Review: Wayfinder Navigator 6

Could you tell us something about its usefulness to pedestrians? For example, I'll be going to Stockholm shortly. Could I use Wayfinder Navigator to locate nearby "sights" (museums, theme parks, etc) that I previously didn't know about?

Enfors wrote:Could you tell us something about its usefulness to pedestrians? For example, I'll be going to Stockholm shortly. Could I use Wayfinder Navigator to locate nearby "sights" (museums, theme parks, etc) that I previously didn't know about?

You can install a 5 day trial and see for Your self wayfinder working.

Rafe? My 5 day trial copy just expired and I'm on to try Navicore now. I know Rafe's got Wayfinder loaded still though.....

From memory, although museums are in the category list, most other POIs aren't really pedestrian-specific. The moving map part certainly shows your current location even if not actually on a road...

Steve

Actually, I can't do that, because I don't have a GPS unit. If I get Wayfinder Navigator, I'm getting the package deal where you also get a GPS.

Enfors wrote:Actually, I can't do that, because I don't have a GPS unit. If I get Wayfinder Navigator, I'm getting the package deal where you also get a GPS.

To see how it works (software), You don�t need a GPS. To see the POI and the appearance! Only navigation and location needs a GPS unit!

Oh I see. Thanks for the info. Now I just have to wait for my N93 to arrive, since I don't own a Symbian device yet... :embarasse

Enfors wrote:Oh I see. Thanks for the info. Now I just have to wait for my N93 to arrive, since I don't own a Symbian device yet... :embarasse

😎 I see... without a GPS unit, the thing still goes, but without a Symbian phone... no way!

You can set Wayfinder to pedestrian mode but this will still follow roads (I think - it doesn't have footpaths). However this does ignore one way streets etc and is quite handy for getting round the centre of towns,

I have used Wayfinder on a 6630 walking around a number of cities and I recall it showed bars/coffee shops, restuarants, theatres, cinemas, car parks, petrol stations, rail stations, airports, hotels and museums.

I now have v6 on an N91 and it shows the same stuff plus WiFi hotspots and it does seem to show touristy things, at least around London. Things like 10 Downing Street and London Aquarium. This is the only place I have used 6 so far and not with GPS on for the following reason.

The biggest issue for me has been the sensitivity of my GPS unit (EMTAC CRUXII/BTGPS). Its great with an external antenna stuck to the roof of my car driving down the road. But walking around a city sightseeing, it often loses lock and doesn't get it back. Especially narrow streets where you are in the shadow of even short buildings e.g. never got it going in London yet, and Hannover and Rome were off and on, but Oxford and Helsinki weren't bad. This is not a problem with Wayfinder; just worth thinking about if you plan to use it walking around town. If you can't get a GPS lock you can do a Find for the street you are on and then go to that on the map and move the map around yourself and see the POI's around you. But time I got a new GPS unit anyway.

It does have the possibility of telling you the way back to your hotel after a night of overindulgence. 😛uke:
Stick in your earpiece and let the nice lady tell you the way to go home.

I did a quick test of Wayfinder some time ago (a couple of days after it became available to E61 owners), but it wasn't working entirely at the time (no voice guidance at all).

I've noticed that when walking, Wayfinder tries to put you on the nearest adjacent road, which sometimes confuses you because you're not where it thinks you are.

Add to this medium-to-poor satellite reception when you're walking at 1m of the nearest wall instead of near the middle of the road in your car, and the calculated GPS position will often become a bit erratic, jumpy, and WayFinder doesn't (IMHO) do a great job of figuring out what's happening, where you are located and heading to (remember that when you walk you're slow and you may have to move sideways from time to time to avoid other people or obstacles, so computing your heading is tricky), and what instructions to give you. All in all I found WayFinder to be almost useless when walking... 😞

As for the impact on your data plan, well, it does depend which navigation mode you're using. Using only the directions allow for a small data impact, but if you want to have the moving map displayed all the time, then it can eat your data plan quickly (I spent 15 minutes playing with WayFinder within the limit of a couple of blocks near my home, and using the moving map most of the time made that it used about 300Kb data, making it close to 1Mb per hour).

So the bottom line is probably that if you're driving long distances on a highway, just exit the program, or at least use directions instead of moving map, this will save you a lot of money!

Also, the over-the-air map transmission is great, but if you're traveling abroad very often, then roaming charges make WayFinder a far too expensive alternative, despite its other qualities. At least until operators start marketing unlimited data plans that include roaming data use!

The last two posts, are more related with GPS antennas limitation, then with wayfinder or another GPS software limitations. If somebody want�s to read a lot of things, GPS related (software and hardware), go here: http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/ and here: http://www.pocketnavigation.de/ucontent/9/1.1.0.html. Are good points of information, not the only ones, but a good ones.

Yes using a GPS unit with a SIRF III chipsets helps a lot.

nj7 wrote:The last two posts, are more related with GPS antennas limitation, then with wayfinder or another GPS software limitations.

Yes, when using the GPS and walking close to the walls, it's basically a GPS receiver problem.

But No, some GPS navigation apps handle this problem better than others. I never had that many erratic map moves and directions when using the very same GPS receiver and Tom Tom Navigator on a PPC, for instance, so in this case I think that there's a problem with WayFinder (inability to display the current position outside roads, for instance...)

I have a GPS integrated in car, part of car equipment. The system, works with Naveteq maps. And the erratic behavior, occurs. Depends of cloudiness, area density, etc. In Wayfinder, is also GPRS signal, could change. A lot of factors...

i have been playing around with a wayfinder demo which came on my new mobile an SE m600i and i was wondering if it was possible to add my own POIs to the list of POIs like i do on my tomtom (which in my opinion wayfinder cant compete with, but unfortunately doesnt work on my new phone yet, anyway...).

becasue one of the features that i love about my tomtom is i can go to websites like nav-poi and download pois while im out and about.

is this possible on wayfinder and i just cant see it because i havent paid? i mean nav-poi do seem to provide pois for wayfinder, but how do you add them?

Hi,

I see all the good comments about wayfinder but for me it's not really working. I have received the URL for installation which worked ok. I got the activation code for the 5 days free trial. But when opening the application it hangs on the screen with the logo saying at the bottom 'Download...(1/8)'. And it just hangs, nothing happens.
I have a Nokia 6280, am in Belgium with Mobistar as provider.

How can I get this thing to work?

Regards,
Patrick

This may be a question everyone knows the answer to but me
In comparison between Wayfinder and say, Tomtom 6, am I right in assuming that:-
With Wayfinder, you have to pay for recieving map data and info as you go, so you pay X amount per megabite

With Tomtom 6, the maps are preloaded on your device and therefore there is no more cost to the user, unless of course you need to upgrade your maps

Steve