Columbus - Worst Sat Nav Ever!

[byteme]

My car is going in for another service soon and I will once again ask the dealer if there is a firmware update to correct the following -

 

1. No immediate access to postcode entry and thereafter predictive input. FFS all UK postcodes begin with a letter so why should I be presented with a numerical keypad than then has to be switched back to numbers and again to letters. The screen is large enough for both!

2. I like to see the route the system takes me over so zoom out to get an overview of where I will go and any hold ups so I can take an alternative. From that point on the system will never navigate unless auto zoom is selected taking me back to a map scale that is less than helpful. Unless auto is selected it will give no notice of upcoming turns ever, not even if I plunge over a cliff I suspect.

3. Dash display. Using the steering wheel controls the display can be altered to monitor odd little things such as will I get home on the fuel I have. Very useful as long as you realise that once you have selected that option navigation is lost forever because navigation takes this as a signal to go to sleep.

4. Multi use displays, both. Both look OK and work but the moment you change the radio station on the central display, or use the steering wheel controls to make a call navigation, once again, has gone forever.

5. Hidden buttons and proximity sensor. Brilliant but what cretin decided I need to permanently know my altitude of that I have selected North up as opposed to idiot mode?

6. Lack of a proper dual map display.

7. Very short notice of upcoming turns. 1/2 mile is not enough on a busy motorway at peak periods.

 

I can accept the system runs slow with respect to exact position but all of the above are decisions that have been made that are fundamentally flawed beyond belief. I have had more than 20 new cars over the last 12 or so years and none have had such obvious failings in their sat nav operating systems. My old 2006 Vectra was far better in every respect minus the touch screen and the Volvo that preceeded my Superb infinitely better. The rest of the software is equally poor especially the phone that despite having a massive screen area requires a keypad be selected every time.

 

What is so difficult about providing a sat nav system that automatically takes precedence over other functions WHEN necessary?

[nicknorman]

My 2016 Columbus exhibits none of those behaviours. I wonder whether there is something wrong with yours, or it’s just a “feature of the new model”?

Edited 12 November, 2018 by nicknorman

[byteme]

Interesting, mine is 2016 also. Are you saying that to select postcode you do not have to select town and then the postcode tab at the bottom left of the display and then change from the numerical keypad? Do you not have the buttons on the right permanently displayed while those across the bottom only appear when the proximity sensor detects a hand?

 

I sat with the dealer's Master-Tech twice who told me this was how the system worked. Three of my colleagues experience the same frustration.

 

I should say I never use voice commands so am reliant on the nav being a moving map glanced at when safe and needed. Safer to know what's coming up and orientate yourself in advance than react to a voice.

[nicknorman]

1 hour ago, byteme said:

Interesting, mine is 2016 also. Are you saying that to select postcode you do not have to select town and then the postcode tab at the bottom left of the display and then change from the numerical keypad? Do you not have the buttons on the right permanently displayed while those across the bottom only appear when the proximity sensor detects a hand?

 

I sat with the dealer's Master-Tech twice who told me this was how the system worked. Three of my colleagues experience the same frustration.

 

I should say I never use voice commands so am reliant on the nav being a moving map glanced at when safe and needed. Safer to know what's coming up and orientate yourself in advance than react to a voice.

 

Ok I’ll need to be more thorough with my reading and reply.

 

Yes, you’re right, you do have to select town then postcode then alpha keys. Can’t say I’ve noticed the last one before, just done it.  But yes somewhat lazy programming since no UK postcodes start with numbers (but of course most do in continental Europe).

 

Yes the icons on the right do remain. The map orientation one would be better vanishing, but I quite like the altitude display. But then I drive in the highlands of Scotland a lot.

 

It was your other points I found strange. Once a route is in, it never disappears. I can and often do go off the maxidot Nav display but it’s always there if I want to go back to it. Similarly if I press radio or make a phone call, it has no effect on the route and I can go back to Nav any time. Similarly, zooming out and in again has no effect on the route. As to the notice to a motorway turnoff, can’t say I’ve found it too short but of course if you have the Nav display on the maxidot it gives continuous distance to the next turn.

 

As to split screen, it does quite a lot. I presume you know you can select different types of display on the split screen and for example when it’s in map mode, pressing the scale icon brings up some more options, and you can also select radio station info by pressing audio?

 

Overall I’d say the satnav on my Subaru had a better split screen, but a lot of the other features are similar or better.

[byteme]

" but it’s always there if I want to go back to it." / " Similarly if I press radio or make a phone call, it has no effect on the route and I can go back to Nav any time"

 

I probably made my point badly. You should never HAVE to go back, NAV should run in the background and should be set to realise you actually intended reaching a destination and prompt as and when needed always and above all other functions. Try setting a route and the select a radio channel on the central display and make a call on the steering wheel controls. I would genuinely like to know what  happens because none of my cars have ever had this obvious failing before.

 

I do know all the options, half my  working life is spent in this car and I love gadgets. My last Volvo had an option that displayed the route at whatever scale you selected full screen and of course as you got closer you could nudge the steering wheel control (the one Skoda does not have) while the display always centralised itself automatically. Approaching a junction the display split 50/50 with the left giving detailed turn and distance while the right side showed an overview that also zoomed in automatically. The stupid little pop-up on my Columbus can do none of that as well.

 

The maps are OK'ish and the overall display is good but the Columbus belongs back in the last decade and even then was outclassed.

 

[nicknorman]

11 minutes ago, byteme said:

" but it’s always there if I want to go back to it." / " Similarly if I press radio or make a phone call, it has no effect on the route and I can go back to Nav any time"

 

I probably made my point badly. You should never HAVE to go back, NAV should run in the background and should be set to realise you actually intended reaching a destination and prompt as and when needed always and above all other functions. Try setting a route and the select a radio channel on the central display and make a call on the steering wheel controls. I would genuinely like to know what  happens because none of my cars have ever had this obvious failing before.

 

I do know all the options, half my  working life is spent in this car and I love gadgets. My last Volvo had an option that displayed the route at whatever scale you selected full screen and of course as you got closer you could nudge the steering wheel control (the one Skoda does not have) while the display always centralised itself automatically. Approaching a junction the display split 50/50 with the left giving detailed turn and distance while the right side showed an overview that also zoomed in automatically. The stupid little pop-up on my Columbus can do none of that as well.

 

The maps are OK'ish and the overall display is good but the Columbus belongs back in the last decade and even then was outclassed.

 

So I think what you are saying is that you have the audio Nav instructions turned off and you have both displays on something else as a turn approaches? I’m not quite sure what you want to happen? Would you expect the display(s) to automatically switch back to Nav? If so I don’t agree. Displays changing on their own can be annoying. I would imagine that 99% of people use the audio nav instructions and so this isn’t an issue for them (and me).

I think you are being a little unfair turning off the audio and both screens onto something else and then complaining that it doesn’t overrule your selections. Maybe there are better ways of doing it, but for most people how Skoda do it isn’t a problem.

[byteme]

Not turned off, the destination is still active. My point is that the entire point of travelling from A to B is to ensure you arrive at B once the destination has been set. Randomly changing displays is rather different to one that defaults to nav when you're approaching a motorway turn off that if missed requires perhaps a 30 mile round trip. What part of your car nav system not getting you to where you want to go do you not understand?

 

I had a fair idea of the reply I would receive when posting the original question. If you believe 99% of people follow some **** nav voice instruction the world really is doomed but hey, I guess that cute voice allows you to type more on your Facebook page or snapchat images of your bits while being told where and when to steer driving to Moms house two miles away, the one you have driven to hundreds of times.

 

99%?  Do you really believe people are that monumentally stupid?

 

Tell me what other manufacturer has a protocol in place that prioritises the last phone call or radio selection above the next turn.

 

 

[JR RS]

sounds like @byteme needs to use android auto or carplay - that way he/she can see everything (music, calls, navigation) in the home screen!!

 

the Columbus, along with the MFD, is working as designed, and most people have no issues with it.

 

as said above, u can't expect the navigation to take over the screen when a turn/intersection/exit is coming up. 

make up ur mind - u either use the columbus or MFD for navigation, and the other for calls/music/whatever.  

[byteme]

7 minutes ago, JR RS said:

sounds like @byteme needs to use android auto or carplay - that way he/she can see everything (music, calls, navigation) in the home screen!!

 

the Columbus, along with the MFD, is working as designed, and most people have no issues with it.

 

as said above, u can't expect the navigation to take over the screen when a turn/intersection/exit is coming up. 

make up ur mind - u either use the columbus or MFD for navigation, and the other for calls/music/whatever.  

Again, name me another in car system that does not prioritse navigation. All others do in the 20 plus new cars I have had over the past 12 or so years.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but Android Auto and CarPlay are completely autonomous and cannot function with two phones. This may be a rare need for most but navigation is still a priority.

 

Name another car manufacturer who fails to address that that instead of acting as an apologist.

[xman]

Here maps on a phone is (was) great, but I've learnt not to trust and ignore the vocal instructions which are often confusing or sometimes completely wrong. The simple straight graphic which show the bends in the roads etc is great and turns clearly visible. Handy discrete double beep if you exceed speed limit if you want, which I like.

 

I believe that Skoda sat nav is a Here maps product, but its way too fancy and the ergonomics and operation is terrible. Its bad enough having the main screen nearly in the footwell, but the pull up menu buttons are tiny and located the bottom too. Far too dangerous to do anything there while moving.

 

Why do I need to see a super complex 3d map of London with a sea of red triangles, road closures, traffic jams blah blah, I only want to get to my destination. Make it simple and clear.

 

Here maps is a joint venture owned now by the german car cartel I believe.

 

When I eventually upgrade my phone to one that supports Android auto, I'll switch to to a phone based app, plenty of good free alternatives.

 

 

[byteme]

11 minutes ago, xman said:

Here maps on a phone is (was) great, but I've learnt not to trust and ignore the vocal instructions which are often confusing or sometimes completely wrong. The simple straight graphic which show the bends in the roads etc is great and turns clearly visible. Handy discrete double beep if you exceed speed limit if you want, which I like.

 

I believe that Skoda sat nav is a Here maps product, but its way too fancy and the ergonomics and operation is terrible. Its bad enough having the main screen nearly in the footwell, but the pull up menu buttons are tiny and located the bottom too. Far too dangerous to do anything there while moving.

 

Why do I need to see a super complex 3d map of London with a sea of red triangles, road closures, traffic jams blah blah, I only want to get to my destination. Make it simple and clear.

 

Here maps is a joint venture owned now by the german car cartel I believe.

 

When I eventually upgrade my phone to one that supports Android auto, I'll switch to to a phone based app, plenty of good free alternatives.

 

 

It is a crap system and only those raised on it cannot see the revelations revealed unto the masses 15 years ago but like all religions Audi VG indoctrinated the fallen with their falsehoods. To blaspheme and go French, Italian, British or any other system will not result in eternal damnation, just don't tell them yet.

 

The answer to the predictive UK post codes by the way is because they are protected and sold on licence, VAG are not the first to be too tight fisted to pay for this and stiff their UK buyers.

[xman]

Post codes are protected and sold on licence?

 

"Prior to 1 April 2010 the Royal Mail licensed use of the postcode database for a charge of about £4000 per year.^[22] Following a campaign and a government consultation in 2009^[23] the Ordnance Survey released Code-Point Open, detailing each current postcode in Great Britain together with a geo-code for re-use free of charge under an attribution-only licence Open Government Licence as part of OS OpenData."

[byteme]

Despite that the Columbus flagship model still has limited postcode recognition. You should research the extent in what appears to be a limited licence.  I can't be bothered, all I know is the Columbus system is poor.

[MartiniB]

"postcode -> street -> number" in current century?!

 

try Waze or Google Mpaps, where you can enter title of destination
or start by street number then after typing few first letters of street name chose correct one from huge listbox
 

[Mickey43]

The Columbus satnav has taken me to destinations all over the UK, on holiday to Holland last year, and to various destinations in France this year.  Only got lost once, in Paris, but that was probably my fault and the satnav got me out of the hole soon enough.

 

I think it's rather good!

[nicknorman]

8 hours ago, byteme said:

It is a crap system and only those raised on it cannot see the revelations revealed unto the masses 15 years ago but like all religions Audi VG indoctrinated the fallen with their falsehoods. To blaspheme and go French, Italian, British or any other system will not result in eternal damnation, just don't tell them yet.

 

The answer to the predictive UK post codes by the way is because they are protected and sold on licence, VAG are not the first to be too tight fisted to pay for this and stiff their UK buyers.

 

This is my first Skoda, before that I had Subarus  and Saabs  ( just noticed they all begin with “S” - weird!). I suppose it’s true that the present Satnav is not significantly better that the one in my last car which will now be about 13 years old but then again I mostly know where I’m going. For someone such as you who from the sound of it drives more diverse routes I can see it will be important to you, but for the rest of us the system is perfectly adequate and getting a better satnav wouldn’t feature on my next car shopping list.

[Caspian]

I have been happy with my columbus satnav. The only issue I have with it is that even when using the short instruction,  it wastes time asking you to 'please' do something rather than giving succinct instructions, which would be much more helpful. To much political correctness in my opinion.

[BriskodaJeff]

11 hours ago, nicknorman said:

 

Yes, you’re right, you do have to select town then postcode then alpha keys. .

Have you tried just entering the postcode into the town field? It works on my MY17 car.

[cs.rogers]

Have to say i like the sat nav. It took us from Ipswich to Belfast via Formby and didn't skip a beat. We only got lost when we ignored it....

 

I now make sure i have my wifi hotspot enabled when I'm in the car so that the map can also show the traffic status for the journey home. 

 

It would be great if it could natively run some apps (youtube music, spotify etc) so that i don't have to go into Android Auto. I do like Android Auto, but I prefer the native Columbus interface. 

Usability wise its quite good, though my wife's X3 infotainment system is marginally better due to the twisty knob controller. I'm not great with the touch screen and my left hand. 

 

Also, voice controls are better than expected, but in this day and age could be significantly better.

 

Overall though, the experience has been very positive. As for postcode entry, I've only ever used the voice input tbh.

[MorrisOx]

Some simple principles:

 

1] No tech is ever as advanced as it would have you believe, whether it’s artificial intelligence, machine learning...or a sat nav. As so many of us know, a load of effort is put into ‘teching-up’ the appearance of devices or functions whch don’t actually perform that well. Remember - the appearance is also trying to sell the product.

 

2] Never pay extra for a manufacturer sat nav. The market leader is Google Maps, by a mile, because the volume of data which informs its mapping is bigger than anything else. Manufacturer navs aren’t updated anywhere near often enough. Waze has one of the best & most practical interfaces. Apple Maps is not the disaster some suggest, but it is being rebuilt from the ground up because Apple knows it’s not as good as Google.

 

3] Whether it’s manufacturer or Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, a good nav is one which responds to voice commands. You’re driving a car, and shouldn’t have to take your eyes off the road.

 

4] So why don’t more manufacturers fit simple turn-by-turn head up displays which read off the nav? All you need to know, in your line of sight.

Edited 14 November, 2018 by MorrisOx

[DBT85]

I've used my built in satnav once because my phone battery was dead and I didn;t have my lead to connect it to the car.

 

Otherwise it's Waze via Android Auto every time. If not that then at least Google Maps.

 

Both of those will always be more up to date and accurate than anything any car manufacturer supplies.

[JR RS]

the current voice commands avaiable r a bit tedious, and more often a miss than a hit!!  its doesn't feel natural.

what would b nice if we manufacturers, like Merc have recently done, is use the "home automation" concept to control everything, or atleast most things in the car natively.

 

like a built-in Google Assist and Siri.

 

for examples:-
- "hey skoda, set the temperature to 19 degrees"

- "hey skoda, change the background lighting to blue"

- "hey skoda, turn on the headlights"

- "hey skoda, activate park assist"
- "hey skoda, turn on the seat warmers to medium"

- "hey skoda, tell Homer Simpson that i'm happy with my columbus"

- "hey skoda, make me a latte with two sugars"

[Flipfly]

My biggest bugbear with it is having the menu/home button on the passenger side. Obviously this is fine for 99% of the world who drive on the the left side of the car, but it’s a fair stretch for us right hand drivers! Desperately needs a control such as the bmw/Mercedes systems. Other than that it seems to work, but then I pretty much know where I’m going most of the time.

[Robbo12]

On ‎12‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 21:19, byteme said:

My car is going in for another service soon and I will once again ask the dealer if there is a firmware update to correct the following -

 

1. No immediate access to postcode entry and thereafter predictive input. FFS all UK postcodes begin with a letter so why should I be presented with a numerical keypad than then has to be switched back to numbers and again to letters. The screen is large enough for both!

2. I like to see the route the system takes me over so zoom out to get an overview of where I will go and any hold ups so I can take an alternative. From that point on the system will never navigate unless auto zoom is selected taking me back to a map scale that is less than helpful. Unless auto is selected it will give no notice of upcoming turns ever, not even if I plunge over a cliff I suspect.

3. Dash display. Using the steering wheel controls the display can be altered to monitor odd little things such as will I get home on the fuel I have. Very useful as long as you realise that once you have selected that option navigation is lost forever because navigation takes this as a signal to go to sleep.

4. Multi use displays, both. Both look OK and work but the moment you change the radio station on the central display, or use the steering wheel controls to make a call navigation, once again, has gone forever.

5. Hidden buttons and proximity sensor. Brilliant but what cretin decided I need to permanently know my altitude of that I have selected North up as opposed to idiot mode?

6. Lack of a proper dual map display.

7. Very short notice of upcoming turns. 1/2 mile is not enough on a busy motorway at peak periods.

 

I can accept the system runs slow with respect to exact position but all of the above are decisions that have been made that are fundamentally flawed beyond belief. I have had more than 20 new cars over the last 12 or so years and none have had such obvious failings in their sat nav operating systems. My old 2006 Vectra was far better in every respect minus the touch screen and the Volvo that preceeded my Superb infinitely better. The rest of the software is equally poor especially the phone that despite having a massive screen area requires a keypad be selected every time.

 

What is so difficult about providing a sat nav system that automatically takes precedence over other functions WHEN necessary?

 I hate it when it tells me to turn half left .. :-)

[IanJD]

The biggest problem with the inbuilt satnav is terrible traffic avoidance -- it only knows about jams on big roads, often well after they've happened, and will then divert you onto smaller routes where jams are even worse but it doesn't know about them.

 

I've given up using it now and always use Google Maps via Android Auto instead -- much better at finding destinations (can search for anything including names), far better at routing with traffic especially in cities -- try using Columbus to find your way across London if you have a few hours to spare. Even on long journeys involving cities and traffic I've found Google Maps predicted arrival times are always correct to within a few minutes, and rerouting to avoid traffic/accidents is alos in a different league.

 

Waze has some advantages (e.g. speed cam/police alerts) but I don't like the UI or the adverts...