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Hands-on review . . . by Leo Simpson GPS Satnav + Dashcam Given that many cars these days already have built-in satellite navigation, why would you want to install a separate satnav? There are several good reasons, including accurate speed display and more up-to-date maps (free!) – but the main reason with this unit is that it also provides a very good dash camera recorder with features like speed limit and speed camera alerts. A nyone who has used a satnav in their car probably has a love/ hate relationship with it. They are so good when they guide you to your destination without problems but they can be extremely frustrating when they don’t. These days many new cars come with satnav as a standard feature but virtually all OEM car satnavs have two major drawbacks. First, map updates are infrequent and two, they usually cost a lot of money after the first couple of years of ownership. And even if you have just purchased a brand 30 Silicon Chip new car, as I have recently, its maps are likely to be one or two years out of date and may not be updated for another year or so. This is especially annoying when most after-market satnavs now come Celebrating 30 Years with free life-time updates. The Navman Drive Duo unit reviewed here comes with free monthly life-time updates. Secondly, the in-built car satnav does not display your current speed, as measured by GPS or the on-board diagnostics (OBD) system. This is probably a consequence of the Australian Design Rules (ADR) which means that car speedos can be optimistic, ie, they can show a speed reading which is higher than the actual speed and often the discrepancy can be quite large. For example, at an actual speed of 100km/h, the indicated speed siliconchip.com.au Features 5-inch LCD Screen Wide angle, f/ 2.0 1080P lens (full HD) – mounted on gimbal to aim where you want it to go Lane Departure Warning System – LDWS activated at >60km/h when you deviate away from your lane. This not only use the “white lines” as in many other brands but cleverly monitors the horizon for changes as well. The two modes of the Navman Drive Duo are shown here and below left, in similar locations on the Warringah Freeway approaching the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Above is the dashcam mode – regrettably, the printing processes do not give it justice because the closest the cars’ number plates are quite legible. At left is the Satnav mode, showing the direction it wants you to take. could be 110km/h or even higher. This is ridiculous and unnecessary, especially when car odometers are usually quite accurate. (In fact, if you install an OBD-based head-up display or a OBD-to Bluetooth dongle linked to your smart-phone, you can have actual speed – so the car can do it! This assumes your tires are at the right pressure, that they’re not worn, that you haven’t changed them to a different size and so on. (See our September 2013 article on Head-up Displays at www.siliconchip. com.au/Article/4391). These days most drivers want to travel as close to the speed limit as possible, especially when they are on an expressway and want to use their cruise control. This is desirable because you don’t want to impede the traffic flow or cause irritation to following drivers who will otherwise pull out to overtake. Apart from the advantage of actual speed indication, an after-market satnav will also provide an indication of the posted speed limit and give a warning when you exceed that limit. Most inbuilt car satnavs don’t do this. Avoiding just one speeding fine can easily save double the price of the unit under review. Just on the pros & cons of in-vehicle versus after-market satnavs, Google maps is a very good navigation system. You can set it up on your smart phone while you are still having breakfast and siliconchip.com.au then when you get into your vehicle it links to your phone by Bluetooth, and in some vehicles you will get the satnav display on the mains screen – really good. Of course, with an app overlay, Google can also give you the extra stuff such as live traffic warnings, speed limits, speed cameras and so on. Mind you, you do need a smart phone and a mobile data plan. Still, most drivers will just make do with their car’s inbuilt satnav rather than go to the bother of having the distraction of an extra unit on the windscreen or dashboard. After all, it can be difficult to find a suitable place to install it and it has to have a USB or 12V cigarette lighter cable for the power connection. But at the same time, many drivers now realise the advantages of a dashcam, in the event of a frontal collision or other accident in front of the car. It could provide crucial information in the event of an insurance claim or a possible charge of traffic rules violation. And having a dashcam means you do need it installed somewhere on the windscreen. That being the case, there is a strong argument to installing a combination satnav (with free updates and actual speed indication) and dashcam and this Navman unit is a great example. The Navman Drive Duo unit has a 5-inch screen, which I found quite adequate, especially given the clarCelebrating 30 Years Built-in 3-Axis G-Shock Sensor measures impact and automatically locks the recorded video footage, impact location and date/time into an events vault. Bluetooth handsfree. Voice activated. Following too close Alert – FCWS This alert warns you when you are travelling too close to the vehicle in front, reminding you to allow more space to brake. Speed limit alerts. Speed/Traffic Light Camera alerts. Free lifetime map updates. GPS Tracking, Photo Geotagging. Records the direction, location and speed travelling as well as capture still images so you can save and download EXIF data to assist in insurance claims. Still photo mode. Headlight/low light alert. Manual recording when you feel threatened eg, road rage or any other reason. Uses standard microSD cards. ity of the display. There is another model, the Drive Duo SUV, which has a 6-inch screen – but this sells for around $100 more than the Drive Duo’s $249.00 (rrp). Incidentally, we note that several merchants on ebay offer the Drive Duo – at prices up to $80 more than available direct from Navman: just goes to prove that buying on line is not always the bargain you might think! The biggest negative I found was that, like most after-market sat navs, that the display was not particularly good in either very bright sunlight, February 2018  31 These two images from the Navman Drive Duo really test any camera – but the Navman passed with flying colours! The above shot is looking directly into the sun at 7am . . . or worse, when the Sun was actually shining on it through a side window or sunroof. Wearing sunglasses can also be problematic. When you take it out of the box, a small feature is immediately apparent: its suction cap mounting bracket is quite compact and not some monstrosity which is difficult to install on a steeply raked windscreen without creating a major obstruction to the driver’s view. So that’s a big tick for Navman. Then when you go into the installation procedure (in the Drive Recorder settings), you will find that it has onscreen indicators to help you set up the unit to properly cover the road ahead. Of course, you need to connect power to the unit and this is where most cars are lacking: a suitable connection close at hand. Why don’t cars have one or more 12V and USB outlets right on the dashboard, say close to or within the speedo binnacle? I experimented with positioning the review unit just to the left of the speedo binnacle, so that it caused relatively little obstruction and was in easy reach for the touchscreen. . . . while the night-time shot easily caters for different light levels, car headlights and so on. Not too many digital cameras would handle a scene like this as well! Some of the pics in this review were taken with it in this position. Later I moved it to a more central position on the dashboard which gave slightly less blocking of my vision but was still within easy reach for the touchscreen. The Navman also has voice control (similar to the inbuilt unit in many current model cars) – for many functions, you don’t need to operate it via the touchscreen. And that brings up another interesting feature. When I pressed the voice control button on the touch screen, the Drive Duo told me to say something from a displayed list of commands. At top of the list was “home” and I duly said that, knowing full well that I had not yet stored my home location. After all, in most satnavs, whether they are original equipment or after-market, you have to store your home location. In fact, it might a good idea not to store your home location, just in the case your car is stolen and a thief decides on an impromptu after-hours visit. Many people delete their home address and put in an address around the corner or a block away. But the Navman unit was way ahead of me and based on a week or so of use, Looking at the rear of the Navman Drive Duo and its f/2.0, 1080P wide angle camera. Not immediately obvious here is the fact that the camera lens can swivel to take into account the angle of the windscreen and the direction you want the camera to face. 32 Silicon Chip Celebrating 30 Years it had worked out my home location. Hmm, that could be a problem. Anyway, it then proceeded to navigate me home. Later, I found that it had also stored addresses such as the SILICON CHIP premises and others that I had recently visited. This is a degree of cleverness that some people will appreciate but others may not! You might want to delete automatically stored addresses from time to time. Other notable features of the Navman Drive Duo satnav are Landmark Guidance which draws attention to petrol stations, churches, cinemas and other points of interest to help guide you, as well as realistic junction views with signage, spoken safety alerts and Trip Planner which allows you to set several stops on your journey. And there is also Handsfree Bluetooth phone operation – very handy if your car does not have this feature or is problematic when registering your phone. One thing you must do with many satnavs is to cancel the journey once you have completed it. Otherwise, your satnav will think you have gone batty and will persist in trying to direct you back to where it thinks you should be. This comment applies to both inbuilt car satnavs and aftermarket units like this Navman Drive Duo. I should also note that the in-built GPS receiver seems to be quite sensitive and quickly acquires the satellites, compared with other GPS satnavs I have used in the past. Another favourable comparison with other satnavs I have used in the past involves map updates. In general, the maps in the Drive Duo appeared to be quite up-to-date siliconchip.com.au Speedo reading versus GPS speed reading: why the difference? In this article, we referred to the particular Australian Design Rules which specify the performance of a vehicle’s speedometer. The relevant rule is ADR14, which in turn is based on a United Nations specification so that (theoretically) speedometers the world over will read the same way. The rules used to say that a speedo had to be accurate to within plus or minus 10% when the vehicle was travelling at 40km/h or over. So at 100km/h a speedo could read anywhere from 90 to 110km/h. Many people believe this to still be the case. However, ADR14 was changed in 2006 to state that a speedo must not indicate a speed less than the vehicle’s true speed but could indicate a speed as much as 10% +4km/h over its true speed. So if the post-2006 vehicle is travelling at a true speed of 100km/h, the speedo could read anywhere from 100km/h to 114km/h. You’d never cop a speeding fine at that rate! GPS-derived speeds (as in an after-market satnav) are often presumed to be very accurate – and in fact, most of the time they are. However, there are many reasons why they too may be in error – above or below true speed – mainly due to insufficent satellite data at that time (inner city “canyoning” effect or heavy vegetation are two well-known factors). So you cannot absolutely rely on a GPS-indicated speed to avoid getting a love letter from the authorities! One further note: in many vehicle tests, has been widely esand that is commendable. However, I cannot make the same comment about speed limits. While it was pretty good in the suburbs of Sydney where I did most of my driving during the period of this review, it was often years out of date in regional areas west of the Blue Mountains, such as in Bathurst and Oberon. And also in common with other satnavs, this unit could be confused and show speed limits on adjacent roads or over-passes (and warn about nonexistent “safety cameras” when driving on freeways). I assume this is linked to the overall dimensional accuracy of the GPS itself (currently about 4m maximum horizontally but much worse vertically – eg, when you’re driving under a freeway overpass). In general though, the Drive Duo performs well as a satnav and is clearly ahead of many OEM in-built satnavs in most recent model cars. tab-lished that the more expensive a vehicle is, the more likely its speedo will indicate closer to the true vehicle speed – ie, it’s more accurate (although there are many exceptions!). And it’s also true that most heavy vehicles’ speedometers are much more accurate than ADR14 would require – most truckies will tell you that their speedo and their after-market GPS usually read within 1km/h or so. That could also be why when you’re travelling at an indicated speed of 100km/h, all you can see in your rear-view mirror is the grille of a semi-trailer wanting you to speed up or get out of the way! However, it is not intended for the sole source of power for an extended period. Don’t expect it to last too long, – we didn’t time the battery life and it’s not mentioned in the documentation but we would reckon if it’s typical of most satnavs you’d measure the life in minutes, not hours. The Drive Duo is definitely designed as a plug-in device! The dashcam All of the above is combined with an HD 1080P dash camera and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) which provides an audible lane de- parture alert and spoken front collision alert. I must say I was surprised at the inclusion of front collision alert since the Navman Drive Duo does not have the advantage of a frontal radar system that is included on cars with radar cruise control and autonomous braking. On the Drive Duo, both the lane departure and front collision alerts depend on digital process of the camera images while the lane departure warning also used accelerometer data. And this feature only works at speeds above 60km/h. Battery backup The Drive Duo has an internal lithium ion battery which will maintain settings when, for example, moving between your car and computer, or into another car. Prior to use for the first time, it must be plugged into a power source for at least eight hours to fully charge the internal battery. siliconchip.com.au Another still, captured from the Navman Drive Duo vision. You can not only read the number plate of the car in front but in the moving picture, the Range Rover on the right AND the car on the other side of the traffic lights! Celebrating 30 Years February 2018  33 How do they work in practice? Not particularly well! I could not activate the lane departure alert at any speed even though I deliberately crossed over road lane markings. At the same time, my car’s in-built lane departure alert was shrieking madly, so there was little doubt about my driving behaviour. The front collision alert was more problematic. It does work but I feel that most drivers will turn it off since it is over-protective in normal city traffic; perhaps it is more useful on freeways and the open road. Being a somewhat intolerant driver, I found that the voice warning quickly became really irritating as it would trigger when stopped at a roundabout and then triggered by cars going round it. It could triggered by cars turning left or as I turned the corner. After one such warning “You are driving too close to the car in front. Please increase your distance!” I shouted back “No I’m not, there is no #&<at><at>% car in front of me!” It didn’t answer. Day vision It is a few years since I have used a dash cam (on my previous car) and this HD camera really does represent a big step forward, performing very well in most lighting conditions. For example, driving into the Sun is a severe test of any dash cam but the Drive Duo comes up trumps; better than the driver, I should say. We feature a screen grab of this performance in this review. And it must be said that the dash cam will unerringly record events that you may simply not have registered, as you glanced at the dashboard, talked to a companion or looked away from the road ahead. In the event of an accident, the dash cam records the event as it unfolds, even though you may not at first realise the potential disaster as it develops. During the couple of months of driving with this Drive Duo, I have been fortunate enough not to have any really close calls but reviewing the footage after a few days’ driving, it is surprising just how many other drivers have done “stupid stuff” which thankfully has not had any bad results. Me? Of course not! There is mention made in Navman promotional material (and online) of 34 Silicon Chip A combination of a pic of the roadway near the SILICON CHIP office plus a Google map showing the photo location, the g forces on the car at the time (I was driving very slowly!) in both graph and instantaneous format, a calendar showing when the pic was taken and a list of the relevant files. Again, printing processes really don’t do the photo justice: it’s superb! the ability to add an optional (~$140) rear-view camera, the Navman A20. While this would be a really worthwhile addition, there is only the briefest of mentions in the instructions (ie, don’t plug the power source into the rear dash cam connector!) so I cannot comment further. Night vision Most dash cams do not perform well at night. The extreme contrast between bright headlights, street lights and surrounding darkness is simply too much for them to cope with. But the Navman Drive Duo works surprisingly well at night – it’s good enough to make number plates of cars quite readable, so I was impressed with that. But it does come unstuck when it is raining. It is OK if the windscreen wipers can clear the screen in light drizzle but down-pours will be too much. To be fair, that tends to apply with human vision too. Note that the dash cam must be able to “see” through a wiped area of the windscreen. If that condition cannot be met (eg, if it is mounted outside the wiper blade’s arc), you can forget recording anything useful during night-time driving or in the rain. This impressive day and night performance is enabled by Navman’s Celebrating 30 Years WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) technology which is applied for recording images smoothly under the condition of severe light contrast. WDR allows an imaging system to correct for the intense back light surrounding a subject (eg, driving into the Sun) and thus enhances the ability to distinguish features and shapes on the subject. Videos taken under these conditions still show significant details in the shadows. Its performance is significantly better than any “stand alone” dash cam I have ever experienced, especially those in the lower price range. And having one combined unit (instead of individuals) mounted on the windscreen is definitely a bonus. The lens, an f/2.0 1080P (full HD) wide angle type, is mounted on a gimbal so it can be adjusted to take into account windscreen rake. In fact, there is specific detail in the setup procedure to help you achieve this. OK, so the Navman Drive Duo HD camera is undoubtedly an impressive unit. The videos are recorded in 3-minute blocks as MP4 files accompanied by NMEA files which record all the GPSderived info such as location coordinates, speed, time, compass heading, 3-axis accelerometer forces (accelerasiliconchip.com.au How do satnavs provide traffic updates? Readers may be wondering how satnavs actually provide the traffic update information that flashes up on the screen. After all, they do not have a satellite link apart from the GPS function and that certainly does not provide up-tominute traffic information. Nor do they have an in-built 3G or 4G SIM card and a data plan. So how they do it? In Australia, traffic information is broadcast across the major metropolitan areas of all states and territories and some of the larger regional cities in Queensland, NSW and Victoria by SUNA traffic: www. sunatraffic.com.au The information is digitally encoded and broadcast by FM broadcast stations using RDS (Radio Data System), which is also employed to provide station identification, time and program information. The traffic information embedded in the RDS signal is received and decoded by the satnav. In a typical Australian city there are hun- dreds of traffic reports (accidents and congestion etc) and these may or may not be displayed on your satnav, depending on your location and route. Not only does SUNA provide traffic reports but it also enables the satnav to calculate the length of a journey and ETA, based on current traffic conditions. One point I should make and that is even though the traffic info is broadcast via some FM stations using RDS, this Navman unit does not depend on your car’s radio for this data. It uses the supplied cigarette lighter power cable as the antenna. If you use another cable or a USB cable to power the unit, it may not pick up the traffic info. tion, braking and cornering) and so on. You can play and view the recordings on the Navman Drive Duo or the MP4 files can be viewed on your computer with any media player, such as VLC but you may not have sound playback without installing extra codecs. corner – frustrating! We were unable to solve this bug at the time of writing. Our Mivue screen grabs (working around this bug) are brought to you by the magic of PhotoShop! Mivue Manager software This may sound like a fairly mixed review and while it is “NYP” (not yet perfect), the Navman Drive Duo HD is a big advance in technology. Its satnav functions work well and the HD camera is very impressive; a most worthwhile inclusion for anyone concerned with recording daily drives, just in case there is an accident. . . Alternatively, you can use Mivue Manager (which has to be installed on your computer) to view the recordings and this is really quite impressive, as shown in some of the screen grabs included in this article. Either way, the micro SD card must be removed from the recording slot on the Navman and moved to the data access slot Two modes are available; one showing the video with sound, together with all the GPS data listed above. The alternative also shows the video with sound but is accompanied by the Google map for the route you took – but note that your computer must be linked to the internet to access Google maps. In principle, Mivue Manager is a great feature but we found it buggy in practice as it would not display the video with the picture occupying the designated screen area; it would only show in small area at the top left hand siliconchip.com.au Conclusion Price and availability We mentioned earlier that the Navman Drive Duo has a recommended retail price of $279.00 but at the time of writing (early December), there was a $30 cashback being offered (due to expire mid February). That’s all spelled out on the Navman website (www.navman.com.au – search for Drive Duo). But we also made the point, worth repeating, that buying from some auction sites may not be quite the bargain you think it is – we’ve seen this particular Navman being offered online for more than $330! SC Celebrating 30 Years February 2018  35