Pharos Traveler 525 GPS Part 2 - Ostia 7.5 Navigation Software [Archive]

Don Tolson

05-04-2006, 04:00 PM

<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-ostiademo.jpg" /> Product Category: Software- GPS Navigation Manufacturer: <A HREF = "http://www.pharosgps.com" target = "blank"> Pharos</A> Where to Buy: <A HREF = "http://www.mobileplanet.com/product.asp?code=119775&partner=pharos" target = "blank">MobilePlanet</A> Price: $120 USD System Requirements: Pocket PC 2003, Pocket PC 2003 SE or Windows Mobile 5. 2.5 Mb memory is required for the program. Map data is recommended to be stored on memory card (SD on Traveler 525, included with the package) Specifications: NMEA-0183 compliant at 4800-baud rate; Detailed street level data, with up to 10 maps opened simultaneously; Real-time traffic and custom POI’s; Reference by address, intersection, POI, longitude/latitude or Outlook contacts; Routing from one Point of Reference to another, with up to 10 intermittent “multi-stops” in a route; Text directions, Driving directions, and route guidance; Favorites stored on Pocket PC independent of contacts; GPS status indicators, with on screen strength indicator; Real time simulation of route with GPS disabled; Three views (1 overhead, 2 birds-eye) and nighttime map display. When navigating with the iGPS receiver (built in to the Traveler 525): Three routing methods: Fastest, Shortest, Avoid freeways; Street name of the next turn at the bottom of screen; Show the distance and direction of the next turn and distance to final destination; Screen displays: Map, Split map and arrow, arrow; Audible Voice prompt route guidance; Trip-trace recording of the route traveled; One-touch or Auto Re-route; Moving map while navigating; Selectable “North Up” or “Heading Up” for map display. Pros:<li>Very feature rich (see above); <li>Voice prompts available in imperial (miles) or metric (kilometres).Cons:<li>User interface can be a bit confusing, trying to find a tool vs. option; <li>Map accuracy is crucial; <li>ETA calculation is too long at longer distances; <li>No documentation on recording/using custom voice prompts. Summary: A GPS unit is only as good as the accuracy of the maps it uses and the ease of use of its interface. Ostia, the navigation software used with the Traveler 525 from Pharos, does a pretty good job in both departments. Pharos is continually updating and improving the source of the maps used and the user interface is straightforward and simple to use. There are some minor quirks, and some of the more advanced features take a bit of searching for, but Ostia should be able to handle the demands of both the casual user and road warrior. Read On for the full review!<!> <PAGEBREAK> Introduction In part 1 of this review, we took an indepth look at the hardware and operating system side of the very pocketable Traveler 525 from Pharos. Here, we’ll focus primarily on the GPS Navigation software provided, called Ostia. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take the Traveler on an extensive tour of North America (or any other continent), but I was able to run it through its paces through two of Western Canada’s largest cities (Vancouver and Victoria) and on trips to skiing destinations (Whistler Mountain and Mount Washington). Typically, (according to friends of mine with GPS units) mapping in this area of the world, especially outside of the urban centres, is not all that great so it should be a good test of the accuracy of the maps provided by Pharos. Installation One of the nice features of the Traveler 525 package from Pharos is that the Ostia navigation software, and the maps for the client’s area come preloaded, so the unit is ready to use right out of the box. As a bit of a test (and because it was the easiest way to get rid of all the PIM data I had loaded on the unit from the previous test), I did a hard-reset and reloaded the Ostia software from the CD. As with most packages we see today, software installation proceeds from the desktop to the Pocket PC via the Activesync partnership. Ostia 7.5 requires approximately 2.5 Mb of memory, including both sets of voice prompts. Fortunately, the map data was provided on a separate 512mb SD memory card, so I didn’t have to worry about locating and re-installing that as well. Included in the installation is a Today screen plug-in, which is pre-configured to be displayed when you turn the unit on. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-today.gif" /> Figure 1: Ostia’s plug-in on the Today screen. <PAGEBREAK> Where Am I? Getting a Fix on Your Location Once you start the Ostia software, the first order of business is to load in the maps you'll be using, and Ostia’s opening screen prompts you for this. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-openmap.gif" /> Figure 2: Ostia’s Opening Screen. Ostia then presents a list of maps available, which it finds in the My Documents folders on main unit or the memory cards currently inserted. Typical sizes for the maps are in the 12 to 20mb region, depending upon the area covered and the amount of detail recorded. Points of interest and other key features are stored in a separate file, but are named similarly and are loaded at the same time. Pharos provides a 512mb SD memory card with the appropriate maps already pre-loaded for the client’s area. In the US, this means you get one of the five regions of the US, including 50 major cities. You can also download maps for other areas from the Pharos website. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-mapslist.gif" /> Figure 3: List of maps available. Up to 10 maps to be loaded simultaneously, and the Ostia software will seamlessly integrate the data between them. Thus, when moving between major centres, the software will track your progress down the highway and then move into the detailed map of the city as you move into the coverage area. Once the maps are selected, Ostia turns on the GPS unit and attempts to get a lock on the current position for display on the appropriate map. Generally, this took between 30 and 90 seconds when out and about, or in the car. Sometimes, getting a ‘lock’ for the GPS could take five to 10 minutes in certain locations and was not possible at all inside most office buildings. According to Pharos support, what’s required is line-of-sight availability of a portion of the horizon, in order to get enough satellites fixed in the receiver. The unit includes a 12-channel receiver of which six must be locked in order to provide an accurate GPS fix. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-gpsdata.gif" /> Figure 4: Ostia provides a visual display of the satellites being accessed and the status of each. The bars show the signal strength, and the bars turn blue and the circles turn green when they have a lock on the signal. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-gpsdata2.gif" /> Figure 5: Once enough satellites have been acquired, you can get accurate location information. The distance shown is how far you’ve traveled along the route from your starting point (origin). Once the unit had a lock, however, it did a good job of tracking with my movement, even when moving at speeds between 100 and 120 kmph sitting on the console between the front seats of the car. It was also even to track me inside fairly dense woods in the mountains surrounding the ski village I was visiting on vacation. By the way, I should mention that the maps provided by Pharos are definitely for us ‘landlubbers’ since once you get out into the water, there is little or no detail provided. If you need nautical charts with depths, hazards, buoys, etc., you should check out other sources. It’s not necessary to have the GPS unit activated to work with the Ostia software – establishing destinations, searching around the map, etc. To turn off the GPS, you tap on the GPS happy face icon in the lower left of the screen. From here, you can also initialize the GPS receiver, which will remove all previous stored satellite information. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-powerupgps.gif" /> Figure 6: Turning off/initializing the GPS unit within Ostia. <PAGEBREAK> Setting up a Route Ostia provides a number of ways to identify and store your destinations. If you are looking at a map on the screen and you can see your destination, simply double tap on that point. Navigation around the map is accomplished either by using the five-way joystick on the unit, or by dragging a crosshair which shows up when you tap the screen. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-2dview.gif" /> Figure 7: Ostia’s 2D view with the crosshair which can be dragged to set a destination. Zooming is accomplished by dragging diagonally left to right (zoom in) or right to left (zoom out) You can then specify this as a one-time use Destination, or you can save it in your personal list of favorites. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-savedest2.gif" /> Figure 8: Saving a destination. You can also specify the destination by providing the street address, accessible from the Go button in the bottom left of the screen. The Ostia software does this by first asking for the street number, then the name of the street. Using some predictive logic on the currently loaded map(s), once you provide the first few letters of the street name, Ostia will then present a list of possible options, from which you select the most appropriate ones. With the Canadian maps provided, longer streets were broken down into the postal code areas they served, so it’s helpful to know the postal code as well. By the way, Ostia also lets you define a destination by its postal code directly or an intersection. You can also select destinations from a list of recently visited points, from your Favorites list or, from the Contacts defined within Pocket Outlook. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-go.gif" /> Figure 9: Options available for defining a destination. Along with the map, Pharos provides pre-defined references for various Points of Interest. These are categorized by areas useful to the traveler. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-poi.gif" /> Figure 10: Points of Interest. Note that Ostia can be configured to limit the area to be included in finding POIs and the total number displayed. It’s also easy to determine a route with various stops on a multi-point trip. When each point is defined, Ostia asks if this is a multi-stop or a destination. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-savedest.gif" /> Figure 11: Telling Ostia what type of stop this is. Multi-stops must be defined before you select your final destination, and you should select each of the multi-stops in the order in which you wish to visit them. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-multidest.gif" /> Figure 12: Example of a multi-point trip. After a multi-stop trip has been defined you can review the stops, but the only way to reorder the stops is to delete and re-enter them. However, you can tell Ostia to optimize the trip, so it will find the best route through the multi-stops, given your current location. <PAGEBREAK> ”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. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-routing.gif" /> 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. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-screendetails.jpg" /> 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. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-highview.gif" /> 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. <PAGEBREAK> Customizing the Interface Three views of your current position and the map are provided. The first is the normal 2D flat view as if the map were a sheet of paper; <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-2dcloseview.gif" /> Figure 16: Ostia’s 2D view of the map. Also provided are 3D views as if you were a bird flying at low altitude (near the top of a four or five storey building) <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-lowdirections.gif" /> Figure 17: Ostia’s 3D low view. Or the 3D High view, with the bird flying at, say 2500 or 3000 feet. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-highview.gif" /> Figure 18: The 3D high view. You can cycle through these various views by tapping on the sky above the map. When you are actually traveling on a tracked route, information regarding the next turn is shown in the bottom 1/3 of the screen. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-2directions.gif" /> Figure 19: Next turn in Text. Or you can select a more graphical representation of the next turn, taking up the bottom third of the screen. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-splitview.gif" /> Figure 20: Graphical version of the next turn. Notice you also get EDA and ETA information as well. For longer distances (over 20km) the ETA is up to three times longer than it should be, but Pharos is working on this. If you prefer, you can also get just text directions, with a graphical depiction of the next turn. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-directions.gif" /> Figure 21: Text-only version of the directions to your next stop, or of the entire trip. You can also tell Ostia to show any one of the views in nighttime colours, which are easier on the eyes in lower ambient light situations. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-highnightview.gif" /> Figure 22: Nighttime view colours. The interface itself also includes a number of gadgets for changing the look and feel on the fly. For instance, tapping on the map scale switches between metric and imperial measures, and tapping on the compass rose will flip the orientation of the map from North Up to Current Travel Direction Up. <PAGEBREAK> But wait, there’s more! If there aren’t enough options for you here, there’s also a screenful of other options available to configure the Ostia software. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-options.gif" /> Figure 23: The Options screen – available from the Go/Menu/Options buttons. Most of the screen shots in this review have been in what Pharos calls the modern interface. For those who prefer the more classic interface with menus at the bottom of the screen, Ostia can be configured for this as well. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-classic.gif" /> Figure 24: Ostia’s Classic interface – notice the menu options available at the bottom of the screen. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar06-pharosgps-classic2.gif" /> Figure 25: The buttons available when you press the Go button when using the Classic interface – lots more functions available. While the classic interface is not as usable when actually traveling (it’s difficult to touch those menus with your fingers!). I find I’ve left the classic interface on since it gives me much more direct access to the features I want most in Ostia. Conclusions I haven’t had experience working with any other navigation software, but from reading through the reviews of other products both here and on other sites, it seems that Ostia can stand up very well with the rest of the pack with regard to the features provided. Using the navigation software provided is reasonably straightforward and it was kind of fun putting it through its paces. The Ostia navigation software is good around the cities, and the later versions of the maps were much better on highways and in the outlying areas. (It even had the streets in the village at the ski resort marked and named!). As I noted before, I would not depend on the voice prompts alone to get me from point A to point B, but in combination with the text directions at the bottom of the screen, it very reliably got me to wherever I needed to be. Don is an Associate Director of Systems Development and Project Management with Fujitsu Consulting. You know, now I have an excuse for not getting out of the car and asking directions. :lol: