MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.

Steve Lynch

I agree that Android MRA Navigation is also laggy when using voice navigation. Basically I turn it off.
Haven’t noticed any lag in the actual GPS location however.

I took a trip to Loomies Cafe in Arundel yesterday.
My plan was to take the iPhone 6 Plus as well as the Zumo XT.
Whilst prepping the routes with WiFi on to ensure they were available in MRA NavigationI had a strange thing happen.
When hitting the exit button it was actually shutting the Navigation App down not going back to the Route page.
Had to uninstall-reinstall the App.
Didn’t bother taking the iPhone with me.

Regarding keeping eyes on the road the Zumo XT position on the Tiger 900 Rally Pro is perfect for a quick glance.

Herko ter Horst

So, there's more info on MRA Navigation Next and what it means for the current app in a new blog post: https://blog.myrouteapp.com/mra-navigation-next/

Stefan Hummelink

@herko-ter-horst Woa: " In fact, we are also going to work hard with improvements with the current navigation app, such as a folder structure for your routes." We've been heard!

Con Hennekens

@pad-0 said in MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.:

Generally, though, and certainly on my preferred road types, I think all the hazards and developing situations around me is where my attention needs to be, not forced into screen gazing due to badly timed voice guidance.

Of course attention needs to be focused on the road. But having a glance on the display at a self chosen moment, and thus knowing (without auditive assistance) where to go helps A LOT in avoiding dangerous situations. I have been running my Garmins for many years without headset in my helmet, and thus driving on the screen only. In my opinion a glimpse on your screen tells a lot more than a 1000 words.

But I share the thought that the spoken assistance is sometimes a bit late. It has never happened to me AFTER the turn though. And mostly it has been said already a few 100mtres earlier.

The words are however often not spoken clearly. Often I hear in "150 metre" the "One Hundred" and the "fifty" spoken simultaneously. At first I thought it was a phone problem, but my new phone does the same.

Stefan Hummelink

@con-hennekens said in MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.:

The words are however often not spoken clearly. Often I hear in "150 metre" the "One Hundred" and the "fifty" spoken simultaneously. At first I thought it was a phone problem, but my new phone does the same.

This happens to me quite often as well!

PAD 0

@con-hennekens I’m happy to live with our differing viewpoints on how best to ride or drive. And I’m quite sure you are too.

On the words vs image (there’s a song about that!), sure, I agree. But I’m not for a moment suggesting otherwise. My ’case’ is that viewing the road and surrounding environment is vastly more informative than the screen view, not least because it’s live, plus such things as vanishing points can be utilised. We are always potentially small fractions of a second away from disaster and, in my view, anything but cursory glances at a screen are undesirable.

If voice guidance is late, vague or even completely absent (which I have found to be a quite frequent trait of Navigation) and we are caused to look at the screen often and unnecessarily, that’s not some ‘inconvenience’, it’s a major flaw. A user’s choice, on the other hand, to not use voice guidance is akin to the aforementioned option to turn certain Garmin sat nav functions on and off, is it not? Choice vs no choice…

And, yes, advance guidance is sometimes given well before a turn but, equally often, in many environments there are multiple junctions between that announcement and the intended turn. I feel that these, while undeniably useful as a ‘heads up’, are no substitute for well timed and sufficiently clear and detailed follow up guidance.

Due to endless glitches and complete failures, most of my use of the Navigation app has been as a test and in circumstances when I knew routes anyway and didn’t need navigation. I have never felt sufficiently confident in the reliability of the app to venture out without my Garmin on board when I did require navigation (however did we get anywhere before sat nav?🤪). In some circumstances I‘d have been ‘up the creek’ had I tried to rely on Navigation. As someone who really does want MRA to be successful in developing and providing a genuine alternative to expensive dedicated sat nav devices, I find that hugely disappointing…

But, as it stands, Navigation is not just disappointingly inadequate in my experience, it has the inbuilt potential to be bloody dangerous. And yet, despite increasing evidence (via support tickets and this forum at least) that this is a widespread user experience, I have not seen so much as a word from MRA to acknowledge the problem, let alone any effort to fix it. Why?

Con Hennekens

@pad-0 said in MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.:

I’m happy to live with our differing viewpoints on how best to ride or drive. And I’m quite sure you are too.

Yes of course, as long as it is mutual respectful. In fact I think you brought up quite a few valid "challenges" for MRA to address.

Concerning the voice-guidiance, perhaps it could be that the IOS version here also has more trouble following the movement, I am unsure because I can't compare. Personally I think it is quite dangerous to just fly by voice-guidance, because it has by far not enough differentiation between different circumstances. Therefore I think that a glance at the screen at a moment you choose yourself is much more safe.

Stating that MRA Navigation is "bloody dangerous" is in my opinion reaching the boundary of respectfulness. Precisely because you already said yourself: "viewing the road and surrounding environment is vastly more informative" than any form of guidance, and that should ALWAYS have priority #1

PAD 0

@con-hennekens Absolutely, I agree that occasional glances are fine (I think I said as much earlier?). I do it myself and wouldn’t want to be left with just voice, having tried using the ‘Navigon’ app with phone in pocket as my introduction to the world of sat nav many years ago!

I take your point about “bloody dangerous” and “respectful”. I do feel very strongly about both the issue and lack of action and do feel that being abrupt is valid here though. Particularly as, having read the ‘Next’ blog referred to elsewhere today, it seems that MRA are talking 2023 season as a target for introduction. This needs sorting yesterday! For MRA not to have not done so could be seen as rather worse than disrespectful to to its customers.

Your quoting me on viewing the road seems to twist my words just a little… I was addressing information from viewing screen vs road. Naturally, I do agree that eyes on road is by far #1. However, good voice guidance and judicious use of screen are complementary both to it and one another. The length of time spent looking at the screen and the timing of it being crucial: voice guidance helps reduce the former and improve the latter

Tom Cat

@con-hennekens said in MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.:

@pad-0 said in MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.:

Concerning the voice-guidiance, perhaps it could be that the IOS version here also has more trouble following the movement, I am unsure because I can't compare.

It's very laggy in the Android version also as I mentioned in my previous post. I tend to look at my screen often to get the curvature of the road ahead but even then I rely on the voice to alert me to an upcoming turn and it lags pretty far behind.

PAD 0

@tom-cat With the iOS version it’s very variable i find. Sometimes fine, sometimes persistently laggy and frequently patchily so in a single route, occasionally far too late but usually only a small number of times in a journey and not necessarily every journey. Complete absence of guidance for a particular turn is quite common and, puzzlingly, in one direction it is absent, yet returning on the same route it is present. The issue seems pretty random too - might be an issue one day and not the next when covering the same route on the same device. Certainly, I haven’t noticed any location where the problem always occurs.

Where the problem(s) lies is anybody’s guess. I had thought it might be related to gps signal, but I’ve had issues in areas with great coverage yet good performance in mountains and forested areas where skies are limited, including when using the Garmin GLO2 mentioned previously (able to use many more satellites, so accuracy and coverage improved and faster to calculate location).
Some kind of issue with speech engines (e.g. conflict between any in Navigation and those used by Android and iOS devices) which might be eradicated by adopting an alternative? Probably not, given the variabilities in occurrence? These are just shots in the dark on my part. My knowledge of such stuff is very limited indeed.

I wonder what, if any, questions are being asked by the app developers in seeking a solution? They are far better placed to look in the right direction, ask the right questions, find answers and to test them… Though could part of the problem lie in testing? What works in an isolated ‘sand box’ kind of environment is one thing, but I wonder how much real world testing has been and is being carried out?

It would be good to see some input from MRA executives on this problem, along with some commitment to rectifying it, and on this forum, rather than spending their time drip feeding what seems to me to be ‘high hopes and thin air’ on Farcebook.

Con Hennekens

@tom-cat said in MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.:

It's very laggy in the Android version also as I mentioned in my previous post. I tend to look at my screen often to get the curvature of the road ahead but even then I rely on the voice to alert me to an upcoming turn and it lags pretty far behind.

It's funny that people have such different habits how they use navigation. To me the voice-guidance is merely a signal to go watch the route. A simple beep would suffice. Like my ancient Streetpilot 2610 did . In that regard I am not really aware of any lag, but I am not really listening to the voice.

However if it is such a thing for many users, it would be nice if something could be done about that. I cannot imagine that it is rocketscience to do that. Tweaking some developer parameters...

PAD 0

@con-hennekens Could the terrain, roads and traffic conditions we usually inhabit inform our varied navigation habits, perhaps?

Netherlands: limited elevation changes, high proportion of fairly straight roads, few roadside hedges, extensive lines of sight, high traffic densities. (Apologies for the generalisation here, but its based on limited personal experience.)

My part of the U.K. (Welsh borders): wide and sudden elevation changes, frequent corners - often tight and with decreasing radius, roadside hedgerows the norm and often high, restricted sight lines, relatively low traffic densities.

I’m sure that’s very simplistic and, of course, many of us travel widely so experience a greater range of conditions. Throw in experience and training, etc… But maybe there’s a grain of truth in there?

Could it be that those in the Netherlands do tend to have just that little bit more time to look at a screen?

Tom Cat

@pad-0 said in MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.:

@con-hennekens Could the terrain, roads and traffic conditions we usually inhabit inform our varied navigation habits, perhaps?

Absolutely. I know I vary my habits based on where I'm riding. If I am within a town I am watching the GPS more often, eyeing the side roads and distance to my next turn. When I'm in more rural and countryside locations I look at the GPS less often.

Con Hennekens

@pad-0 said in MRA Navigation and downloaded maps.:

@con-hennekens Could the terrain, roads and traffic conditions we usually inhabit inform our varied navigation habits, perhaps?

I think your comparison of circumstances is quite correct. However I am living in the far south (as far as you can speak of that in the Netherlands ) with German Eifel and Belgium Ardennes in less than an hour drive away. I have been riding for years without audible guidance, so I am probably more used to do without it than many others. But in my experience, the more unpredictable the road gets, the better it is to look at the map at your own chosen time. That gives you knowledge about the road ahead and prevents having to look at the screen when it is necessary to have eyes on the road. I ride in landscape mode, so I have better sight on side roads too.