Home address on sat nav/car app

Harriers9 said:
I'd be ok with mine (2021 MINI). It would send them somewhere weird.

I talked to it and gave it one of the Birmingham Airport car park postcodes and it tried to send me to Belgium. Happens all the time.
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We went to Oxford today. Asked the young lady (not the wife) to go to the OX3 *** address and this was her suggestion????

Did it myself manually instead and it was no easier. Kept trying to pre-empt me and suggest something else. I wonder if it's AI rearing it's ugly head?

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snerkler said:
I use it as a 'back up', or to find a specific location once I've got to a town or city (y)
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For a while I drove coaches, helping out as my brother had a coach company and occasionally did some weekend coach tours and this was at the time satnav was just coming in... I managed fine without them.... all it took was a little pre-planning with road atlases.... Never once failed to find a pick-up spot in a strange town or city, or find some place I'd never been to before.
 
TheFiend said:
For a while I drove coaches, helping out as my brother had a coach company and occasionally did some weekend coach tours and this was at the time satnav was just coming in... I managed fine without them.... all it took was a little pre-planning with road atlases.... Never once failed to find a pick-up spot in a strange town or city, or find some place I'd never been to before.
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I always used a road atlas but they would get you to a city or village but didn’t have all the small roads of a town or village so it meant buying an A-Z or asking for detailed directions. Sat navs have stopped the need to buy A to Z’s for me.
 
I've always put in a friends address a few miles away, but in the same general area. I still get a close enough distance, the route back will be the same, and once I get closer to home I'll know were I am anyway.
Most of the time I only need toe satnav to get me to the morotway or main road anyway.
 
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I remember going on a 3 week holiday camping in the 1960s, all round the west country using the maps in the back of my union diary, England was on 2 pages about A6 size!
Sat Navs are great though, as long as I check where it wants to take me, if there are problems / diversions it is easy to find an alternative.
I also have the speed limit alarm enabled just in case, it is no good keeping up with the other traffic as most are speeding anyway.
 
Dave Canon said:
The target family were on holiday and the burglar a member of his church. Be careful who you tell that you will be on holiday but a good idea to tell the policeman who lives next door.
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Amazing how many people openly tell people on FB and other Social Media platforms when they are on holiday. And of course their profile is full of photos taken at their home.

On the subject of key fobs etc
We've got 3 newish Range/Land Rovers on our road - Evoque and Disco Sport... we also have residential on road parking. My Saab 9-5 has keyless entry but I make sure I park my car well enough away from the property so the key is out of range. The LR/RR owners are of the type that MUST park outside the front of their house. Hope they have a Faraday pouch for the keys. Other benefit of parking away is that our cars (we have Golf as well) are usually parked on the other side of the road, the design of the scuttles on both car mean that it is better for the drivers side to be kerbside otherwise we end up with 'Lake Windowmeres'.

And on the subject of navigation:
First trip to Munich was done before nav was widespread. My Michelin Western Europe atlas was very useful at giving me a route from Zeebrugge, stopping at Karlsruhe on the way. Everything was noted down, road numbers and junctions. Even managed the difficult bit between Kaiserslautern and Karlsruhe, and to my hotel (Berliner Hof, very nice).
 
I've always been a bit unsure about setting the home address in the SatNav. Not really sure why. Probably due to warnings about making sure it has been cleared before selling the car.

I really like the "police" station suggestion. Thinking about it, I nearly always stop the navigation when within a few miles of home. The lady gets a bit much when you now where you're going.
 
I do not think my car is at very much risk at home as it is only on my drive when I am at home. At night it is in a locked (and alarmed) garage. I will continue to take my Sat Nav away or lock in the boot when I am not in the car as it is very convenient to have my home postcode set. If I am going out with my camera but not sure where I will end up, it is very convenient to be able to just tell the SatNav to take me home at the end of the session.

Dave
 
Suvv said:
I remember going on a 3 week holiday camping in the 1960s, all round the west country using the maps in the back of my union diary, England was on 2 pages about A6 size!
Sat Navs are great though, as long as I check where it wants to take me, if there are problems / diversions it is easy to find an alternative.
I also have the speed limit alarm enabled just in case, it is no good keeping up with the other traffic as most are speeding anyway.
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About thirty five years ago a friend and I embarked on a motorbike trip to the Baltic coast of Sweden to visit friends. I had the job of booking ferry tickets, getting the currencies that we needed pre-Euro, camping equipment and he was tasked with the sole issue of the navigation side of things. We disembarked in Zeebrugges in thick fog. Phil suggested that I take the lead so I asked him for the maps. All he had was an A4 photocopy of a school history book! There were only major cities and rivers shown, none of which were helpful. But we got there on time with only the purchase of a folding map of the whole of Europe to guide us.
 
I have Apple carplay so home info is linked from my iPhone not the car head unit, You could always put a postcode of a nearby street if your is linked direct to the car :)
 
Some years back a bloke I work with (another photographer) bought a top of the range TomTom, cracking bit of kit. We went paintballing with a bride and groom, he set up the satnav, went miles and down a narrow lane, then a gate to fields... He'd set it in scrambler bike mode. We had to start again.
Funny add on I shot the bride in the... errr, rear end. (well they gave her body armour) fast forward a few years and at another wedding in a castle I'm with the new brides mother and in comes the old bride I'd shot years ago. She comes up as says hello, then says "Wayne, did you shoot this bride in the a**e as well?" and walks off. Bride mother gives me a funny look, and I say "you shoot one bride and you never hear the end of it". All was explained later.
 
swanseamale47 said:
Some years back a bloke I work with (another photographer) bought a top of the range TomTom, cracking bit of kit. We went paintballing with a bride and groom, he set up the satnav, went miles and down a narrow lane, then a gate to fields... He'd set it in scrambler bike mode. We had to start again.
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My best Satnav messup was when I had to re-visit a very hard to find location, with single-track roads and a low bridge, which was stored in my Satnav. I was driving my car. The Satmav simply couldn't get me there, although it seemed to take me to lots of other places.

I eventually worked out that I had last used the satnav in a HGV and had set it to HGV mode with the length, width, height set to allow the lorry to get me to its destinations :)
 
One year when we had a holiday hired car arranged I decided to take my old sat nav with me. I got in the car, set the sat nav to the destination and I could not understand a word.
We got to our location OK by following the map and on checking the sat nav, which had not been used for some years, it had reverted to the first language in its memory. Afrikaans!
I kept saying that it was like German but not quite.

Another time the satnav said " When possible make a U turn and then make a U turn" !
 
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Recently got sent down a lane that definitely used to be an open lane (I can remember driving down it!) but it's now bollarded off 1/2 way along it. I was very glad of reversing and side cameras!!!
 
I use a satnav daily. I have set my home address to my local Tesco local. Even walking stone drunk I can find my way home from there. Ive been using them in my job daily since they very first existed and would never put my exact address in.
 
Marc said:
Many moons ago, we bought a TomTom satnav. We were in Devon and decided to visit Trago Mills. We were in lane 2 of the dual carriageway when the satnav said, "You have arr ived at you r destination" :oops: :$
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To be fair, that branch of Trago Mills was probably within the 30m margin of error that early satnav had (and Trago has been signposted from the A38 for 40+ years!)
 
Nod said:
To be fair, that branch of Trago Mills was probably within the 30m margin of error that early satnav had (and Trago has been signposted from the A38 for 40+ years!)
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Yes, it turned out it was just the other side of the trees that lined the carriageway. This was late 80s.
 
snerkler said:
I’ve just ordered a new car and the app is a lot ‘fancier’ than the one for my current car allowing many more features. One of these is to add a home address.

Now I’ve always been led to believe that storing your home address is not a good idea because of someone nicks your car they know your home address and that it might be empty, or you’re someone that has your house keys on the same fob as your car key and take it to a dodgy garage or valet etc they can get into your house.

Now I don’t have my house keys on the same fob as my car key, and if someone nicks my car I doubt very much they’d drive to my house to rob that as well given that it increases the chances of getting caught so is it really a bad idea?

I don’t think I’d put my exact address in but was thinking of putting my postcode in as that’s obviously an area rather than specific house.

Do others worry about this?
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Are you familiar with the phrase, "If in doubt, don't do it."?

So if you're feeling unsure about putting in your home address, then you don't have to.

There's no rules saying you must put in your home address, is there? It is your Sat Nav, you do what you want with it.

Or you could just put in the name of your town and that's it. Once you're getting closer to your hometown, your reflexes just takes over, and you'll simply drive the rest of the way to your home, because you're familiar with your local streets.

While you're worried about someone nicking your car, or your house keys with your car keys, you should also consider other risks, like what if someone take just your Sat Nav device, instead of the whole car. Wouldn't it be easier to simply grab the device and leave the car, so if you can see your car there at car park or garage, you may think it's fine, not realising crooks are using the Sat Nav to get to your home.

As for keeping house keys with car keys, I can't imagine anyone want to do that, but for the benefit of other people who may do that, my advice is don't. The risk of getting locked out of your car mean you could get locked out of your home too. Keep house key in your pocket, so if you're locked out of your car, you could hope someone gives you a ride back to your home, you get in, and get the spare car key.
 
Major Eazy said:
Are you familiar with the phrase, "If in doubt, don't do it."?

So if you're feeling unsure about putting in your home address, then you don't have to.

There's no rules saying you must put in your home address, is there? It is your Sat Nav, you do what you want with it.

Or you could just put in the name of your town and that's it. Once you're getting closer to your hometown, your reflexes just takes over, and you'll simply drive the rest of the way to your home, because you're familiar with your local streets.

While you're worried about someone nicking your car, or your house keys with your car keys, you should also consider other risks, like what if someone take just your Sat Nav device, instead of the whole car. Wouldn't it be easier to simply grab the device and leave the car, so if you can see your car there at car park or garage, you may think it's fine, not realising crooks are using the Sat Nav to get to your home.

As for keeping house keys with car keys, I can't imagine anyone want to do that, but for the benefit of other people who may do that, my advice is don't. The risk of getting locked out of your car mean you could get locked out of your home too. Keep house key in your pocket, so if you're locked out of your car, you could hope someone gives you a ride back to your home, you get in, and get the spare car key.
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Yeah, I haven't. It was more out of curiosity to see if others 'worry' as much as me rather than answers on here deciding my decision.

The mad thing is my new car actually automatically flags places that I frequent regularly, such as work. Luckily it doesn't flag my house as I set my home to a postcode which is near enough that the car then doesn't create an extra flag (y)
 
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