Hi all,

Since seeing so many negative reviews about the Honda Navigation App, i started looking at those portable GPS units (Garmin and TomTom). I was googling and some GPS models have bluetooth and are able to connect to certain headunits that have the same bluetooth compatibility.

Has anyone out there with a portable GPS been able to successfully connect their unit to their car's headunit so that GPS instructions transmit through the car's speakers?


Thanks

 

Haven't done mine yet, but since my Garmin 3597LMHD is connected to the base station, it's very loud for me, even with the driver windows down. Unit alone, not connected to the base station is soft. Perhaps I will try later to see if it works with the car's speakers. Hope someone in the know will respond to your question

 

Why not just use your phone as your portable GPS and link it up via Bluetooth?

You can use your phone as the display instead of relying on the dinky Hondalink connection, and just pipe Bluetooth audio to the head unit.

 

thanks SR45 - please let me know what you find. trying to decide what unit to buy

neteng101 - im afraid of going over my data limit. i only have 2 gigs now, and im usually at around 95-99% data used by the time my cycle ends. i was going to get the Honda Nav App, but for the price of buying the app and required wires, it puts me at the same price point of a portable unit

 

Read my Garmin manual, and all it says bluetooth can only use the garmin speakers on the base station. Looked at one of gamins sites to show which garmin and which cell phones will work. However, though my Garmin 3597 works, it is not listed, so its some what behind me thinkssssss

Find Bluetooth®-enabled phones compatible with your Garmin GPS | Garmin

 

Another reason that people (like me) need GPS and not just phone is because we travel to areas with no cell phone reception. I don't want to have to print maps in advance! I know it might seem crazy to people on the east coast or who mainly stick to urban areas, but there are many places in the US where your phone won't work. For me, I go into the mountains a few times a year and reception is extremely spotty and in many areas nonexistent.

 

I tried that approach but went back to using the GPS internal speaker. It was annoying to mute the audio for every nav announcement and the GPS speaker was sufficient for the drive to hear without disturbing the passengers.

Four reasons:
1. Data usage on the phone.
2. Phone GPS does not work out in the boondocks if it can't get data.
3. Phones tend to run hot when called upon for continuous navigation.
4. And the biggie: Standalone navigators tend to have more robust GPS receivers and navigation engines than phone services. My older Garmin still finds satellites faster and makes better navigation routing decisions than my android phone using Google Nav.

 

I think the HondaLink Nav App probably uses some data as well - full maps would consume at least 1-2GB of storage. I've gotten so used to Waze that a full nav in car system feels deficient to me these days.

Most GPS, XM receivers, etc seem to expect an aux-in port in a car, which is really one odd omission. Yes it has HDMI but they need to reconsider this and maybe add it back into next year's models.