Sat Navs

My Snooper has packed up and their customer services / tech support is useless and not contactable. I am thinking Avtex or Garmin. Anyone have any experience / view?

I have experience of both TomTom and Garmin ....    TomTom I feel is a lot slicker with their directions, especially on roundabouts whereas Garmin seem just that bit slower and I often find I'm exiting from previous knowledge, before it actually comes up with the instruction.   Not for the first time have I had to do a complete circuit due to late directions. However I do like that Garmin have the full Europe postal codes.

Over 20+ years we've had a variety of satnavs but when the last one packed up I started using my i-phone - Google Maps, Waze or Apple Maps.  I quite like Waze as it warns you when exceeding the speed limit.

I use a Garmin camper in the WXL and a Garmin Drive in one of the cars, I also use the Garmin smart link app on my phone and tablet with which I can send directions or places of intrest strait to the Sat nav also works great with the out and about app and search4sites app

Much as I like some aspects of TomTom's presentation and use in general, their underlying maps and POIs are years out of date in places, and only updated a few times a year. It seems unlikely they will ever catch up. I normally use the built in TomTom in my van, and very successfully, but there were several occasions recently in Germany and Austria where it got completely confused by the many road changes, temporary closures and roadworks it didn't know about. In those cases I had to resort to using Google Maps to get me out of a hole and find a working route. Also, I do rely on the speed limit display quite a lot to keep within the limits. Again, it's badly out of date in places where the limits changed in 2020 or 2021. And it costs £59.95 a year to update the maps, even though they're still out of date.

The problem with the inbuilt TomTom is that the mapping is not up to date and there is no real-time updating on traffic conditions and road closures and therefore re-routing.  The smart phone is much better.

I have had three Garmin so far and find they work well. The latest Garmin was bought for the bigger screen and a more up to date system. Not being very tech savvy it did take me a few tries at setting it up but it’s now very user friendly. The routes it uses have only occasionally been a bit odd in choice of road sizes.
I am not sure if I would bother with the traffic feature. It took me a bit of faffing about to set it up and the two occasions we were stationary in a traffic jam it didn’t mention the hold up or offer a diversion.

I've got a Garmin camper and I quite like it.  Was very easy to update the POI information with the Club campsites and the maps update more frequently than the TomTom in the car.

I must have been lucky as it also gives me advance warnings of hold ups (doesn't offer an alternative route though so I may need to look at the set up again)

In saying that, do you really need a SatNav.  Most folk take their phones with them and, as others have said, Google Maps will probably get you there just as easily without the need for map updates..

We use avtex camper sat nav, mercedes sat nav is wildly out on each occassion in italy and france.

Using a 7 yr-old Navpal bought on gumtree for £5. Battery is zonked, but 100% fine on usb. Managed to update it online for £10 to the newer, camper/truck maps/software and it's been great. A lot of features, I like the layout, very quick and responsive. Couldn't be happier. 

Brian Hill wrote:My Snooper has packed up and their customer services / tech support is useless and not contactable. I am thinking Avtex or Garmin. Anyone have any experience / view?

The Avtex Camper is a Garmin with the Camp site added.

I bought a Garmin 8 years ago, with free updates (which I do often). It's been fine - especially after I discovered how to stop its taking me down roads which my Nuevo ES 4 berth (over 10'0" high, and 8'10" wide) doesn't like. The Garmin allows me to input vehicle dimensions - including height for low bridges - and after experimenting I've found that pretending to be a coach or an artic gives the best results.

It gives information about real-time delays etc. Although less intuitive than my first satnav (a TomTom) I've found it satisfactory. Occasionally we supplement it with Google Maps on the phone.

In our more modern car, which has inbuilt satnav display (which only gets updated annually) we use Google Maps via Apple CarPlay, and that's by far the better system, albeit no Truck mode. But our van has no inbuilt satnav (the Garmin is a stick-on) so we can't use Apple CarPlay with G Maps.

Cymro

Apple CarPlay or Android Auto is definitely the way to go.  I'm surprised its not available on the later base vehicles, especially M-B.