Routeplanners: SatNav & GPS News

Many company’s have been searching for the holy grail of SatNav, a combined navigation and speed trap warning system. A few have made it to market like the one from Trafficmaster (SatNav) and Road Angels Navigator, however they have both been prohibitively expensive for all but the dedicated road warrior. Now however Road Angel have released the new Navigator 6000 unit which offers the key features of both Nav and Speed trap warnings in one compact device.

The RoadAngel 6000 comes with a mounting cradle which uses a sucker mechanism to secure itself to the cars windscreen. There is also an optional vent mounting system which like the sucker mount is designed to allow for quick release.

The unit is powered either from a 12 / 24 volt supply using the supplied power cord or by running form the internal rechargeable battery which runs for a quoted 8 hours. It uses a SiRF Star III chipset.

The user interface gives a simple input mechanism for user data, preferences and addresses and uses full UK postcode.

The speed camera detection functionality works as it does in all of Road Angels products by comparing the vehicles current location to a database of known fixed speed camera sites and also frequently used mobile camera sites. Approaching Gatso locations, the screen on the navigation unit changed to have a sidebar and a red alert symbol which then counts down to the location and the audio alert increase in intensity as you approach. As you get close the screen is entirely taken over by the camera warning screen and the roads speed limit is displayed as a reminder.

Updates to the speed camera database are provided via host PC and then delivered to the unit via a USB connection, these updates are free for the first 6 months and then £ 3.99 a month for a further 12 months (minimum period).

Being based on Widows CE brings some extras like a photo viewer and Mp3 playback. Overall pricing will be in the region of £240 + £48 annual subscription.