Is all Nav units as bad as Leaf's?

[tps]

I noticed something interesting as I was driving earlier today. The nav seems to know the street and road names even when it doesn't show the road on the map. Maybe something to do with zoom level or options? Seems strange that the road I'm driving on ends on the map, but keeps on going in real life, and the nav seems to know the road names...

 

[johnr]

My point exactly. I find most of the technology in the LEAF to be extremely dated and disappointing like a manual charge cover release next to the hood release, smart and easy to use :roll: The NAV and entire interface is terrible and cobbled together, Nissan should really be ashamed for releasing such a poor system with such poor software in what is supposed to be an advanced EV. I really hope they fix this but it's unlikely there will ever be an update to the NAV software only the maps. I find it outright stupid that they lock the controls while driving and yet have voice recognition in the system but there are only a few useless commands. To your point, what good is it if you need to find something in a limited range car and you need to exit the freeway to enter the info but you can use voice commands to prompt for an international call? Are all Nissan NAV units this antiquated and frustrating to use? Nissan please update this horrible system software to be more functional and practical. I'll try not to rant on this too much more until I get a Nissan auto survey but those that even have a eight year old Acura know what I mean.

I'm glad you and I (and a few others here) share the same astonishment at the poor UI implementation. I hope you've called Nissan so they have some feedback. It's really a shame that while they've succeeded in such a game-changing revolutionary electric drivetrain, they opted for a cheap nav unit and cut corners on designing the user interface. I will mention that I've improved on it slightly - I found a place in the menu that let me set it to beep when I press a button on it (Hey, it's not much, but it's something!)

 

[palmermd]

I'm glad you and I (and a few others here) share the same astonishment at the poor UI implementation. I hope you've called Nissan so they have some feedback. It's really a shame that while they've succeeded in such a game-changing revolutionary electric drivetrain, they opted for a cheap nav unit and cut corners on designing the user interface.

It is not hard to discover this flaw. Anybody who has driven a new car built after 2001 can see it. If this car were released 10 years ago, it would be passable, but there have been lots of developments in the last 10 years that seem to have been overlooked on this UI. Hopefully some of them can be fixed by Nissan with a software update, but some are probably not ever going to change as they are tied to the hardware that was selected.

 

[evnow]

I'm glad you and I (and a few others here) share the same astonishment at the poor UI implementation. I hope you've called Nissan so they have some feedback. It's really a shame that while they've succeeded in such a game-changing revolutionary electric drivetrain, they opted for a cheap nav unit and cut corners on designing the user interface.

Not sure about "opted for a cheap nav".

If they wait to update & upgrade everything before releasing a product, it would never come out.

BTW, which parts of nav don't you guys like. I'm ok with the navigation itself - the menu for entering addresses etc is lame, though.

 

[jwatte]

I'd consider that a major missed integration opportunity.

The entire thing is clunky and a missed opportunity. Run freakin' Android or Windows 7 or something on it already!

It's a touch screen. I should be able to swipe to scroll! What's with these "press and release to scroll a single line" widgets?

Why does it keep re-downloading and re-starting that route I used from Google Maps back in June, seemingly several times a week?

Why does it not include all public charging stations? (That's almost criminally bad service for an EV customer!)

If a real UI designer, who understands consumer UI, rather than being locked in 90's-style car conventions, had his hands on re-designing one of these from scratch, he'd eat the lunch of all the other guys, just like the iPhone and Android ate the lunch of Nokia/Symbian.

The UI design and implementation of the nav system in the Leaf is *TERRIBLE*. I don't really care that everything else is equally bad -- shame on them if that's the case! Should be enough margin and volume on these devices to allow for a disruption through UI these days.

 

[evnow]

The entire thing is clunky and a missed opportunity. Run freakin' Android or Windows 7 or something on it already!

It's a touch screen. I should be able to swipe to scroll! What's with these "press and release to scroll a single line" widgets?

For that they need to switch to a capacitive LCD from the resistive they use now (my guess) - that will be much more expensive.

 

[tps]

I noticed something interesting as I was driving earlier today. The nav seems to know the street and road names even when it doesn't show the road on the map. Maybe something to do with zoom level or options?

Yep... I zoomed in and the the streets appeared on the map.

 

[TomT]

You need to be at 1/8 mile or less for full detail. That is one of the reason I run in split screen mode with one side set to 1/8 and the other to 1 or 2 miles...

I noticed something interesting as I was driving earlier today. The nav seems to know the street and road names even when it doesn't show the road on the map. Maybe something to do with zoom level or options? Seems strange that the road I'm driving on ends on the map, but keeps on going in real life, and the nav seems to know the road names...

 

[EVDRIVER]

I'm glad you and I (and a few others here) share the same astonishment at the poor UI implementation. I hope you've called Nissan so they have some feedback. It's really a shame that while they've succeeded in such a game-changing revolutionary electric drivetrain, they opted for a cheap nav unit and cut corners on designing the user interface.

It is not hard to discover this flaw. Anybody who has driven a new car built after 2001 can see it. If this car were released 10 years ago, it would be passable, but there have been lots of developments in the last 10 years that seem to have been overlooked on this UI. Hopefully some of them can be fixed by Nissan with a software update, but some are probably not ever going to change as they are tied to the hardware that was selected.

Funny you should say "overlooked", this is not the first car Nissan has build yet they did not make these mistakes on other older cars in their line. In fact other Nissan NAV units have the ability to do voice commands to find restaurants, not just make a call. My guess is Clarion was the cheapest to integrate Brokenwings so they went with them. This is a Euro double DIN Clarion stock model modified for Nissan with crap software pasted together, this was not made for the LEAF but pasted together for the LEAF.

On the audio side where Clarion has been for years, the unit is terrible and simple things are so painful they are almost useless. Take the IPOD interface, if you have a large selection you need to scroll endlessly to find an artist and there is not fast scroll or letters on the side to jump to an area, this starts form the beginning when the car is off. Finding something can take minutes, literally. Every part of this system is an joke for a Japanese car. THe UI in the VOLT is far better than that LEAF, in fact most modern NAV units are.

 

[TomT]

+1!

A funny side comment: I was attempting to use the pathetic excuse for voice recognition to dial the phone (I have Direct Command Mode enabled) and apparently I was speaking too fast for it. I got an admonishment to "Please speak more slowly!"

I'm glad you and I (and a few others here) share the same astonishment at the poor UI implementation. I hope you've called Nissan so they have some feedback. It's really a shame that while they've succeeded in such a game-changing revolutionary electric drivetrain, they opted for a cheap nav unit and cut corners on designing the user interface.

It is not hard to discover this flaw. Anybody who has driven a new car built after 2001 can see it. If this car were released 10 years ago, it would be passable, but there have been lots of developments in the last 10 years that seem to have been overlooked on this UI. Hopefully some of them can be fixed by Nissan with a software update, but some are probably not ever going to change as they are tied to the hardware that was selected.

Funny you should say "overlooked", this is not the first car Nissan has build yet they did not make these mistakes on other older cars in their line. In fact other Nissan NAV units have the ability to do voice commands to find restaurants, not just make a call. My guess is Clarion was the cheapest to integrate Brokenwings so they went with them. This is a Euro double DIN Clarion stock model modified for Nissan with crap software pasted together, this was not made for the LEAF but pasted together for the LEAF.

On the audio side where Clarion has been for years, the unit is terrible and simple things are so painful they are almost useless. Take the IPOD interface, if you have a large selection you need to scroll endlessly to find an artist and there is not fast scroll or letters on the side to jump to an area, this starts form the beginning when the car is off. Finding something can take minutes, literally. Every part of this system is an joke for a Japanese car. THe UI in the VOLT is far better than that LEAF, in fact most modern NAV units are.

 

[JPWhite]

I'm sticking with Google maps.

Tried to Navigate somewhere in the LEAF over the weekend. Sent the route from CarWings and was unable to retrieve the route in the car. I tried entering the street address, it gave me three options for the city for street name I typed, none of which were correct. I couldn't find a way to override and simply type the address without it trying to guess the location. After 3 minutes I gave up and used my phone.

 

[Herm]

My guess is Clarion was the cheapest to integrate Brokenwings so they went with them. This is a Euro double DIN Clarion stock model modified for Nissan with crap software pasted together, this was not made for the LEAF but pasted together for the LEAF.
On the audio side where Clarion has been for years, the unit is terrible and simple things are so painful they are almost useless.

Clarion KMart blue light special!.. at least the AM works good. I doubt Nissan spent a lot of money on these units.

 

[davewill]

... I couldn't find a way to override and simply type the address without it trying to guess the location. After 3 minutes I gave up and used my phone.

Wouldn't have helped. The street wasn't in their database.

 

[JPWhite]

... I couldn't find a way to override and simply type the address without it trying to guess the location. After 3 minutes I gave up and used my phone.

Wouldn't have helped. The street wasn't in their database.

Yeah, and map updates are done by SD Card or something ?

Google do a pretty good job of updating their maps. The LEAF Nav is pretty much non-functional due to its drawbacks.

I wonder why they didn't just integrate some re-incarnation of Google Maps into the car, I'm sure Google would have supported such an initiative and help cross market the LEAF to its website visitors. Google Maps on a built in 7" screen would have been truly awesome.

Once the Ford Focus electric comes out with the Ford Sync gizmos, I may even consider a trade-in if the car itself is any good. Ford are on top of the electronic gadget integration.

 

[EVDRIVER]

I used the NAV to get to a charge station, when I got there it was at least blocks from the destination so I could not find it and when I went to the info on the map it would no longer show the address when you are close so I could not find it on my own. What is the point of a NAV that won't tell you were you are and ends the destination blocks from where you are supposed to be? Nissan, fix this POS excuse for a NAV and Carwings crap, it's more of a distraction a point of frustration. I can't wait to get my JD Power survey and I really hope it has lots of detailed questions, I will score them well on the headlights and that's about it.

 

[rcyoder]

Has anybody figured out how to defeat the speed sensor on the NAV so that a passenger can enter destination information while you are rolling?

I started reading this thread to figure out if I wanted to spend some $ for XM traffic. If the NAV won't automatically reroute around traffic there is just no point. (I don't need / want XM radio - when I'm alone, I listen to podcasts, with kids in the car, they pick the music.)

 

[garygid]

The lack of "full" street coverage in the USA is its biggest single defect. There some good points, and many things that could be improved.

 

[JPWhite]

The lack of "full" street coverage in the USA is its biggest single defect. There some good points, and many things that could be improved.

Hear Hear!!!!

 

[kevin672]

Has anybody figured out how to defeat the speed sensor on the NAV so that a passenger can enter destination information while you are rolling?

I started reading this thread to figure out if I wanted to spend some $ for XM traffic. If the NAV won't automatically reroute around traffic there is just no point. (I don't need / want XM radio - when I'm alone, I listen to podcasts, with kids in the car, they pick the music.)

If you've already programmed in a route the system will calculate a traffic detour for you. You can do that while moving (but not if you didn't create a route before the car was moving). I haven't had much success with it finding a better route though. It does look at traffic when calculating a route, I've seen it pick a longer route by distance because of traffic. I don't know if it'll automatically re-route for traffic though. You have to click on the green Info button, then traffic info.

You can also get traffic info while you're driving. The nearby traffic isn't as useful as it could be because it doesn't show you if the traffic on the nearby roads is north or southbound (east / west). You have to click into the detail to get that info. At least it lets you do that while the car is moving.

I still can't believe Nissan put out such a crappy system. I've decided the interface is bad enough I'm not going buy the XM subscription when it runs out. I also won't pay for a carwings subscription in its current state, but I'm hoping that by the time 3 years is up they'll have made it worth buying.

 

[surfingslovak]

The lack of "full" street coverage in the USA is its biggest single defect. There some good points, and many things that could be improved.

Isn't the street map on an SD card? If so, it should be theoretically possible to get an update or to swap the US street map. I'm just thinking aloud here ;-)