Hema Navigator Tells You Where To Go Offroad

[matbor]

Hema Navigator Tells You Where To Go Offroad

More info here : http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/05/hema_navigator_tells_you_where_to_go_offroad.html


http://www.gizmodo.com.au/images/2008/05/hema%20navigator.jpg


Looks interesting. Bit $$$ though !

[waynep]

Hmm ... looks nice - you could get something like an HP RX5965 PDA ( about $450 ) then buy OziExplorer CE and all the Hema and Rooftop, Ausmap etc maps for less than the price they are asking. - this has slightly bigger screen maybe.
But with the HP you'd have Tom Tom Street Navigator ( full voice guidance ) for the cities as well ( comes standard ) plus Datebook, lite versions of Excel, Word, plus bluetooth and any other Windows Mobile compatible apps you wanted to install.. Not sure if this has all that.

[matbor]

Hmm ... looks nice - you could get something like an HP RX5965 PDA ( about $450 ) then buy OziExplorer CE and all the Hema and Rooftop, Ausmap etc maps for less than the price they are asking. - this has slightly bigger screen maybe.
But with the HP you'd have Tom Tom Street Navigator ( full voice guidance ) for the cities as well ( comes standard ) plus Datebook, lite versions of Excel, Word, plus bluetooth and any other Windows Mobile compatible apps you wanted to install.. Not sure if this has all that.


similar to what i;m currently running :)

guess not everyone knows how too set it up though !

[loanrangie]

You could get one off ebay for less than 1/4 of that price some from local sellers. My HP pda does that and more and i found it :D.

[2 rocks]

Well I was looking at the Magellan Crossover until I read this on Australian4WD forum:

Sounds as if the Logicgear GPS Kmart is a bargain - under $300 - I dont try to promote products but this is a much underrated unit
They will replace units anywhere in australia - no questions asked - if they stuff up as well
Here is a bit on one I tried out
I have recently test drove a Logicgear 3.5 inch touch screen GPS unit as sold by Kmart for under $300 - It comes with sensis 2007 and has Windows CE operating system - This sensis software has surprised me as it even showed walking tracks in a couple of national parks we tried it in - We also tested it around the foresty roads in south east Queensland - It directed us all the way down the east coast with deviations to Sydney and back via the putty road and new england to brisbane
While in sydney we used it to navigate around the maize of freeways / tollways town and around some of the tracks in the blue mountains - it performed extremly well
The sensis software has heaps of other options such as flyover / points of interest / plus more
Because it has a windows CE operating system and can access a 2G SD card we have also loaded OziexplorerCE on the card - the card has OziexplorerCE / 512 aussie topographical maps / hema 4x4 maps / 1500 street maps now loaded - On start up the oziexplorerCE software auto detected the internal GPS head / sensor and communicated with it immediatly via NMEA protocol
The GPS unit still has the sensis 2007 software in the flash memory -
With both systems that is Sensis 2007 and Oziexplorer loaded it is a powerfull little beast and it is really easy to switch between the street directory and the full blown topo system - The Oziexplorer software is so accurate it even shows which side of the road the car is travelling on - provided the road us not been moved / upgraded in recent years - and the correct options selected
Oziexplorer provides heaps of other options such as routes / waypoints / plus more
It will also play music mp3 files via a in built FM transmitter through your car radio - so we have also loaded about 550 songs on to another 2G SD card for our long distance travelling - that is over 30 hours of music - this makes the CDstacker obsolete
The sound quality is very acceptable when listened to on the FM Radio
My wife has trouble to understand 550 songs - or 1000's of maps each on a postage stamp - beats carrying 100's of CD's and over burdened with maps
I also carry a laptop as a backup and some paper maps in remote country
I guess I am like the Remington man - I was so impressed I have purchased one from Kmart - another big advantage with Kmart is if it stuffs up in less than 12 months I can replace it or get my money back from any Kmart in australia provided I have the receipt

So I've bought a later model the XL488 (under $400) but have yet to order my OziExplorer CE and put it to the test. Not a "name" brand by any stretch but if it does what I want, who cares...we'll see!
Mike

[matbor]

trouble is with a lot of the cheaper branded lcd stuff is that the screen isn't bright enough in direct daylight ! espically the stuff off ebay, haven't seen the kmart one yet !

[EchiDna]

sheesh I'll tell you where to go for nuthin!

I assume you aint married, or you would already have this feature built into your household for free :)

[Craig]

Hey two rocks,

Let us know how you get on with installing Oziexplorer CE on the 488. I am curious to know how easy/hard it is, plus if you can swap between the default and Ozi on the fly.

Cheers

Craig

[matbor]

Hey two rocks,

Let us know how you get on with installing Oziexplorer CE on the 488. I am curious to know how easy/hard it is, plus if you can swap between the default and Ozi on the fly.

Cheers

Craig

doubt you will be able to swap on the fly, as either program will lock the use of the GPS, unless you use a 3rd party application to control the GPS port, have done it before :) also you might run into memory problems.

[waynep]

doubt you will be able to swap on the fly, as either program will lock the use of the GPS, unless you use a 3rd party application to control the GPS port, have done it before :) also you might run into memory problems.

I found on my HP RX5965, I can have both apps running. ( Tom Tom and Ozi ), and the internal GPS streams the data to both. ( ie they both track current position ).
For example, I'll sometimes have the Tom Tom voice prompts going on the background but with the OziExplorer ( RoofTop, Topo NatMap, Hema whatever ) moving map up on the display.
If you talking about running both in their own little windows no you can't do that on a PDA - screen is way to small for that anyway.
If the 488 runs Windows Mobile 5 or 6 you SHOULD be able to do this too.

[matbor]

I found on my HP RX5965, I can have both apps running. ( Tom Tom and Ozi ), and the internal GPS streams the data to both. ( ie they both track current position ).
For example, I'll sometimes have the Tom Tom voice prompts going on the background but with the OziExplorer ( RoofTop, Topo NatMap, Hema whatever ) moving map up on the display.
If you talking about running both in their own little windows no you can't do that on a PDA - screen is way to small for that anyway.
If the 488 runs Windows Mobile 5 or 6 you SHOULD be able to do this too.

I have found that sometimes certain programs lock the com ports for exclusive use, if it does you just need a program that creates virtual com ports, which is a easy fix. Just depends on the GPS and the Software.

Matt.

[Treads]

I have found that sometimes certain programs lock the com ports for exclusive use, if it does you just need a program that creates virtual com ports, which is a easy fix. Just depends on the GPS and the Software.

Matt.

My Asus A636 has 2 ports for the GPS: 5 & 9, allows me to run ozi and tom tom at once. my only problem is that all the NSW 1:25,000 & 1:100,000 maps take up more than 2Gb (Which is all the asus can handle on SD card :mad: ) I probably should dump the 1:100 thou maps onto a different card :angel:

[waynep]

my only problem is that all the NSW 1:25,000 & 1:100,000 maps take up more than 2Gb (Which is all the asus can handle on SD card :mad: ) I probably should dump the 1:100 thou maps onto a different card :angel:

Yeah that's a problem for me too - the HP only takes max 2GB card. I now carry several 2GB cards with maps on them ( they fit nicely in that coin tray of the Disco ) :)
The only problem is that every time you plug in a new card, Ozi "re-indexes" the files. If there's a couple of hundred maps on the card this can take quite a while.
It might be better to keep the different scale maps on one card but divide them into smaller geographical areas, then you can still "zoom in" to a larger scale map without needed to change cards.

Of course,you can use the internal memory of the PDA for storing maps too - I used it up for all my "favourite" maps - the Vic High Country ones.

[tolinja]

Well I was looking at the Magellan Crossover until I read this on Australian4WD forum:

Sounds as if the Logicgear GPS Kmart is a bargain - under $300 - I dont try to promote products but this is a much underrated unit
They will replace units anywhere in australia - no questions asked - if they stuff up as well
Here is a bit on one I tried out
I have recently test drove a Logicgear 3.5 inch touch screen GPS unit as sold by Kmart for under $300 - It comes with sensis 2007 and has Windows CE operating system - This sensis software has surprised me as it even showed walking tracks in a couple of national parks we tried it in - We also tested it around the foresty roads in south east Queensland - It directed us all the way down the east coast with deviations to Sydney and back via the putty road and new england to brisbane
While in sydney we used it to navigate around the maize of freeways / tollways town and around some of the tracks in the blue mountains - it performed extremly well
The sensis software has heaps of other options such as flyover / points of interest / plus more
Because it has a windows CE operating system and can access a 2G SD card we have also loaded OziexplorerCE on the card - the card has OziexplorerCE / 512 aussie topographical maps / hema 4x4 maps / 1500 street maps now loaded - On start up the oziexplorerCE software auto detected the internal GPS head / sensor and communicated with it immediatly via NMEA protocol
The GPS unit still has the sensis 2007 software in the flash memory -
With both systems that is Sensis 2007 and Oziexplorer loaded it is a powerfull little beast and it is really easy to switch between the street directory and the full blown topo system - The Oziexplorer software is so accurate it even shows which side of the road the car is travelling on - provided the road us not been moved / upgraded in recent years - and the correct options selected
Oziexplorer provides heaps of other options such as routes / waypoints / plus more
It will also play music mp3 files via a in built FM transmitter through your car radio - so we have also loaded about 550 songs on to another 2G SD card for our long distance travelling - that is over 30 hours of music - this makes the CDstacker obsolete
The sound quality is very acceptable when listened to on the FM Radio
My wife has trouble to understand 550 songs - or 1000's of maps each on a postage stamp - beats carrying 100's of CD's and over burdened with maps
I also carry a laptop as a backup and some paper maps in remote country
I guess I am like the Remington man - I was so impressed I have purchased one from Kmart - another big advantage with Kmart is if it stuffs up in less than 12 months I can replace it or get my money back from any Kmart in australia provided I have the receipt

So I've bought a later model the XL488 (under $400) but have yet to order my OziExplorer CE and put it to the test. Not a "name" brand by any stretch but if it does what I want, who cares...we'll see!
Mike

ok I am pretty dumb when it comes to this sort of stuff, how hard is it to put ce on a unit like this and is there help out there(brisbane) if you get it wrong?

thanks guys
chaser

[rmp]

I have found that sometimes certain programs lock the com ports for exclusive use, if it does you just need a program that creates virtual com ports, which is a easy fix. Just depends on the GPS and the Software.

Matt.

PortSplitter or GPS Gate redirect a COM port to one or more virtual COM ports.

[Aaron]

some vids

YouTube - Hema Navigator - Pat Callinan's 4x4 adventures (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BfZqFbviuQ)
YouTube - Hema Navigator - OziExplorer Tutorial (Basic operation) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwF-vzw3udA)

I really want one of these. PDA may seem like the cost effective option, but all the posts in this thread reguarding this option doesnt sound like a smooth operation.

[dullbird]

similar to what i;m currently running :)

guess not everyone knows how too set it up though !


yep i have that too

but i haven't even turned my pda on in the last year i think my internal battery has died now:D

still i used to do everything on it films pictues organise stuff

destinator for sat nav voice notes games the lot

[rmp]

ok I am pretty dumb when it comes to this sort of stuff, how hard is it to put ce on a unit like this and is there help out there(brisbane) if you get it wrong?

thanks guys
chaser

Help -> here.

Hard. Difficult to say without knowing what you want to do and your skill level with computers. However, if you can carefully follow instructions then it's possible.

[Handbrake hates Camping]

Lowest price I have seen for it is $939.00 and only if you are an RAA member.

Anyone seen a lower price for this?

There seems to be a bit of mixed reaction this unit.... Seems okay to me though.

[VladTepes]

I just purchased a HEMA Navigator.

First impressions good.

The Route 66 "City type" navigator software is a bit outdated as far as route instructions go, I found over the last week, but today I downloaded a (free) update so will see how that goes.

Anyway have QLD / Northern NSW trips saved in Oziexplorer form ? If so I'd LOVE the files. Cheers all !


Aaron you are welcome to come around and have a look at it anytime (offer good for any AULROvian by the way!).