It is a crying shame that so many motorists have the technology, but nobody has an obligation to provide the service as intended. I've just spent good money updating maps, figuring that the Traffic aspect would make it worth paying good money for, only to learn that it doesn't.

In theory (a half-baked idea), it sounds like there could be a market for a product not far altered from my BT/FM Transmitter, which I find so useful for hands-free. The device would need to be fed a traffic stream (from a phone app) via BT, and then FM Transfer to the Head. It would however, tie you to having the Head tuned to an FM channel that might be less satisfying than regular FM broadcasts, unless you could organise bursts of data transfer, perhaps when alerted to there being queued data.

4 minutes ago, HUD Engineer said:

It is a crying shame that so many motorists have the technology, but nobody has an obligation to provide the service as intended. I've just spent good money updating maps, figuring that the Traffic aspect would make it worth paying good money for, only to learn that it doesn't.

In theory (a half-baked idea), it sounds like there could be a market for a product not far altered from my BT/FM Transmitter, which I find so useful for hands-free. The device would need to be fed a traffic stream (from a phone app) via BT, and then FM Transfer to the Head. It would however, tie you to having the Head tuned to an FM channel that might be less satisfying than regular FM broadcasts, unless you could organise bursts of data transfer, perhaps when alerted to there being queued data.

The industry found a way to make us have to pay subscriptions?

No such thing as a free lunch?

I drove in Germany two years ago while on holiday and must admit their TMC is probably the best in whole Europe. While using factory fitted sat nav with latest maps in Mondeo 2015 at this time it route divertion from traffic on autobhan better than google, where google pushed into the middle of traffic ,factory sat nav with TMC provided much better route and allows to bypass whole traffic (no connection to online services). I never had that accurate situation in UK while TMC was still on, but was better to have something than nothing. Looks like Waze time and android auto.

Or last out to connected services in your next car. You get the firmware updates without paying for connected services. They come free. Radio logos can get updated after a firmware update so Im told. But to save waiting you can use MartiniBs links. Satnav updates come over the air if you pay or use the links. Just leaves traffic reports which is subscription via connected services to the head. I'd probably cough up and do incremental updates on the rest where I found they were not being done.

Android Automotive has that market place to add a new dimension of subscription services for where you need to subscribe. Listening to streamed services on the move I reckon is problematic but some do.

I suppose that one advantage of the closure of TMC is you don't get "your route is changing" as you turn into Lidl. Always Lidl.😂

I got Kodiaq 2017 and trully happy that is not connected to manufacturer server 24/7, not going to cry for lack of TMC, there is always solution 😅. But was funny when I drove last weekend and see huge traffic on the way to Cornwall, was wondering why is that, now I know 😂

You need a co-driver.... well Cornwall you'd get sent down some silly roads where you co-driver navigator comes with devices on the lap switching between them. Google has farm tracks on their maps which is ridiculous and you can't get them to remove them either. If their car passes a potholed route that's good enough for them, even if its shown as not a through road and the tarmac finishes. Their concept of off road. UK we dont show off road... we hope.

I see fantasy Waze maps on production live maps. User input you get fantasy maps. A proper mapping company validates user input. In Googles case their own staff enter rubbish.

Edited 23 minutes ago23 min by Tell