Community Forums

svcattales · 06-23-2019, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radio Flyer

I typically post to this forum to either ask or answer a question. Today I’m writing simply to share my experience with two trip planning applications, the RV Trip Wizard and the RV LIFE app. Both of these are excellent tools by themselves, but when used together, they’re phenomenal!

RV Trip Wizard has been my go-to trip planning resource for several years. It’s really good at painting a picture of your entire journey, complete with routes, campsites, waypoints, road hazards, fuel requirements, travel times, distances, and expenses. But that’s all it did. It planned. It did not provide live, real-time, turn-by-turn guidance while rolling down the highway, keeping you on the route you created with Trip Wizard on your computer. Until now.

RV Trip Wizard can now push your routes automatically to the RV LIFE app installed on your iOS device and provide live turn-by-turn navigation. Yes, it’s true that Trip Wizard already had the capability to export *.gpx files to Google Maps or to other stand-alone GPS units such as Garmin or Magellan, albeit via a multi-step, relatively complicated process. But with the RV LIFE app, it’s all automatic. And when you edit your trip on your computer with Trip Wizard, the new changes are automatically pushed to your phone or tablet.

Although the two apps complement each other, you don’t need to load a pre-planned Trip Wizard trip onto your phone to get turn-by-turn RV-safe routing. The RV LIFE app can do that all by itself (similar to Copilot, for those of you familiar with that particular app). But the RV LIFE app does a lot more than that. Check out the link to see for yourself: RV LIFE

I spend a lot of time building the perfect trip with RV Trip Wizard, getting it just right, using the “Drag” function frequently to adjust the route for one reason or the other, but then when I’m on the road, the built-in GPS in my truck, or the one I’m using on my phone (Google Maps, Apple Maps, Copilot, Sygic, etc.) never seems to be in sync with the pre-planned Trip Wizard route. Now, thanks to the RV LIFE app, it is!

BTW, this functionality via the RV LIFE app is only available now on iOS devices. RV-safe GPS directions will be “coming soon” to Android devices. And I am not affiliated in any way with either RV Trip Wizard or RV LIFE. I’m just a happy camper who found a system that works for me, so I thought I’d share it with the forum.

Radio Flyer, my sentiments exactly. I use RVTW for planning and it does a great job. For turn-by-turn I have used Co-pilot, Google Maps, Waze and now a Garmin GPS, but none are fully satisfactory. All will give you one or two route choices, but none will stay in synch with RVTW as you point out. Like you I like to customize my routes and the one or 2 choices on most systems are not adequate. I recently had to go through Savannah, Ga to get to a campground in Tybee Island. I found a great route south of downtown Savannah and did a "route shaping" in Garmin (Google wouldn't do it). Unfortunately, my route mod was "recalculated" out due to a minor detour 150 miles before Savannah. We ended up using a paper map to navigate the route.

The news from Free Lunch was great also and I look forward to the Android version of RV Life going fully operational.

Greg

LarryJB · 06-23-2019, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by billgr

Freelunch: I really like the WAZE product which I run on my iPad to navigate with & keep me appraised of "trouble ahead". How do I import a trip from the trip wizard into WAZE? I seem to be missing the import part of the equation.

Thans in advance...billgr
03 GX470 pushing our 09 Camelot 40QDP

The new RV Life app accesses your trips and then it will simply send the coordinates of your destination to Waze and then Waze takes it from there, so it is quite likely it will calculate a different route than RVTW.

Curtis in TX · 06-23-2019, 06:07 PM

Subscribed

Spc19498 · 06-23-2019, 06:47 PM

I downloaded the RV Life app last night, started free 7 day trial for the $19.99/yr option and tried to use it today. Traveling from Coos Bay, OR to Newport, OR in our RV. Right out of the gate I ran into issues. First, no voice turn by turn guidance. I checked the settings and it was turned on, but I never received and voice commands. I don’t like to look at my phone while driving so I like the voice. Second problem, the directions from Coos Bay to Newport are about as simple as it gets. Take the 101 north. But the RV Life navigation map tried to have me go through a neighborhood to short cut the trip through Coos Bay. Absolutely unnecessary, especially in an RV with a toad. So I closed the app and put the address into Apple Maps and just used that, which had me stay on the 101, and gave me voice guidance. So I’ll probably cancel the subscription.

camaraderie · 06-23-2019, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnBoyToo

Garmin RV760 LMT (lifetime Maps and Traffic) does all the above in one package if you are interested

I have that GPS and cannot get it to load the GPX files from Trip Wizard. What are you doing to get that to work?

waterman480 · 06-23-2019, 08:02 PM

I downloaded the app on my Pad and my two phones. I then bought a subscription. I downloaded Florida on one phone, and then downloaded all the states for my trip on another. Never had the time to download on the third that day. When the latest release came out two days ago, RVLife on recognizes my subscription only on one phone now, and will not let me download on the other two. New bug or a nasty restriction? It does show my routes on all three devices.

waterman480 · 06-23-2019, 08:05 PM

"The new RV Life app accesses your trips and then it will simply send the coordinates of your destination to Waze and then Waze takes it from there, so it is quite likely it will calculate a different route than RVTW."

Unfortunately, having Waze recalculate can be dangerous. It does not take into consideration our vehicle restrictions or desired route.

LarryJB · 06-23-2019, 09:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waterman480

"The new RV Life app accesses your trips and then it will simply send the coordinates of your destination to Waze and then Waze takes it from there, so it is quite likely it will calculate a different route than RVTW."

Unfortunately, having Waze recalculate can be dangerous. It does not take into consideration our vehicle restrictions or desired route.

My point exactly.

Radio Flyer · 06-23-2019, 09:09 PM

Hey Spc19498,

We may have crossed paths. I just came from Newport (stayed at the Port of Newport RV Park, and made several trips to the Rogue Brewery right next door) and pulled into Bay Point Landing in Coos Bay a few days ago. While I was there, I used the RV LIFE app to test the routing from Bay Point Landing to The Mill Casino across town.

Now, if I were to drive that in my truck, I’d simply go a mile north to Newmark St, then take Newmark all the way to Hwy 101, where it comes out just a block away from The Mill. Pretty straight forward.

The RV LIFE app (which already has my RV length/height/weight plugged in) must know that the stretch of Newmark from Broadway to 101 is restricted to vehicles over 15,000 lbs. Not only that, the hill on Newmark going down to the red light at 101 is so steep it feels like you’re standing on your nose with your tail in the air. There’s no way I’d intentionally take my 21,000 5th wheel down that hill.

In any case, the app had me turn south on Broadway, then eastward over a few streets, turning northbound to cross Newmark then take a right on Clark. I actually drove that route in my truck (without the RV). There is NO WAY I would take an RV on that route on those skinny residential streets with trees hanging over the road and a hill just as steep as the one on Newmark.

Later that day I used the Copilot app to draw the route from Bay Point Landing to The Mill Casino. It, too, avoided the restricted section of Newmark and directed me to a totally different, but equally unacceptable route as RV LIFE did.

Admittedly, I don’t know jack about the inner workings of GPS systems, but I can imagine that regardless of brand or manufacturer, they all have much in common, like an enormous database of low clearances, bridges, tunnels, and other restrictions, including real-time traffic slowdowns, obstructions, and detours, especially systems that take into consideration your RV’s size and weight. After avoiding those obstacles, they probably look for the shortest route between Point A and Point B. Of course, it’s really more complicated than that, and I’m probably over-simplifying.

Bottom line, I wouldn’t abandon the RV LIFE app just because it routed you through the back streets of Coos Bay one time. The app shows a lot of promise and it’s backed by a very responsive tech support team. It’ll only get better. Even without the RV-safe GPS guidance, the basic (free) version of the app is very useful and worth keeping.

And by the way, the voice guidance worked as advertised in my vehicle. I have mine connected to the truck factory-installed nav/radio via bluetooth, and it comes over the speakers loud and clear.

LarryJB · 06-23-2019, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spc19498

I downloaded the RV Life app last night, started free 7 day trial for the $19.99/yr option and tried to use it today. Traveling from Coos Bay, OR to Newport, OR in our RV. Right out of the gate I ran into issues. First, no voice turn by turn guidance. I checked the settings and it was turned on, but I never received and voice commands. I don’t like to look at my phone while driving so I like the voice. Second problem, the directions from Coos Bay to Newport are about as simple as it gets. Take the 101 north. But the RV Life navigation map tried to have me go through a neighborhood to short cut the trip through Coos Bay. Absolutely unnecessary, especially in an RV with a toad. So I closed the app and put the address into Apple Maps and just used that, which had me stay on the 101, and gave me voice guidance. So I’ll probably cancel the subscription.

I am afraid they have a very long row to hoe here and I fear it is going to be a long time before it will be a true alternative to what is already out there. I wish them all the luck possible and I will be watching their progress.

Spc19498 · 06-23-2019, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radio Flyer

Hey Spc19498,

We may have crossed paths. I just came from Newport (stayed at the Port of Newport RV Park, and made several trips to the Rogue Brewery right next door) and pulled into Bay Point Landing in Coos Bay a few days ago. While I was there, I used the RV LIFE app to test the routing from Bay Point Landing to The Mill Casino .
..........

We prob did cross paths. We stayed at Bay Point Landing (outstanding RV park) and are now staying at the Port of Newport RV Park. I wish I would’ve taken a screen shot of the map it wanted me to take. But it had me get on the 540 and then it was gonna have me take a right turn into residential and then spit me back out on the 540 again, onto Newmark and still go down the extremely steep hill to the light at the 101, which I did feel like I had to stand on my brakes there. Maybe it was to avoid the restrictions, idk, I guess that would make sense.

I’m going to give it another try when we go to our next destination in a few days. I’ll spend a few more minutes trying to figure out the voice prompts.

reubenray · 06-24-2019, 06:51 AM

Could the actual GPS hardware/software of the phone/tablet be the issue with getting bad routing? Are there different types/brands of the GPS hardware/software?

FreeLunch · 06-24-2019, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spc19498

I’m going to give it another try when we go to our next destination in a few days. I’ll spend a few more minutes trying to figure out the voice prompts.

Spc - The voice guidance does work. It doesn't always immediately prompt you first thing, but as you start your route, it will tell you what to do. I don't know your setup, but there are a few things you may want to check out:
1) Is your phone volume turned up and is the sound turned on?
2) I would try that first before going through bluetooth. As others have mentioned, it will work through bluetooth as well, but wanted to make sure you break down the problem to where the issue is.
3) You can also try rebooting your phone.

FreeLunch · 06-24-2019, 09:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waterman480

"The new RV Life app accesses your trips and then it will simply send the coordinates of your destination to Waze and then Waze takes it from there, so it is quite likely it will calculate a different route than RVTW."

Unfortunately, having Waze recalculate can be dangerous. It does not take into consideration our vehicle restrictions or desired route.

Yes - the Trips tab in RV LIFE is meant to easily sync with RVTW and show you a list of stops. If you use Google/Apple/Waze, etc it will be using the routing engine within those applications. Therefore, Waze will determine how to route you from A to B. RV LIFE will route you depending upon your RV specs and the parameters you set within the app (avoid highways, tolls, etc.)