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Motor Home GPS Phone AP

Sandy___Shirley
Explorer
Explorer
We used WAZE again to guide us from Codorus Campground to I83 South. Naturally, it gave us a route with a Rail Road overpass 12' 2" . We had to take a side road, block the road while we unhitched our car and back out onto the WAZE road in the opposite direction!

WAZE is great for the car we tow, it uses real time traffic info to give us the fastest route from point A to point B. BUT, it does not allow you to enter the height of our Motor Home!

Does anyone know of a good phone ap that can do both? Give us the best real time route that avoids low bridges! We are looking for an ap that will allow us to say we are a motor home and we are 12’ 8” high!
Proud members of the S.K.I. club . . . $pending our Kids Inheritance

Their inheritance is now a 2015 Forest River Georgetown 378XL
24 REPLIES 24

lryrob9301
Explorer
Explorer
Sandy & Shirley wrote:
lryrob9301 wrote:
Having made one mistake after another, why not try something that actually works: CoPilot


The problem with CoPilot is my CoPilot. She is the one who wants Garmin.

Need I say more! :B


Then you need to put her in the driver's seat and you be the navigator!!!

Sandy___Shirley
Explorer
Explorer
lryrob9301 wrote:
Having made one mistake after another, why not try something that actually works: CoPilot


The problem with CoPilot is my CoPilot. She is the one who wants Garmin.

Need I say more! :B
Proud members of the S.K.I. club . . . $pending our Kids Inheritance

Their inheritance is now a 2015 Forest River Georgetown 378XL

lryrob9301
Explorer
Explorer
Having made one mistake after another, why not try something that actually works: CoPilot

Gdetrailer
Explorer III
Explorer III
Sandy & Shirley wrote:
Not exactly true!

The Garmin has an RV mode where I was able to input the length, width, and height of my motor home. That is supposed to be the advertised reason for choosing the “Garmin RV 890 GPS” unit and running it in RV/Motor home mode!

Yes the street through Lancaster was not RV impassable, but the recommended route to use the river ferry was impassable. I double checked with the owner of the campground and ferry. Motor homes and not allowed on the ferry and that is something that an RV rated GPS should know!

If the GPS can’t take me to passable routes, I should just continue to use WAZE, it’s free!

PS: before the motor home we also had a 38 foot fifth wheel towed by a Ford F350, long bed, crew cab!


Just because you can "input" something, it doesn't mean the device will or can use that input.

Garmin RV is a "consumer" level GPS, not commercial, industrial or Gov.. It depends on the quality of the map maker. The map maker gathers only so much information and detail and on a consumer level it will be missing a lot of data.

As another poster has stated, there are trucker GPS units and Apps that may have more details, but those also often lead truckers down the wrong narrow roads and into low bridges.

GPS is only a "tool" just like paper maps and paper Atlas's and even your own eyes, there is no excuse for blindly following every instruction that comes from a computer generated output.. As you have found out, it can be faulty.

Computers are great up to the point of the faults of those who have written the code, inputted the data.. The computer is only a smart as the one that wrote the program.

You can of course plan your trip out ahead on paper maps, then for any point in the trip you can search Google maps for that town. Within Google maps they give you a nice birds eye view in real photos and if you notice a lot of small roads, twists and turns and stop lights you can plan alternative routes around the problem areas all ahead of your trip.

Paper maps give you very specific road size legends and very small and one lane roads don't exist on them.. Garmin and many other GPS units WILL have those roads that you will never fit on, but will not have enough map data to not route you on those roads. It is simply following it's programing which attempts to route you on the fastest route which is often the most direct route..

Some towns even acknowledge that there is traffic or size limitations and will by posting road signs route you onto designated alternative truck routes.. Those also are not on your GPS..

You know you have a tall heavy RV, watch for weight limit signs, see a road posted with a 10 ton limit, you don't want to take your 20,000 lb RV down that road.. GPS isn't going to know that either..

katysdad
Explorer
Explorer
Trucker Path, Hammer are two of several trucking apps that will allow you to enter vehicle dimensions (height, length, weight) and route you around these obstacles and keep you on routes designed for larger units. Designed for the trucking industry they will also work for you. I have used several for Pickup w/38 ft tall cargo trailer and have no complaints. I'm sure there are others that work as well. Like Gdetrailer said these apps are not a replacement for watching road signs and conditions. Waze,Garmin and others were designed more for passenger vehicles to get from A to B quickest route possible not factoring vehicle size. Waze and Google maps do help with realtime traffic conditions and will change routes while driving but will put you in a tight spot with large rigs if not careful.
Dodge Ram 3500 DRW Diesel

Sandy___Shirley
Explorer
Explorer
Not exactly true!

The Garmin has an RV mode where I was able to input the length, width, and height of my motor home. That is supposed to be the advertised reason for choosing the “Garmin RV 890 GPS” unit and running it in RV/Motor home mode!

Yes the street through Lancaster was not RV impassable, but the recommended route to use the river ferry was impassable. I double checked with the owner of the campground and ferry. Motor homes and not allowed on the ferry and that is something that an RV rated GPS should know!

If the GPS can’t take me to passable routes, I should just continue to use WAZE, it’s free!

PS: before the motor home we also had a 38 foot fifth wheel towed by a Ford F350, long bed, crew cab!
Proud members of the S.K.I. club . . . $pending our Kids Inheritance

Their inheritance is now a 2015 Forest River Georgetown 378XL

Gdetrailer
Explorer III
Explorer III
Zero of your complaints can be addressed with a GPS.

There is no way a GPS can know if there is "sharp turns" or "crowded streets" or if there is a lot of "stop and go traffic lights". GPS also cannot determine if a "ferry boat" is of large enough size to handle your rig.

Very few GPS units deal with bridge height either..

GPS units sole design purpose is to route you the FASTEST way according to distance and speed limits and that often means taking you a more direct route which as you found out the hard way often is right through the heart of small towns or even heavy city street traffic.

GPS is not a replacement for the grey matter between the ears and your eyeballs, it is simply a routing tool to assist you from getting from point A to point B.. One of the pitfalls of GPS is the fact that it often has more SMALLER roads in it's database and due to that it just calculates your driving time by using those small roads.

Old fashioned paper Atlas's skipped over the very small roads and you plotted your trip with larger roads which often have less low height objects in the way. Also gives you a better feel for what cities and towns to avoid and plot your way around the bottle necks. GPS units don't offer you that kind of planning.

Keen observation of the roads size, road signs you are driving on should also give you some hints as to what may be ahead.

You know you are in a huge motor home, don't take the smaller secondary roads, GPS units don't know that and have no way of telling you to avoid that route.

And a 37ft Motorhome is nothing, try towing a 35ft TT (actually 38ft including tongue!) behind a 22ft long pickup truck and then try turning around in the middle of a busy small city street at rush hr (have done that)..

Sandy___Shirley
Explorer
Explorer
What a mistake! We listened to this post and decided on the Garmin 890. We just got home from our first trip with the new GPS, from North East, MD 21901 to Ferryboat Campsites in Liverpool, PA 17045.

On the trip up to the campground, the Garmin took us through the center of downtown Lancaster PA. The road did not have an low overpasses, but it was stop and go on a crowded street where we passed 3 different delivery truck blocking one of the two lanes with parked cars on both sides. Like I said there were no obstructions, just some sharp downtown turns!

Then, when we asked the Garmin for directions to get back home, the first thing it told us to do was to actually take the ferry across the Potomac River. First of all, the ferry is more of a visitor’s thing, it can only hold 3 cars at a time, but the Garmin wanted me to drive my 37 foot motorhome onto it with my car in tow! To top it off, the water level was low, so the ferry wasn’t even running for the past week!

Time to call Garmin to see what I have to do to send it back within the first 30 days!
Proud members of the S.K.I. club . . . $pending our Kids Inheritance

Their inheritance is now a 2015 Forest River Georgetown 378XL

Sandy___Shirley
Explorer
Explorer
My partner is leaning heavily on the Garman RV GPS system, but, while driving, there is no room to mount a sizable screen in front of me.

Do any of the Garman versions come with an android phone interface? My WAZE app is just about useless because it will take us onto roads with low bridges. But it does have some great features that I’m hoping are available with a Garman Phone Interface (if one does exist).

Will it talk to me and tell me when my next turn should happen?
Will it show me an image of where I am on the road and where my next turn will happen?

The screen I’m looking at right now on my home computer is for the RV 890 8 inch RV GPS Navigator. Like I said, I don’t have the space in front of me while I am driving to mount an 8 inch screen!
Proud members of the S.K.I. club . . . $pending our Kids Inheritance

Their inheritance is now a 2015 Forest River Georgetown 378XL

pbeverly
Nomad
Nomad
Free phone apps aren't going to take care of your RV needs. Apps that you pay for and have the ability to enter your size data are going to better.

For a serious trip I am going to use my PAID for phone app. Google maps is good for short little quick things, provided I have cell coverage. Google Maps was good at navigating to be specific places in the Great Smokey Mountains NP. I downloaded the maps so coverage was not an issue.

I tried Waze and really didn't care for it. Really don't care where the cops are as I only do about 5 over the limit and don't even do that when pulling a camper. I am not in a hurry, the place where I am heading to will be there when I arrive regardless. If it is a timed thing then I make sure I have plenty of time for the unexpected.
Ridgeway, SC
2019 26DBH Grey Wolf

Lantley
Nomad
Nomad
Michelle.S wrote:
Well either of those apps keep you off a road with a low over pass?? Last I looked neither of them offered the ability to enter height, weight, and length.

My garmin RV GPS takes care of RV size issues. While my phone apps deal with local real time traffic flow.
19'Duramax w/hips, 2022 Alliance Paradigm 390MP >BD3,r,22" Blackstone
r,RV760 w/BC20,Glow Steps, Enduraplas25,Pedego
BakFlip,RVLock,Prog.50A surge ,Hughes autoformer
Porta Bote 8.0 Nissan, Sailun S637

Michelle_S
Explorer II
Explorer II
Well either of those apps keep you off a road with a low over pass?? Last I looked neither of them offered the ability to enter height, weight, and length.
2018 Chevy 3500HD High Country Crew Cab DRW, D/A, 2016 Redwood 39MB, Dual AC, Fireplace, Sleep #Bed, Auto Sat Dish, Stack Washer/Dryer, Auto Level Sys, Disk Brakes, Onan Gen, 17.5" "H" tires, MORryde Pin & IS, Comfort Ride, Dual Awnings, Full Body Paint

Lantley
Nomad
Nomad
Michelle.S wrote:
I'm running the Garmin 785 with the built-in Dash Cam. It connects to my phone for traffic updates while traveling. So sort of the best of both worlds.

Sort of best, my garmin connects as well but not as up to date with traffic info as Google maps and certainly not as up to date as Waze.
19'Duramax w/hips, 2022 Alliance Paradigm 390MP >BD3,r,22" Blackstone
r,RV760 w/BC20,Glow Steps, Enduraplas25,Pedego
BakFlip,RVLock,Prog.50A surge ,Hughes autoformer
Porta Bote 8.0 Nissan, Sailun S637

Michelle_S
Explorer II
Explorer II
I'm running the Garmin 785 with the built-in Dash Cam. It connects to my phone for traffic updates while traveling. So sort of the best of both worlds.
2018 Chevy 3500HD High Country Crew Cab DRW, D/A, 2016 Redwood 39MB, Dual AC, Fireplace, Sleep #Bed, Auto Sat Dish, Stack Washer/Dryer, Auto Level Sys, Disk Brakes, Onan Gen, 17.5" "H" tires, MORryde Pin & IS, Comfort Ride, Dual Awnings, Full Body Paint