Tablet GPS navigation

What mount did you use?

 

Right now i have a cheap vent one off Amazon. Works great for on road but I haven't gotten to truly test it yet

 

For a tablet anything less than solid metal to metal the thing will bounce all over. I'll snap a picture of mine later. Basically i have an aftermarket single din stereo and the extra space i built a metal square box that 2 Ram mounts attach to. Behind the metal box I had to run a support to the dash support to lessen the movement in the tablet. It's pretty solid now.

 

I upgraded my radio headunit to a Joying 7" Android unit, and it serves as my radio, phone, music player, video player, navigation, browser, etc.

The navigation app I like is OSMAnd+ with the offline topo maps.

 

What are everyone's thoughts on a 8" vs a 9.6" tablet? Looking at the Tab A (8") and Tab E (9.6"), mounted on the right side of the center dash like most do. If the 8" is fine for being able to see it well I think the lighter weight would make it steadier.

 

I actually just started a blog with my wife to track our trips with our kid and I got in touch with Gaia about testing out their app. I used it this weekend in Joshua tree and Berdoo Canyon where there's no service and it worked awesome. I'm not trying to push the app but if you did want to check it out they gave me a discount link that you can use. The premium version has National Geographic maps built in so the way I rationalized it is those are $20 a pop and a whole year of gaia is only $32.

 

I haven't don't that on my phone with GAIA but I've sure done that on my laptop a lot when trying to find a trail and following USGS or Google Earth satellite photography. That's what I love about GAIA, you can access it on your phone, tablet, and any computer.

You can navigate to each waypoint real easy in the app though.

 

You can do that for sure. Another cool thing that I was able to do with it this weekend was I saw a road that looked interesting so I just opened up Gaia to see where it went then created a route on my phone and it gave me the trip details like elevation and mileage. If you have service you can drop a waypoint and hit "guide me" and it will create a route, but I was offline and I had to create my own route by dropping in a way point along the map trail but it took maybe 10 seconds so it wasn't a big deal.

 

Yeah another cool thing is to look at public routes. I've been surprised where some people have been.

Granted you don't know if the person was hiking, snow machining, driving, or flying, but still a cool feature.

 

I've used that feature a lot, if the data is available, you can look at the pace to get a feel for the mode of transportation, truck/bike/hike.

 

What are you using to mount the tab a? I have one and would like to set it up this way. Thx

 

^ I made a copy of THESE with my 3D printer, then just a RAM tablet mount. The RAM mount meant for 8" samsung tablets is too small for the tab A 8" for some reason so I had to trim that mount to make the tablet fit in it.

 

So I’m curious...what’s the total cost?

Tablet, mount & app/software

 

Very interested in what this looks like!!

 

For my setup 160 for the tablet, 11 bucks for the back country app and contemplating the tech deck at 60 plus 20 bucks or so for the ram set up.. call it $250??

 

Is the 3d printer material pretty sturdy?? Any interest in making a set? Id gladly pay since the guy on the other post has no interest in making sets for the list waiting...

 

As long as you print with sufficient material density it is very sturdy.

Since I copied his design I wouldn't feel right selling any other copies. But yeah I got sick of waiting for him that's why I made my own.

 

Gaia GPS is 20/year

I use my cell phone or you can buy a new Samsung tablet for 150

Mount is 20-150

Up to you man.

 

Backcountry Navigator ftw. I price of less than $15 too

 

I bought Gaia before the subscription model, but I still think it's worth it. The different layers and functionality is great.

I'm not a fan of subscriptions though.