limits and speed postings (corners), tend to vary greatly in how accurately they reflect what I sense as a "prudent" speed for a specific section of road. Some spots I'd feel comfortable going well over the posted limit but wouldn't feel my license was secure. Other sections seem to be very close to my perceived prudent pace, while a very few have had posted limits that I thought were a bit high for the congestion, high number of access points, and range of visibility.
As far as being much more aware of my vulnerability, I terrible misfortune early in my riding life (when I was a teenagers) to happen upon a typical car / motorcycle accident - rural secondary road driver turns left into driveway without noticing the oncoming motorcycle. We got blankets and covered them to reduce heat loss but with broken necks/backs/and bones sticking out through their leathers, all we could really do was standby and watch as both the rider and his passenger died before the ambulance could even get to the scene. That situation was fatal for those two unfortunate souls, and it left a lasting impression on me. Having said that, that did not stop me from riding like an idiot, at times, in my 20's and even later, but since my 20's those occasions have been getting fewer and fewer and much farther apart.
I've got several mottos that I tend to follow to some degree or another but the three that pertain to riding the most would be:
- Plan for tomorrow, but live for today
- Dress for the "fall" not the ride
- Expect motorists, roads, animals and conditions to do every thing that they possibly could BUT be prepared for them to do things you never thought possible
I've had a mattress come off a truck in front of me (several cars up so I had no idea until everyone split the lane leaving me directly in it's path), had a kitchen table fly off an oncoming truck, and had cats, dogs, and deer cross in front of my while riding.
Back to the OT, my feeling is that there is some benefit to having a Nav-V (VI) vs other GPS but these are very much value propositions that are different for each person, very much like safety.
One of the benefits is the ability to do some things through the WonderWheel that one might otherwise be tempted to do while riding. Just those few items are or at least can be significant. But again, those are individual value propositions.
The factory Nav provides so much information beyond mere gps that it's just an easy decision for me. It's virtually a vehicle control interface that I can't imagine riding without by now. Not to mention the control by the fly wheel. The powerful functionality more than justifies the price, in my view.
ETA: I don't think the price of the Nav is a small change. At 1/24 of the vehicle price it IS actually quite expensive, but so is the ESA, the LED headlight, the ASC, and all the other options that make our BMW motorcycle a perfect riding machine. I would say don't leave out this one piece that makes your bike perfect
ETA: I don't think the price of the Nav is a small change. At 1/24 of the vehicle price it IS actually quite expensive, but so is the ESA, the LED headlight, the ASC, and all the other options that make our BMW motorcycle a perfect riding machine. I would say don't leave out this one piece that makes your bike perfect
