Garmin's Smartphone Link - photoLive Traffic Camera Tips

Garmin's new Smartphone Link app for Android has only been out for a couple of days.  The excitement seems to be building about what this app can do.  In my view, the most powerful feature is greatly under hyped by Garmin, as I outlined in a previous blog post.

Another feature with some real promise is what Garmin calls photoLive Traffic Cameras.  This premium annual service is actually a feature already available on the web from the folks at TrafficLand. TrafficLand aggregates roadside closed circuit television cameras across the US.  On the TrafficLand website, you can view these cameras.

Garmin's photoLive Traffic Camera subscription brings these traffic camera images onto your Garmin Nuvi through the Smartphone Link app.  From either the Apps menu or the Traffic menu, you can access the camera video by clicking the myCameras icon.  It is important to note that this is NOT live video.  These are static snapshot images from a live video camera.

After selecting the myCameras icon, you see a grid of your favorite cameras and the Add A Camera icon. Selecting Add A Camera shows you a text list of the nearest cameras with a name based on their location.  You have to be familiar with the roads to know where these cameras are.  I recommend using the TrafficLand website as a reference where they show a map of each city and all the camera locations and names as you define your favorite cameras on the Nuvi.

Once you select a camera name on the Nuvi, you are presented with a more useful screen:

Add-A-Camera screen on Nuvi w/ Smartphone Link photoLive feature.

On this screen you are able to see the camera location on a map as well as the direction it is pointed.  This helps in selecting the cameras that are important to you.  Once you press Save, you will see your selected cameras on a 4x4 grid.  You can click any video in the grid for a full screen image of that camera.

Garmin Smartphone Link photoLive myCameras grid

In my testing, in a Sprint 3G service area, the cameras refreshed at a rate of 1 camera image per second.  I found it very acceptable.

There is so much potential for additional functionality with this service.  Lets hope that Garmin improves the photoLive service with some of these ideas:

Select Cameras Near Other Locations
If I am starting a trip from Des Moines to Chicago, there might be key cameras in the Chicago area that I will want to see on my route.  Obviously, I do not want to look for and select these cameras in route to my destination.  I want to queue up all the cameras of interest before I go as part of my trip planning effort.

Camera Organization
Once the ability to save cameras in locations other than my current location is implemented, then Garmin needs to provide the ability to organize sets of cameras.  For example, I might have a "Home" set of cameras, a "Chicago" set of cameras and a "Trip to Florida" set of cameras.

Automatic Display of Video
The photoLive app is just screaming for a proximity alert type function.  Imagine for example, a trip where on a certain point you can go the "north route" or the "south route" to your destination.  Traffic congestion could dictate which way you go.  Let's face it, today's traffic data feature of a PND is nice, but it isn't always accurate.  You can't replace human knowledge.

Imagine as you approach that "decision intersection" that a video from a predefined camera shows up in Nuvi split-screen style showing you the video of the latest traffic condition.  Now THAT could be useful.

It would seem straight forward to implement.  Select a point on the map and select a camera to display.  Done.  Drive.

POI Based Triggers for Video Display
When you leave your house every morning and select the WORK saved favorite one piece of information you might like to know is what does traffic look like on the freeway today?  Imagine a photoLive camera being assigned to your saved favorite definition. When you start a route to that saved favorite, a camera's video is displayed in split screen for a few seconds as you start out.  Coolness.  Better yet, the trigger could be time based.  When I select WORK between 7am and 9am, show the camera.

My hope is that as Garmin expands the utility of Smartphone Link, that they will start to use Smartphone Link as the user interface and configuration for some of these features then send the configuration to the Nuvi.  No matter how good PND's get, you can't beat the usability of the smartphone user interface.