Good Morning everyone,

Hopefully someone here will be able to assist me.

I'm looking at a Yeti Greenline Elegancy as my next company lease car and I'm contemplating adding the Columbus Sat nav as an option.

However, i have a question that I need answering.

Can you add you own POI's on the Columbus unit? If if does, how do you do it?

The reason for asking is that i use an old TomTom Go720 and subscribe to PocketGPSWorld for their speed camera database and i'm trying to findout if the columbus will accept the POI's to be loaded.

I look forward to your responses.

EDIT- UPDATED

Just discovered that VWlabs have a tool called NAVSYNC that allows you to sync locations to the NS510 (columbus) via the SD card. Has anyone tried this? It's a free tool that is available once you register (for free)

Thanks In advance

Richard

Edited 11 November, 201114 yr by Big Rich

The major failing of factory fitted sat-navs (apart from their cost!) is that it is extremely difficult to add 3rd party POIs to them. I also use a TomTom at present and need to be able to add and change POIs very regularly as use it when I'm driving to geocaches and need to be able to add and delete these regularly.

Although I have seen posts from people who have added POIs to OEM sat-navs it seems to involve editing the original data CD and is not for me!

Chris

Try posting this in the Ice security and insurance section where you will get much more help as that is specific to your question.

On fact in that section this is covered by a few threads.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Is the Columbus worth the £1,500 price?

Also is the position of the Columbus any good, considering it sits low in the Dash.

Or should I just upgrade my TomTom?

Have the VW version RNS510 in our Golf and it is very good, surpasses whats going in BMW and Mercs at the moment and I never thought I would say that as the BMW comms pack is excellent. The RNS510 links beautifully and easily with all our phones, voice control is good, not that we use it, the hard drive is brilliant and the bluetooth to to play music from your phone is great. The car also came with MDI but have never used it as the Hard Drive and SD slot coupled with the radio is ample for our needs. The navigation/maps/search is excellent once you know how to use it very clear and linked to the Maxi Dot computer which gives directions and pointers right in front of you if you find the positioning of the main unit awkward.

Is the system worth £1500, I'm not sure, I never paid for this extra as it was a promo VW were doing at the time. I never specced the Columbus for my SM and its the only thing I think I might regret but at the time I refused to go daft with extras knowing that you don't really get your money back on them when you go to sell.

I use my Columbus several times a day, as I rarely go to see the same client more than once, so for me it is worth it, For occasional users I would say get a tom tom/garmin etc.

It is possible to add POIs but it's a hell of a job.

I did it a couple of years ago when I got the Octavia with Columbus in (company insists on us having built in satnav) and it involves burning a new CD and lot of faff. It did work OK with speedcams on but seemed to disable the traffic info. Gave up in the end as it was too much hassle doing a new CD every month as the camera database was updated.

If you just want to put some POIs on that don't need regular updating it's probably worth it.

Personally I don't think it's worth the extra £1500 so our own new Yeti hasn't got it. I just use a smartphone with IGo on.

_{Just checked the VWlabs site.}

We would like to thank all the users of vwlabs.com for being a part of our research community. Your participation and feedback have been critical to the continued improvement of existing and new ideas. Unfortunately, the applications presented in vwlabs.com will soon be shut down. Vwlabs.com will continue to be available in its current form until June 14, 2012.

Thank you for your support!

Volkwagen Electronics Research Lab

Anyone know of any alternative easy way of getting destinations in the right format for the Columbus ?

Try using 'POI Inspector' software on a computer and uploading them via SD card.

I believe that's how many people get speed cameras (as POI's) on their Columbus.

Anyone know of any alternative easy way of getting destinations in the right format for the Columbus ?

Try this website: http://vwlabs.com/

Sorry my message was ambiguous - I'm interested in alternatives to VWLab which is closing down, to get destinations rather than POIs into the Columbus via the SD card.