Street Smart Navigation

Today’s navigation systems not only tell you how to get where to go, but what the traffic will be like along the way, where to find the cheapest gas, what’s playing at the movies and more.

When the first CD-ROM-based in-car navigation system became available about a decade ago, the electronic pathfinders were like a dashboard miracle. Just punch in a destination and in a minute or so a screen would show you the way, with voice prompts to make sure you didn’t miss a turn. If you did make a wrong turn, the system would reroute you, and even find ATMs, gas stations, restaurants and other Points of Interest (POIs) along the way. But compared to those early days, today’s DVD and hard-disk systems are like DSL compared to dial-up: In the time it took to compute a cross-town trip back then, the latest systems can calculate a cross-country route.

Now navigation systems have gotten not only faster but wiser. Today’s “smart” systems will not only get you where you’re going, but also tell you about the traffic on your route, learn your driving habits, allow you to send directions from your computer to the car, provide a review of a restaurant and even tell you where to buy the cheapest gas.

Traffic Alerts

The most welcome improvement in navigation has been the addition of real-time traffic. XM Satellite Radio’s NavTraffic service wasn’t the first to provide real-time traffic in conjunction with navigation when it debuted on the Acura TL in late 2004 and in the aftermarket the following year, but it was the first to display traffic-flow information and potential problems on a nav system’s screen. More importantly, it was the first to offer routing around gridlock. The service is now available in vehicles from Acura, Cadillac, Infiniti, Lexus and Nissan and in aftermarket nav systems from Alpine, Audiovox, Kenwood and Pioneer and in several of Garmin’s portables. The subscription-based NavTraffic service, which costs $9.95 or $16.95 when combined with XM’s Satellite Radio service, has also expanded to 50 metropolitan markets in the U.S. and Canada.

Pioneer was the first aftermarket car stereo company to provide XM NavTraffic in 2005, and the company’s nav systems continue to define the cutting edge. For example, with a 30GB hard drive crunching route data, the Pioneer AVIC-Z2 ($2,200) will get you on your way fast, and with a Tele Atlas database of over 12 million POIs, help you find what you’re looking for. Features such as point addressing, which uses geocoding to find the precise location of a destination rather than an address range, and 3D landmark icons, which shows landmarks such as buildings on the screen in graphic detail, make it easier to find your way. The AVIC-Z2 also “remembers” the roads you frequently travel and uses the data to calculate the quickest route, and it employs a “smart routing algorithm” to take into account things like the posted speed limits and number of turns to a destination to recommend the most efficient route. Part of AVIC-Z2’s hard drive space can be used to store music files and a built-in DVD player and a direct iPod connection gives you even more music options. The AVIC-Z2 can be linked to XM’s NavTraffic service and voice controlled.

Sirius Satellite Radio now offers a similar traffic-info service, and Alpine’s NVE-N872A Advanced DVD navigation system ($1,700) gives you a choice between either satellite provider when paired with an optional tuner. When it’s hooked up to one of Alpine’s A/V head units, the NVE-N872A’s functions are accessed either by a touch screen, a remote control or completely hands-free using over 300 voice commands. The NVE-N872A’s database has over 9 million POIs, as well as a built-in Zagat guide that lets you find restaurants by cuisine, cost and décor, and provides expert ratings and even average meal prices.

Portables on the Move

Portables are currently outselling in-dash units due as much to their ability to move from car to car as their affordability. And portables also have many of the same smarts. Alpine was the first car audio manufacturer to offer a portable nav system, the Blackbird PMD-B100 ($550), which also provides traffic info via the subscription-based NAVTEQ Traffic RDS service. The service—which is available in 42 markets and is free for 90 days with the purchase of the Blackbird and $60 a year thereafter—sends info and bulletins that an FM tuner with Radio Data System (RDS) capabilities can receive. In the case of the Blackbird, color-coded traffic-flow data and traffic-incident info for a given area are displayed onscreen. The service will also offer to route you around congestion.

Jensen’s recently introduced NVXM1000 Rock-n-Road portable nav system ($799.99) has a slot for an optional XM MiniTuner so that it can receive all 170 of XM Satellite Radio’s music, news and information channels as well as XM NavTraffic. The NVXM1000 features a 4-inch color touch screen, an 8GB hard-drive memory and turn-by-turn directions in up to 12 different languages. It can even be hooked up to a real-time camera to check out what’s behind you before backing up.

Many of Garmin’s portables offer RDS traffic service in addition to XM NavTraffic. Plus, the Garmin StreetPilot c580 ($749.99) and nüvi 680 ($964.27) can connect to MSN Direct for traffic data as well as info on weather, gas prices and even movie show times. MSN Direct—which is free for 12 months, after which a yearly subscription is $49.95 or a one-time charge of $129.95—is available in 120 markets, 78 of which offer traffic-info services.

Dash of Excitement

Dash Express is a highly anticipated new portable system that not only has a subscription traffic-info service, but is the first that sends as well as receives data via a Wi-Fi or mobile-phone connection. Expected to retail in the $500 to $700 range when it debuts this fall and with a $10 to $15 per month service fee, the Dash Express can operate as a standalone portable with all of the familiar features of a conventional portable nav. But each Dash-equipped vehicle will also serve as a “data probe,” anonymously reporting on real-time traffic-flow to a central server, and this information will be taken into account when the system plans your route. In essence, every Dash user will act as a traffic scout, and the more people who use the system the better the real-time traffic data will be.

Dash already has access to data from probes placed in over a half million commercial vehicles that have been roaming U.S. roadways for the last year or so. And these commercial fleets—and Dash-equipped vehicles when they start rolling—will amass a huge database of the roads they travel. When the Dash Express plans a route, it will also take into account this “historical” data as well as real-time traffic when planning a route. So if you’re going somewhere, say, Tuesday at 11 a.m., you’ll have a better idea of what traffic will be like then.

Capitalizing on its two-way capability, Dash also has a Send-to-Car function that allows transmitting addresses from a PC to a vehicle via Wi-Fi. Or while on the road the info can be sent from a mobile phone. Another unique Dash feature is the ability to perform a Yahoo! Local Search to find products, services or businesses wherever you are. Users can enter a term such as “gas” and the search results will displayed. In this case, the local gas stations and gas prices in the area will be listed, and then the user can choose to be routed to one of them.

Perfect On-The-Road Companion

In future nav products, such “concierge” services may become as important as getting you where you’re going. Just imagine being able to find, reserve and even pay for a parking spot before you reach, say, a sporting event. Another trend will see navigation become just a single aspect of a multifunction product.

Some mobile phones and PDAs with GPS navigation are already examples of this. TeleNav launched a nav application in 2003 with Nextel phones and has since expanded to include handsets from nine other wireless carriers. And last year Verizon introduced its VZ Navigator service. Both subscription-based services provide voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions and mapping on a phone’s screen, and at the beginning of this year TeleNav also introduced its TeleTraffic service.

Modern in-car navigation systems not only know how to get you where you’re going, but help you avoid traffic, find the best gas prices and restaurants, take into account your personal preferences and entertain you along the way.