Will a TOMTOM do?

[Charlton78]

Hi, I'm new and have only found 1 cache and that was with Google earth and in an area I know well. I was wondering if my TOMTOM One would be good enough for me to get started with or is it a lost cause and I should wait and buy a handheld GPS?

 

I would like to say that the one I found today still has my 4 year old daughter telling her mum all about it, so I think this could be a winner to get her out the house and realising there's more to life than T.V.

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

I use a Tomtom One in the car, with every cache in a 100 mile radius loaded as a POI (Like picnic areas are).

 

As we drive around, caches pop up on the screen depending on my warning distance settings for each cache type.

 

From time to time, when a cache is on the roadside, in a layby, in a car park, the tomtom will show me exactly where it is and we can jump out of the car and find the cache without switching the GPS on.

 

Most of the time if you can get within 10 or 20 feet of the cache you will find it. So if the cache is within 20 feet of a road, tomtom will get you there.

 

However, I wouldn't use the tomtom out of the car. I have heard that some people do use vehicle satnavs to get them started, but I think most people swap to a handheld GPS once they see the limitations of the tomtom.

 

Such limitations include battery life (a tomtom won't see you through a 4 or 5 hour circular walk) and lack of proper directional instructions.

 

On the road the tomtom is great, and Joanna Lumley or Aussie Ken will tell you to turn right, turn left, cross a roundabout until "you have reached your destination".

 

But have you ever hunted a cache down a footpath? Tomtom says you have reached your destination when you reach the road end of the footpath, as it only recognises roads. From there you are on your own and you just have to try and keep the cache icon on the screen and head towards it.

 

A handheld GPS gives you a proper radar or compass screen which will show you the direction you need to go even if the cache is still a mile away.

 

My advice would be do some caches near to roads with tomtom to start with and if you think the game is for you, get whatever GPS you can afford and upgrade later as and when you feel the need.

Or if you have a smartphone with built in GPS you can get some excellent geocaching software, mush of which is free.

 

Hope that helps

Lovejoy

[Charlton78]

Thanks for the reply, i have an ipaq somewhere so i'll see if i can hook it out.

[+jaydeadheader]

i use a 3v tomtom one for all my caching, i love it i have used a geomate jr. (lil bros) and a magellen triton and i actually like the tomtom more

 

however it likes to stick to roads, and my version cannot support the offroad navigator app

 

if your tech-savy and patient (and understand GSAK)

you should be fine

[+jaydeadheader]

i use a 3v tomtom one for all my caching, i love it i have used a geomate jr. (lil bros) and a magellen triton and i actually like the tomtom more

 

however it likes to stick to roads, and my version cannot support the offroad navigator app

 

if your tech-savy and patient (and understand GSAK)

you should be fine

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

i use a 3v tomtom one for all my caching, i love it i have used a geomate jr. (lil bros) and a magellen triton and i actually like the tomtom more

 

however it likes to stick to roads, and my version cannot support the offroad navigator app

 

if your tech-savy and patient (and understand GSAK)

you should be fine

 

I would agree with you for urban caching where you are never far from a road like the caching you are doing.

 

Get out onto open moors or parks and I think the limitations of the tomtom will soon show themselves and give a very frustrating experience.

 

At a guess, probably about 10% of the caches I have found could have been done comfortably with tomtom, and perhaps another 10% less comfortably. The rest, even with the caches loaded via GSAK would have proved problematical.

 

Depends what kind of areas you mostly cache in I suppose.

[Charlton78]

I'll be wanting to get out and about with the kids so i'll look into getting a handheld gps. New forest would probably push the tomtom to it's limits.

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

I'll be wanting to get out and about with the kids so i'll look into getting a handheld gps. New forest would probably push the tomtom to it's limits.

 

Yep, I think you will run into battery problems at least - admittedly mine is a very old Tomtom ONE but the battery, when disconnected from the cars umbilical chord, lasts about an hour tops. Not much of a walk in the forest.

 

On the other hand, although tomtom won't show you driving down forest paths, as it knows they are not highways or byways, it does usually show the layout of the forest tracks (the big wide ones used by the FC).

So technically, if the caches are placed near to those tracks, you could get a bearing on them and have some success finding them with the tomtom.

 

But probably only enough to give you a feel for the 'game', and there would have to be a lot of "move left 20 feet and see if you are closer, move back 10 feet, then another 5" until the cache icon stops moving and you can take a bet you are close to it.

 

And that's assuming you have the geocaching icons loaded onto tomtom. As far as I know there is only one way to do that and that's to export a Tomtom POI file from something like a GSAK database.

There is a way to convert a GPX file to a tomtom POI file but it was so long winded that I bought GSAK in the end, mainly to do just that.

 

For less than £60 you can get a cheap handheld GPS that will work fine.

If you can stretch to about £120, you can get a nice colour screen Etrex Legend (or similar) that will allow you to download GPX files straight into the device.

 

It's money well spent, in my opinion. You'd spend a lot more getting similar days worth of entertainment and adventure using theme parks or computer games

And once you are adicted, you will never need another reason to get out in the fresh air and enjoy some exercise with the family.

 

All the best

Lovejoy

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

Duplicate post, silly forum

Edited August 20, 2010 by Lovejoy & Tinker

[+JasNBex]

We have a Magellan for our car and often wondered if there was a way to cache using that. I tried clicking on several things in the menu and didn't have much luck. Has anyone else tried to cache using this?

[+briansnat]

We have a Magellan for our car and often wondered if there was a way to cache using that. I tried clicking on several things in the menu and didn't have much luck. Has anyone else tried to cache using this?

 

Depends on the Magellan. If you can enter waypoints you can use it. It's a poor substitute for a hand held unit though.

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

We have a Magellan for our car and often wondered if there was a way to cache using that. I tried clicking on several things in the menu and didn't have much luck. Has anyone else tried to cache using this?

 

Have never used a Magellan, but the key thing you need to be able to do is navigate to a set of coordinates.

On the older tomtom units (though I have heard it's been removed from the newer versions) there was a menu option to "Navigate To.....Longitude/Latitude".

From there you can input the coordinates and it will take you to the nearest point on a road to those coordinates.

 

Actually, that's another problem with car GPS devices, even if they know where the cache is, they don't know where the footpaths are. So they will calculate a point on a public road that is nearest to the cache.

But the footpath entrance or other way in might be some distance away, or even the other side of the field.

That's why car devices are not that great for caches that are not near the road.

 

What they are great for is finding recommended parking waypoints (providing the cache owner has entered those as a distinct waypoint rather than just writing it in the text, and many don't sadly).

You can just Navigate To...POI...POI near you... and select "Parking' as the POI type.

Takes all the hassle out of getting to the starting point.

 

But again, you do need a way of converting the cache waypoints (in the form of a GPX file) into something the satnav recognises.

 

I would imagine the Magellan can use POIs the same as Tomtom can, but the file format might be different.

(Have just checked GSAK and there is no built in export for Magellan POI, but there is one for a Magellan Explorist and SD card, though I don't know what that is).

Edited August 20, 2010 by Lovejoy & Tinker

[+JasNBex]

We have an ancient Tom Tom (the big huge units), maybe I might give that a shot. We are eventually planning on getting a handheld unit, just trying to narrow down our search to one that will suit all of our needs. Right now we use Geocahce Navigator by Trimble on our Blackberry(s). Workings great, can log caches as found etc.

[Charlton78]

I found a cache today using the tomtom, it took me to the nearest road then i used some sense and followed the end point (destination) through the woods and zoomed in as i got closer. It didn't do to bad but I can definatly see the drawbacks.

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

We have an ancient Tom Tom (the big huge units), maybe I might give that a shot. We are eventually planning on getting a handheld unit, just trying to narrow down our search to one that will suit all of our needs. Right now we use Geocahce Navigator by Trimble on our Blackberry(s). Workings great, can log caches as found etc.

 

Ours is a big old chunky one too, one of the early models. Still works great and use it all the time to drive to parking points and do roadside cache and dashes.

 

I have a HD2 smartphone with GCzII on it which we use for getting all the cache details, photos, reading previous logs, checking a cache hasn't been disabled since the last GPX download, checking TB's missions etc. If I am in the mood, i'll use it to post logs in the field, but not always, especially if it's raining (don't want to get my baby wet)

 

Then Tinker has an Etrex Legend which holds the same data as the tomtom (waypoints and hints for every cache in a 100 mile radius of home, downloaded from GSAK based on weekly PQs). It's usually the best at locating GZ (though the HD2 is pretty good), is waterproof(ish) and has great battery life for those long days away from the van.

 

So each device has its advantages and disadvantages as each is built for a specific purpose, which it does very well.

 

You can get by with any one of them, as long as you accept each has its limitations.

 

But the Blackberry with Trimble on it is probably not far off a dedicated GPS (probably similar to my HD2) with the only drawbacks being battery life (carry a spare) and dodgy accuracy sometimes (just let it settle when near GZ and it should normally get you within 10 feet, which is good enough).

 

If you decide to resurrect your tomtom for getting you to locations, just google "convert gpx to tomtom poi" - you'll find some useful software to get your GPX files onto the unit - just copy the resulting POI file into the maps directory and the caches will show the same as picnic areas do on the device.

(Or get yourself GSAK and the free tomtom POI macro bolt on - it's even better as it gives each cache type its own icon so you can choose to be warned when driving near a traditional but not when driving near a puzzle).

 

Sorry, I'm going on a bit, I have a habit of doing that

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

I found a cache today using the tomtom, it took me to the nearest road then i used some sense and followed the end point (destination) through the woods and zoomed in as i got closer. It didn't do to bad but I can definatly see the drawbacks.

Well done.

 

I rely on battery operated gadgets to make up for my lack of sense

 

I quite like the idea of having Joanna Lumley announcing "you have reached your destination darling" when arriving at a cache. Must install tomtom on my HD2 and give it a try

[kensco]

We use a Tom Tom One 125 with little problem. We navigate to the area, then I switch to the satellite status screen so I can see the actual lat. and lon. Then go from there until we get to the right coordinates. You do need to keep it plugged in as much as possible though.

[Charlton78]

Thanks guys, I think I'm hooked and my 4 year old daughter is telling her teddies all about finding her first cache today. I'm going to see if my older 2 want to join in on sunday. Lets see if I can get the whole family involved.

[+Lovejoy and Tinker]

Thanks guys, I think I'm hooked and my 4 year old daughter is telling her teddies all about finding her first cache today.

Sweet

I'm going to see if my older 2 want to join in on sunday. Lets see if I can get the whole family involved.

Aim for some large boxes and hope they have some children's type swag in them. Nothing more likely to put kids off on their first outing than film pots or sandwich boxes full of broken plastic. Unfortunately there are lots of those.

 

We tend to ignore swag and dont ever swap anything, but then we are in our 40's and swapping crayons for a bouncy ball is not what we do this for.

But I imagine that's going to be one of the main draws for youngsters.

 

Have fun!