Windows Phone Thoughts: Pharos Traveler 525 GPS Part 2 - Ostia 7.5 Navigation Software

”Navigator to Pilot…”
Once you have the route established, including all multi-stops and a final destination, Ostia will ask if you want the Fastest, Shortest or ‘No Highway’ route to follow.


Figure 13: Deciding how you want to get there.

It will then calculate a route and start providing directions. You can even tell Ostia to drive you through a real-time simulation of the route, without the GPS activated. On the map, the calculated route is shown in light blue.


Figure 14: Details of Ostia’s screen interface while driving a route.

The voice used for prompting you through the route is female and, while the volume is adjustable using WM5’s speaker volume function, the recordings are very loud, so it’s easy to overdrive the Pocket PC’s speaker and introduce distortion. There is an option for custom voice prompts, but I couldn’t find anything in the documentation on how to do this. Prompts are provided in miles or kilometres, separate from the scale used on the display map – useful when you are in a foreign country that uses one system (and then the map will match to the road signs), but you are used to judging distances in the other. On my version of the software, to select the metric version, you have to select ‘Custom’ from the Voice Guidance parameter on the Options menu (it wasn’t automatic when you switch the map scale from miles to kilometres).

Turns are announced by the voice prompts about ½ kilometer - “Left Turn in ½ kilometer” (or ¼ mile) - before they occur and then again within approximately 200m (“Left Turn Ahead”). A chime also sounded when it is appropriate to turn on your turn signal. I did find, when turns were close together, or a turn occurred shortly after the system had re-routed me, that there was no voice prompt and/or the chime was sounded late.

Suffice it to say that I would not recommend relying solely on the voice prompts for navigation through a strange city or on an unknown route. It would be worthwhile glancing quickly after each turn to the screen, to see the street name and distance to the next turn, so you are prepared. Fortunately, the Traveler 525 tracks with you as you move along in the map, readjusting the display to keep the current location in the centre of the map, no matter what scale you have selected, so you can see upcoming cross streets and exits.

As with any GPS application, map accuracy is CRUCIAL. On the first set of maps for my area (Southern BC) provided by Pharos, there were a number of inaccuracies with intersections which were actually overpasses, and intersections which had been blocked off. No missing streets, but the Points of Interest included only had a few for my city, a number for a city 40km away, and some that I’d never heard of. Most of these are probably due to the age of the base maps used, and when I talked to Pharos support about this, they promptly sent out another set of maps from another mapping company. These were much better, with only a couple of flaws. To their credit, Pharos has been working with different map providers and is continually updating the maps available. Generally, though, the accuracy within the cities has been very good, and the unit has shown me some alternate routes to my favorite haunts that I never would have considered!

One of the neat features of the Ostia software, which apparently is not available with many other standalone GPS products, is the ability to review other portions of the map away from your current position while the GPS is tracking you. That way, you can scout around for other points of interest in the area without having to lose your specified route. You do have to remember to press the ‘Cancel’ button to get the map back to tracking your current position.


Figure 15: Scouting around other areas of the map. Remember to tap on the Cancel button to get back to tracking your current location!.

I left the unit in Auto-reroute mode for most of my travels and purposely went off the specified route to see what would happen. Fortunately, there is no annoying voice prompt telling you that you’ve strayed – it’s simply a beep to say it has recalculated a new route to your destination, followed by an updated display and new prompts. Generally, this occurred within a couple of seconds of it recognizing I wasn’t following the prescribed route.