As I've said here before, Smartphone Link is what brought me back to Garmin again. But that doesn't mean that my frustration with Garmin has gone away. Little things that I've encountered over the last 2 weeks have fueled that frustration again.
The Nuvi 3490LMT, until next month, is the top of the line. It does one thing: it is a PND. It is priced the same as most smartphones and some tablets - both of which are devices that do much more than a PND does. In my opinion, for Garmin to continue to sell $399 PND in a smartphone world, it better do navigation better than anything else can do navigation. In many ways, the 3490LMT delivers on that expectation. But in some ways, and they are seemingly simple things, Garmin drops the ball. Dropping the ball on the little things reduces the justification for buying a $399 PND and further props up their smartphone competitors.
One opportunity that Garmin is squandering is the handling of speed limits.
Navteq map data has historically been best in class. It remains to be seen how crowd sourced solutions like Google Map Maker, Waze and OpenStreetMaps will change that. But today, I'd argue that given all the characteristics that make a map accurate (roads, road class definitions, speed limits, freeway signage, etc.) Navteq remains best in class by a large margin.
Navteq's knowledge of speed limits is very, very good. It amazes me to drive down rural highways in the middle of Iowa and see the speed limit indicator change almost simultaneously with the speed limit sign as you drive through a small town. Companies that use Navteq data have an advantage to leverage.
Garmin leverages Navteq's quality speed limit data in a half-hearted way at best. They should do better.
Why does this matter?
It is rumored that with the release of iPhone 5, Apple will implement a built-in turn-by-turn navigation solution based on some quite acquisitions that they've made. Clearly Android has had that advantage for some time now, which has created pressure on traditional PND manufacturers like Garmin, TomTom and Navigon. If the iPhone includes this capability as well, the pressure on Garmin and TomTom will only increase.
Garmin must continue to innovate and be better than anyone else for customers to continue to justify spending as much as a smartphone for a dedicated PND device. Google Navigation and any future built-in iPhone solution will NOT have Navteq maps. For the remaining time that Navteq remains best in class, Garmin should leverage that advantage to the greatest extent possible. They aren't.
Garmin's current implementation of a speed limit alert feature seems to smack of a company that thinks it is the king of the marketplace - resting on their laurels, rather than a company that faces an ever increasing challenge to their entire consumer business model in the near future. It is almost as if they just want to check off a marketing spec sheet box that says "speed limit alerts" rather than actually improving the feature to make it useful.
My most significant complaint about Garmin's current speed limit implementation is the inability to use the feature without actually looking at your GPS. Currently, the only speed limit alert that Garmin has is a "feature" which turns the speed limit sign on the screen red in color when the speed limit is exceeded by 1 MPH. This means that the user is informed that they are exceeding the speed limit only on the off chance that they happen to be looking at their PND screen. The technology should permit so much more and customers of a $399 PND should be demanding it.
Here is what Garmin should do to fix their current speed limit alert implementation:
- Garmin has a TTS engine on the GPS. USE IT. There should be no reason that Garmin can't use the TTS engine for a simple "Speeding Alert" message.
- A notification of speeding at 1 MPH over the posted speed limit is not useful. Car speedometers don't permit a visual accuracy of 1 MPH. No one cares if they are speeding by 1 MPH. No policeman cares if a car is speeding by 1 MPH. There is no way that knowing you are speeding by 1 MPH provides any safety benefit whatsoever. It is a complete waste of a potentially useful feature. Garmin should give customers a simple menu option to select the speed overage that they care about. At a bare minimum, the alert should be set at an overage that actually means something, such as 5 MPH.
There shouldn't need to be a blog written to address the two things mentioned above. Customers should have expected that kind of improvement from one firmware version to another shortly after speed limit alerts was first introduced.
What Garmin should be doing, is moving beyond the fixes noted above, in order to continue to innovate and leverage the quality of the Navteq data they have. Garmin should be adding features such as:
- Proactively warn customers of an upcoming speed reduction on their route such as when driving into a small town where the highway speed limit changes from 55 MPH to 35 MPH or other drastic changes using TTS voice alerts. "Caution: Speed Limit Reduction Ahead." Now that is useful use of the available Navteq data.
Garmin: use the differentiating data that you have at your finger tips and give us differentiating features.
