Considering RV Life Pro GPS

[16ACE27]

Okay... used RV Life trip planner on PC before leaving home. Preparing to leave in the MH yesterday and open the app on phone. Opened the trip and tell it to start. It says "Let's go!". Says "Calculating..." at bottom of screen. So I go ahead and pull out and head down the road. 5 miles later... still "calculating"... which it did the entire three hour trip. It's not like I can leasurely re+start the app while driving!! WTH??

I'll try again on return trip...

Sounds like you got the spinning arrow of death. I got that yesterday at one point as well.
How did you tell it to navigate the planned trip. I'm still missing that connection. I can only navigate to a single stop on the trip.

Another annoyance I discovered yesterday.
Navigating home from the MIL's house we go across State Road 40 for about 46 miles straight. Shortly after heading west on SR 40 the RVLife GPS tells me to go straight for 13 miles and turn right on SR 326 (which is a correct turn), but that turn is 36 miles down the road. This picture was taken a couple of miles later:

It had picked the cross road with SR 19 as an invisible waypoint. If I was unfamiliar with the area I would have thought SR 326 where I turn was only 11 miles ahead, not 34 miles.

My Garmin RV GPS used to do that but on very rare occasions. It seems the RVLife GPS does that to any intersection where it actually has "lane assist", which is nowhere near as many as Garmin or Sygic.

The next "niggle" was my search for a Cracker Barrel for a lunch stop. I knew where one was in Gainesville but I wasn't sure if there was one closer in Ocala. So I cancel my navigation home so I can search for a lunch stop. If you just pick the "Food" category you get all food stops near you - no way to narrow it by type or name.
So back up and tell it to search for "Cracker Barrel" and I get the results by Crow Fly distance, not driving distance. But the real niggle is how it displays this particular POI:

Again: WTF??

 

[GrandRover]

LOL. GPS directions are a pain. When we travel from SW Florida to Indiana I like to go through Alabama and up I-65 which requires that I go West at Tifton, GA. I use Apple Map because the one being referred to in this thread does not have the features I like. But I have to make multiple points in my GPS to avoid being routed through Atlanta. No big deal, just gotta be smarter than the GPS APP

 

[16ACE27]

just gotta be smarter than the GPS APP

Correct! But not always possible in unknown areas.

 

[16ACE27]

I like to go through Alabama and up I-65 which requires that I go West at Tifton, GA.

Interesting. I assume you go through Montgomery, Birmingham, and Nashville?

 

[GrandRover]

Interesting. I assume you go through Montgomery, Birmingham, and Nashville?

Sort of. I take I-75 north to 520/82 West at Tifton, then stay on 520 West and merge onto 280 West and stay on 520 / 280 West to Columbus, GA and then 280 West to Birmingham where I can get on I-65 and then I basically stay on Interstate and go around Nashville.
It is actually a peaceful trip after Tifton to I-65 on mostly 2 lane of 4 lane highways with little traffic.
Last trip Apple Map tried to route me east of Nashville but I just ignored it and stayed on I-65

 

[Chateau_Nomad]

For giggles I opened the app again just now... sitting in the motorhome in the campground. It immediately asked for an update, which I did. After the update I opened the app and it's STILL telling me to update. ???

So I closed the warning and opened my current trip. It gave two options for navigation. I chose one, then tapped the big red Navigate button at bottom of screen.

I get the friendly voice "Let's go!"

Next I get the following screen... locked in perpetuity...

Unusable in current form... what am I doing wrong??

 

[16ACE27]

For giggles I opened the app again just now... sitting in the motorhome in the campground. It immediately asked for an update, which I did. After the update I opened the app and it's STILL telling me to update. ???

So I closed the warning and opened my current trip. It gave two options for navigation. I chose one, then tapped the big red Navigate button at bottom of screen.

I get the friendly voice "Let's go!"

Next I get the following screen... locked in perpetuity...

Unusable in current form... what am I doing wrong??

Where's the big red Navigate? All I get are little white navigates at each stop.

 

[Chateau_Nomad]

Tap the navigate button (with the flag on it) below your starting point address. Puzzling why there's a button below each waypoint?? I mean you start at the beginning... right??

 

[16ACE27]

Tap the navigate button (with the flag on it) below your starting point address. Puzzling why there's a button below each waypoint?? I mean you start at the beginning... right??

Nope.
Change the trip to start where I am now with today's date.
Opened the trip in the APP
Hit the navigate below my current location
"Lets Go"
"You have reached your destination"

It just routes you to that point.

 

[16ACE27]

So I followed the Golden Rule for Men - if all fails, read the directions - that didn't work.

S o I went to the help center in the APP and hit the Contact Us button all the way at the bottom.
Filled out the information and described the problem. Then I noticed they had an "attach file" button at the bottom. So I thought I'd include the screen shot above. Navigated to it and selected it and the WHAM! I'm right back to the home page in the APP - all info lost. GRRR!!!!!

So I did it again and bypassed the attached file.

I got a pretty quick response:

"Thank you for contacting RV LIFE Trip Wizard/RV LIFE App. Part of the RV LIFE Pro Suite of products.

Currently you need to navigate each leg of the trip. We have plans to update this.

Let us know if we can be of further assistance "

So it's currently undoable for a multi-stop trip.

That's a BIG no-go for prime time.

I don't know why they need to update it. It used to work that way (however poorly).

I feel sometimes like I've really been bashing this GPS APP. Now I feel they fully deserve it.

 

[ducksface]

IT departments seem like Jinn to normal folk.
I'll guess their programmers like the self superiority they think they've built.

Unless there's a VALID reason other than job preservation.

It's code
Get a new coder.
The fix could be a $15 gig.

https://www.fiverr.com/

 

[16ACE27]

Sort of. I take I-75 north to 520/82 West at Tifton, then stay on 520 West and merge onto 280 West and stay on 520 / 280 West to Columbus, GA and then 280 West to Birmingham where I can get on I-65 and then I basically stay on Interstate and go around Nashville.
It is actually a peaceful trip after Tifton to I-65 on mostly 2 lane of 4 lane highways with little traffic.
Last trip Apple Map tried to route me east of Nashville but I just ignored it and stayed on I-65

We may go that way this summer on our next trip to western Michigan. But instead of going up to Tifton we'll probably go left on I-10 to the other side of Tallahassee and then turn north.

 

[Chateau_Nomad]

Gave it one last try. When I opened the app the navigation was evidently still running, so I hit stop... which they call "end" (semantics).

On the resulting map screen I selected the first option... 2:39.

Then the red Start Navigation button popped up. I tapped it and bingo .. it actually appears it's going to navigate! But... to where? The trip I created was from home to this campsite. Is it trying to take me back?

Valid comments about developers... has anyone on staff ACTUALLY traveled in an RV??

In my younger years I once worked at a place where the owner had an idea of training the secretaries to run the machines...

P.S. I examined the routing and it is returning me to home... reverse route.

 

[GrandRover]

We may go that way this summer on our next trip to western Michigan. But instead of going up to Tifton we'll probably go left on I-10 to the other side of Tallahassee and then turn north.

I-65 is far West of Tallahassee using I-10 but we have used the smaller roads from Tallahassee to I-65, just didn't find that drive enjoyable, Tifton is a short distance from the FL - GA border which works well for us and the smaller roads are calm going West from Tifton.

 

[dkoldman]

Gave it one last try. When I opened the app the navigation was evidently still running, so I hit stop... which they call "end" (semantics).

On the resulting map screen I selected the first option... 2:39.

Then the red Start Navigation button popped up. I tapped it and bingo .. it actually appears it's going to navigate! But... to where? The trip I created was from home to this campsite. Is it trying to take me back?

Valid comments about developers... has anyone on staff ACTUALLY traveled in an RV??

In my younger years I once worked at a place where the owner had an idea of training the secretaries to run the machines...

P.S. I examined the routing and it is returning me to home... reverse route.

I studied this thoroughly, I am convinced the RV Safe GPS is safely getting you back home so you don't get lost and/or causing harm to others

 

[16ACE27]

linking this accident (with confirmed fatalities and injuries) to this thread was in poor taste.

How?

It was posted "tongue in cheek" to a specific RV GPS review thread.

Posts removed.

 

[ducksface]

Sorry.
I'm not very fragile and I think knowledge can best fragilities others may have.

I am often wrong.

 

[Chateau_Nomad]

Well it's been almost a week... I forgot to update. So... I had put in a waypoint outside the campground in an area which had plenty of space to hitch the Jeep.

After it navigated to that point, it said trip complete. No... It is just a waypoint! Why do I need to re-start?? I just want to continue!!

Needs work.

 

[16ACE27]

Needs work.

Yep!

 

[ducksface]

The few streets in the picture are misnamed and the two of them do not exist. Some arent named no matter the zoom level.
Some others are named different things or appear only at different zoom levels...all but one is wrong. Five roads shown on different levels do not exist(they individually come and go based on zoom level. They're there... then they're not). Not only do they not exist and are on private property but there isn't even an elk path up that 30ft cliff they show as stagecoach. It is pure figment based on nothing that has ever existed.
This is waze.
This is community input.
Stagecoach and arizona do exist but they are 1/3 mile and a half mile east and are not vaguely aligned to each other or the roads named as them.