MyRoute-App - worst navigation experience ever

TomOnTour

Hi Thomas,

I can‘t say anything about Android Auto, as I normally use Apple stuff.
I am using navigation since more then 20 years now and started with a Garmin eMap using point to point direct routing and a need to place waypoints exyctly on the right position right after a chosen crossing of turn. To keep it short: Non routable maps!
Over the years I invested hell of lot of time and money in the sometimes wonderfull world of Garmin up to the BMV Navigator VI. None of the „boxers“ I have süd ever been perfect of even without at least remarkable failures. The worst on was finally the BMW Navigator VI, which is a Garmin product: Failing touch displays, totally weird routinesitzung in some cases and heavily proprietary setup with Garmin APP‘s and tools. As you see, I trend hell of a lot different solutions and my final choice was: MRA Routing APP together with with MRA Route planer. I did quite a lot of testing with it: On iOS on Android and came to my final conclusion, that for me the 2 best working solutions are using an Apple iPhone, or an Android riggen tablet. I personals found the time to test it with AA or ACP, but atrien of mein did some testing and reported that there a a few things, which wie all now from the normal APP, are missing the the AA/ACP screens. Je also reported relevant responsivness and speed issues, so it was clerque for me it stick to plan Android or iOS devices.
I‘ve started with small rouges around the corner where I a could drive even without any navigation as I was very skeptical about the APP. Some times I have raun 3 navsats/APP‘s in parallel with the same rouges and finally came to the end,that I can fully trust the MRA Next navigation APP and removed any other navigation tool.
My final testen was this year making a 8.500 km trip from my home in colonel to the North Cap and return. An guess what: Even with some urgently needed replannings directly done in the APP I had no issue at all: No crashes, no connection losses, now weird re-routings or missed waypoints or so. It was a really great experience.

As you see this is exactly the opposit experience.

An guess what I understand some of your points pretty good, behause when I started with MRA (the planer only in the beginning) I was more then just close to removed MRA and stay with the meanwhile fells shitty Basecamp. What helped me a lot, was @Jörgen who offenes a free MRA route planer training pretty near to me. In this tranig I started to understand the basic (and at that point i time for me stupid) basis how MRA works. Finishing this training and starting my first tests, I got morean more familiar with the concepts and I planned and organized my very best tours I ever had or planned in my motorcycling career.
As I was initially so frustrated about the MRA planner I tried Kurivger, Calimoto, the new Garmin concepts and some other smaller solutions, bit none of them could satisfy me in the way MRA route planner and later the APP satisfies me today.

I totally understand that you are done with MRA but lebt me encourage you to give it another try with some help from this community or - even better - from a MRA trainer.

I don‘t knowledge where you are located, but I am happy offer you my help and my experience. If you want to, you can reach out to me and I will setup a call or videosession to hav a look at your problems or even just to show you how I am using the MRA world of routes and navigation so satisfying and seamless.

Greetings from Cologne
Thomas

Thomas Piechocki

@TomOnTour

Hi Tom!
Thank you very much for thinking about my problem. It's not that I'm unhappy with the route transfer or the details of the navigation performance, I'm nowhere near that level. The pure MyRoute app generally doesn't work for me in conjunction with Android Auto. Basically not! Either the speech is lacking right away, or it fails later, or the app simply stops working when a road is completely closed and it tries in vain to take you back to the closed road during the diversions, which of course has to be ignored. Suddenly, only the local position is displayed, everything else is gone. If you could now continue driving by restarting, it would just about be possible to hold on, but then nothing works at all. After restarting, I always return to an unusable app, even if I want to enter a new route! It's impossible, I have to switch to a different app every time. Sometimes, however, the navigation simply stops working while driving or it happens after a refueling stop. If I really need a trainer and the available settings of the app are not sufficient for use, I really have to doubt the marketability of the product. I'm explicitly only talking about the navigation app, the errors also occur when I don't use the route planner at all. I am convinced that the majority of problems arise in connection with Android Auto. However, I need the smartphone display for another app while driving, so using it alone on the phone is not an option, especially since it could not be placed in the favorable field of vision for me. But since all other navigation apps under AA don't have such massive problems, it could somehow be due to MRA. I have Lifetime Gold and hope dies last, but I haven't seen any improvement in the last six months regarding my problems.

cvlmtg

@Con-Hennekens said in MyRoute-App - worst navigation experience ever:

In the settings of the app, you explicitly configure online or offline use. I think it is a courtesy that you are warned and given a choice if you want to break the explicitly configured options. If that all is too much of an effort, it is better to stick to a simpler app indeed.

not a simpler app, just a smarter one

anyway, I'm not here to bash the MRA team, I was just trying to say what's the main shortcoming of this app. And I'm aware some don't like it and some do, so let's just use whatever float our boats and be happy all together

Thomas Piechocki

@Hans-van-de-Ven-MR-MRA

z.B.: https://www.myrouteapp.com/de/social/route/10113994?mode=share

Marinus van Deudekom

@Thomas-Piechocki well there you have it. After al this discussion on this topic you finaly shared the url.
The route was more then 600 km long and you’ve put it 5 routepoints. 4 of them were Off route. The chances of finishing a route like that are below zero. You say that you’ve been studying for about 6 Monti’s. I would advise you to start from scratch. Lesson 1 and try to build a proper route. That Will save you a lot of anger. Use all the tips and tricks givin in the lessons and on the forum to have Some fun, because actualy it is fun to make a good route.
Then after getting some squils enjoy MRA to the max

Thomas Piechocki

@Marinus-van-Deudekom I would be interested to know which waypoints are supposed to be off the route. And above all, where in

https://unterstutzung.myrouteapp.com/de/support/solutions/articles/12000096404-anleitung-eine-neue-route-erstellen-
or
https://unterstutzung.myrouteapp.com/de/support/solutions/articles/12000098593-app-routen-tracks

says something that I didn't follow and that causes the app to crash. Above all, I would like to know where in these instructions explicit reference is made to on route and off route, which obviously seems to play a decisive role in the functioning of MRA.
To be on the safe side, I had exported this route to Google Maps via MyMaps so that we could at least switch to my wife's smartphone after losing the voice instructions of MRA. However, I would honestly like to know what is so different about assigning waypoints by entering an address or clicking in the map in MRA compared to all the other mobile navigation apps I know that I use to create routes in the same way and with which there are no such problems.

richtea999

@Thomas-Piechocki

https://www.myrouteapp.com/en/social/route/10274566?mode=share

Same route, but:

positions 'corrected' to be on the roads by zooming right in to max detail (but only you know if I guessed correctly)
30+ waypoints added, again you may need to adjust a few if they don't take the route you had in mind
10 minutes stop added for filling up with petrol
make the petrol stop a 'via' i.e. you cant skip it easily
give it a colour just so you can see where it is

That's the route refined. 5 mins effort.

The main problem, from your emails may be Android Auto. Have you tried without Android Auto - just plain Android? That might help MRA / the forum pin down where the other problems lie.

Thomas Piechocki

@richtea999

Thank you very much for your effort, but what you corrected (those detours) were precise destinations with street names and house numbers and possibly dead ends. Nevertheless, the sat nav should have taken me there, which it did.
Nowhere in the instructions does it say that you should set a waypoint every 20 kilometres. If you're planning a long journey with lots of stopovers, that might be fun, but that's not why I chose MRA, it was simply to have the option of splitting the journey into different road profiles.
The journey to the Rhine was only the 9th test to see whether the app works at all. But I also think that the main problem is the interaction with AA. With the app only on the phone, at least I never had this voice output problems. However, this is not really an option. Because I need the vehicle-specific touch display for AA in my field of vision. The phone is not placed in the direct field of vision and also has to display another app while driving and I don't want to plaster the windscreen on my face.
If there was some clear trigger or error message, or if it was always the same things that led to the failure, I would have already sought help. But this diffuse failure certainly requires a lot of effort to find the cause, especially if AA is also involved. I don't want to test anymore how long the app works and when it fails, and then work on error messages. It really bothers me to have to look for a parking space or a suitable spot on the side of the road, restart the app and maybe even the whole smartphone, only to end up on Google Maps or similar alternatives. And to be honest, I can't imagine that a waypoint placed maybe 1 meter from the side of the road could be to blame for this. Maybe AA or MRA will make further progress in the next few months or years, but at the moment it can't offer me what I actually expected. But it was worth a try.

Thomas Piechocki

@Marinus-van-Deudekom
I would really like to know which of the 4 waypoints on my route are supposed to be "off the route"? And above all, where in the official instructions is such an on route / off route problem explicitly mentioned?

https://unterstutzung.myrouteapp.com/de/support/solutions/articles/12000096404-anleitung-eine-neue-route-erstellen-

https://unterstutzung.myrouteapp.com/de/support/solutions/articles/12000098593-app-routen-tracks

I haven't read anything about it and I think that I have followed the instructions correctly. As I said, my problem is not that the navigation is incorrect or deviates, but that the navigation app doesn't work at all. If it's not enough to read the instructions provided and I also have to watch loads of videos or use forums to use a navigation app easily, this should be communicated accordingly before purchase. So far, every nav app has accepted waypoints entered via address and implemented them correctly, why should it be any different with MRA and why is it not in the official instructions?

Hans van de Ven MR.MRA

@Thomas-Piechocki

I would start by placing the points well on the road line. If you have a ferry crossing in your route, point 4, use the route optimization "Shortest" (toolkit), this currently only works with the car profile. Furthermore, I would definitely add some more points on the last 100 KM if you don't want to drive on the highway

richtea999

@Thomas-Piechocki said in MyRoute-App - worst navigation experience ever:

Nowhere in the instructions does it say that you should set a waypoint every 20 kilometres. If you're planning a long journey with lots of stopovers, that might be fun, but that's not why I chose MRA, it was simply to have the option of splitting the journey into different road profiles.

Ah - the reason behind that is that once underway on the day, if there is a traffic jam or a closed road, MRA will do it's best to get to the next waypoint. If you place the waypoints say 100km apart it gives the app a lot of leeway to go somewhere off-route, for the right reason of course, but it's disconcerting unless you notice the blocked road on the map. It's a minor detail, but that's annoyed me before until I worked out why.

The journey to the Rhine was only the 9th test to see whether the app works at all. But I also think that the main problem is the interaction with AA. With the app only on the phone, at least I never had this voice output problems.

The Android Auto side of the app is the newest part, and the least developed at this point. I don't use AA, so maybe I only get to see the sunny side of the app.

Marinus van Deudekom

@Thomas-Piechocki
starting point:

This shows the start of the route inside a house and about 30/40 meters from the road itself.
Unless You're able to get your car inside that house you'll never get started at the beginning of the route. and thus the app will try to send you back. 2 sollutions, place the beginning of the route ON the road like in the picture below. Or start from the nearest waypoint.

routepoint 3: same story

routepoint 4

routepoint 5 (the finish) same story

Looking again at your route it's not what I would call a "fun" ride to take but most of all a navigation tools to get from Berlin to Frenkhausen with a couple of stops.

Tips to improve your ride:
place the routepoints ON the route
if, in your case your driving mostly on the Hiway place some extra routepoints on that hiway when it changes direction. make sure that those routepoints are on the wright side of the hiway to prevent a detour.
Make the routpoints of your stops a viapoint (hand symbol) placed ON the road.
for tha last bit of the trip add enough routepoints te make shure that the route goes as you want it too

The tips we give you are free and it might be usefull if you would follow those.

have fun

Thomas Piechocki

@Marinus-van-Deudekom

Many thanks for your advice. The issue of the starting point has already been discussed here. I would just like to say that so far every Android sat nav app and my internal vehicle sat nav accepts my home address as the starting point and sets its routes from there and back again without forcing me through the walls of my living room. I have now learnt that with MRA I have to explicitly set the start to some point on a nearby road, but that is not the real problem. The other waypoints you showed were entered as an address with a house number, exactly as described in the official MRA instructions, and that's exactly where I wanted to go. That can't be wrong! My problem on this route was that at some point after waypoint 4, the voice announcements stopped. In the dark and in heavy rain, however, the failure of the voice output is a complete no-go. I haven't the slightest idea how you think setting waypoints could cause or justify the failure of an essential MRA function. If it were not possible to set waypoints by entering an address, this would have to be mentioned and the application would simply not be ready for the market, period. But apart from the necessary workaround with the start point, I still see no error in my route and no cause for the various massive problems of MRA that make its use pointless. I have no idea why and where I should start again with the route planning to make it better. The route would look the same today apart from the start.
And at this point to @Hans van de Ven MR.MRA (because the forum only allows posts every 60 minutes): Thank you for the advice. But no, I didn't want to take the ferry across the Rhine, I wanted to go exactely there, where the car park of a restaurant is located.
I actually only set waypoints to reach intermediate destinations or to define certain road profiles, regardless of whether the route is 600 or 1200 km long. I always assumed that the sat nav would choose the route itself depending on the desired profile (motorway - extremely winding).

Con Hennekens

@cvlmtg said in MyRoute-App - worst navigation experience ever:

not a simpler app, just a smarter one

No, I really think a simpler one. You cannot automate a thinking process for everyone in general. What is smart for you, can be very dumb for me (en vice versa of course). Many features lead to many switches and toggles and sometimes it is too much for the one, while the other desires even more.

I'm not here to bash the MRA team

That's fine, I was not trying to bash back either

Con Hennekens

@Thomas-Piechocki said in MyRoute-App - worst navigation experience ever:

I would really like to know which of the 4 waypoints on my route are supposed to be "off the route"? And above all, where in the official instructions is such an on route / off route problem explicitly mentioned?

Personally I think some people stress too much about off-road placed waypoints too. Usually the app is not very critical about it. Just in urban areas with many small streets next to each other it leads to problems. Where it can also lead to problems is when you pass such a point but not really "hit" it. The app will make you turn around for a while and eventually skip it, along with other points. So in your example, iiuc, your waypoints are obligatory stops. Turn them into via points (hand shape) so they do not get skipped unintentionally.

Placing waypoints that far from each other basically means that you don't care how you get from one to the other. You are leaving a lot of interpretation on the route to the device, and to circumstances (traffic e.g.).

What might be of interest for your specific use (which does not look like scenic routing, for which the app is originally intended), is that in upcoming updates a lot of work is done on a great track-navigation experience. That might fit your needs probably more.

Con Hennekens

@Thomas-Piechocki said in MyRoute-App - worst navigation experience ever:

The issue of the starting point has already been discussed here. I would just like to say that so far every Android sat nav app and my internal vehicle sat nav accepts my home address as the starting point

They don't. They just start where you are, you do not enter a starting address when you start an AtoB route, do you?

Thomas Piechocki

@Con-Hennekens

No, I enter a starting point (e.g. home) and a destination and then have the route calculated.

Thomas Piechocki

@Con-Hennekens

Thank you very much for the tips and advice on waypoints and route creation. But to be honest, I don't have a problem with that at all. On my example route, I was taken exactly where I wanted to go, without turning or driving in circles, everything was fine - until the cancellation. Of course, everyone has different ideas and expectations of the route planner, I haven't made any criticisms in this regard. My requirements are always the same: I want to get from waypoint to waypoint as quickly as possible, be it on the motorway or on winding roads. That's why the necessary interruption when the MRA sat nav stops working bothers me so much. I just want to enjoy driving fast and not have to worry about sat nav problems. I think I'll keep trying to see if there has been any progress in the stability of MRA in conjunction with AA, but I won't use it regularly on my journeys. The potential is definitely there and I like MRA's display better than other alternatives.

Corjan Meijerink

Thanks for the discussion here.

Just quickly a response from me:

waypoints not exactly on route should never ever really lead to any problem. If the route is calculated, there is a map matched location of the waypoint that is on route
Android Auto does sometimes have stability issues which we continuously keep improving especially since the last 2 updates (4.3.2 and 4.3.3)
Every user uses MRA differently and that should just work
Starting from nearest waypoint should definitely not be an issue anymore unless that has been explicitly turned off

@Thomas-Piechocki that said, your biggest two issues would then be audio and Android Auto stability?

Thomas Piechocki

@Corjan-Meijerink

Exactly. I have no complaints about the navigation performance itself. My problem is that the app simply stops working after a few hours. Very often the voice output suddenly stops. Or only the local position is displayed, but no further navigation instructions and no local route properties such as speed limit. In these cases, I have tried restarting the MRA app and also restarting the entire phone. But when I called up MRA, I kept coming back to exactly the same point: either no sound, or only position display without navigation information for the saved route, or neither. Then you simply switch to another sat nav app and everything works perfectly for the next few hours. The next morning on the return journey, I tried again with MRA with a simple route from A via B to C. Everything was fine for the first few minutes, then a two-hour walk (phone stayed in the car) and then five kilometres further on the sound and navigation disappeared. Then two hours of trouble-free driving with Google Maps. Then tried MRA again (the waypoint now behind is skipped), sat nav works perfectly for about 30 minutes, then no sound. These are my problems with MRA.