Anyone using the CAIO! feature on their Garmin

What is a CAIO feature?????

Ciao is Garmin's 'social networking' feature that allows users of the 1690 to track each others' wherabouts in real time.

It is neither unique, nor likely to be popular, as it requires the expensive navigator and the ongoing connectivity subscription, once the initial period expires. Perhaps it would be useful to convoys of vehicles, or maybe I am just missing the point - The Blip application for Blackberry and iPhones makes a lot more sense - it is free and it doesn;t require you to be sitting in your car.

http://www.blacklinegps.com/

A GPS is for me to know where I am; not everyone else to know where I am.

With Google Maps & their Latitude service on any phone that can do Google Maps.

When I was a teen ager or young adult, this would have been great to find out where all "the guys" were hanging out. Of course cell phones would have been great for that too.

No - don't use it

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When I was a teen, I didn't need anything to know where any of my Buddies were.
Then soon came pagers and cell phones and things some how changed but not necessarily for the better, and a time of innocence was gone forever..

It's a paradigm change all right. Teens feel cut off if they aren't in constant contact with peers and parents via cells and other new devices.

When I was young, being able to disappear for a few house was a right of passage.

Remember BIG BROTHER is watching and listening and recording you!!!

that is one stupid idea. who would subscribe to that?!

I don't need to know where everyone is all the time. I certainly don't need for everyone to know where I am all the time. CIAO!

I don't even need to know where I am all the time!

Why the very same people that complain about "Big Brother" watching your every move and tracking you - that's who would sign up.

I can think of a use for it. My friend has a 1690 like mine. We were camping somewhere and he was on his way to meet us. When he called, he was about 3 hours out making him get to us by about 1:00am in the morning. I didn't want to wait up. I could have given him the coordinates of exactly where I was but instead used CAIO. It worked. Will I subscribe to this feature. NO WAY. Maybe it is a stupid idea.

well I am glad to see that I am not the only one who doesn't see the logic or the value in this feature. I was beginning to think I was getting "old man" syndrome...

These crazy kids - they don't need this CAIO!....when I was young - I walked to school barefoot in the snow - uphill - BOTH WAYS!

If you and I can track others guess who else can track us, hmmmmmmmm. There is no longer any "personal privacy".

You are right. Anyone with a cell phone can be tracked already. The only way not to would be to pull the battery out of the thing. According to a report I read 95% of the US population already have one (and yes, that includes kids). CIAO is not that big of a deal.

For the paranoid: with all the cameras, cell phone tracking, OnStar, OBD3 proposals (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7668643.html) etc. there is no privacy anymore.

More now than ever.

Maybe it's just me....but I guess I can kinda see why people might be paranoid about "being tracked" - but I am not too worried about this - if my goverment wants to track me as I pick up my kids from daycare or where I go to pick up the dry cleaning....by all means let them.

I think people get a little carried away with this whole being tracked thing....Unless your Jack Bower - I don't it's a big deal...but hey, that's just a boring middle aged married guys opinion -

duped

The following article from the Indianapolis Star sheds some light on the paranoid syndrome facing many that willing allow themselves to be tracked using apps on their cell phones but have the "heebie-jeebies" about someone that picks up a signal broadcast by their bluetooth device announcing their loaction and availability to use in a study.

http://tinyurl.com/y8c2qxa

The statement on page 2 by the ACLU lawyer is a classic example of "I've got this device that broadcasts my location looking for another device, but you can't listen to it" syndrome.

I understand everyone's problem with Ciao. But couldn't it be used as a personal tracker? For instance, I have the Nuviphone G60 and if I'm up in the mountains where my cell phone doesn't get reception, will Ciao enable the GPS part of the phone to be tracked so the wife is aware of my location or is it dependant on cell reception? I thought about getting a Zoombak or Spot for this purpose. Anybody?

The CIAO service requires nuLink which requires a connection to nuLink's carrier which is AT&T. If you don't have cell reception where you are, the nuLink/CIAO service will not work.

Nope. Orwell got it wrong. It's not Big Brother... not with all the cell phone cams and video recorders...

It's more like Little Snitch!!

That IS the problem; it's a personal tracker. Technology can be a boon, or abused. Too often, it's abused.

One thing a lot of people don't seem to understand is that the Ciao! service is not always running - at least on my 1690 it isn't.

I have to manually turn it on and once you leave the Ciao! screen, it stops reporting again. Not to mention it uses the GPSii location service which isn't used all that much from what I see.

Why Garmin didn't make a deal with Google to use Latitude is beyond me...

Might if it were free and reached mass appeal. Only if it could be on and off. Dont have access to it now!

Might if it were free and reached mass appeal. Only if it could be on and off. Dont have access to it now!

I think it would be good for two friends doing a road trip in two different vehicles. Then you would be able to see each other.

Big Brother don't have to do anything. We ourselves put all this information out on the web through social networking sites. People have announced parties & open house on social networking sites and announced a month later that they will be on vacation. Upon returning from vacation, they find that they have been robbed.

Garmin is getting rid of it... but I found it useful... My girlfriend has it installed and when she is travelling or I am travelling - we could see where each other is located within a few miles (3 minute delay)... it would be useful if you were in a rural area and broke down - a friend could just turn on CAIO, see where you are and navigate to you...