You have HD traffic on your nuvi—should you add LiveTraffic?

I have HD traffic and I noted in driving in the area recently that the coverage in Denver Colorado includes traffic for I-70 west going up into the Rockies. I was given a warning of 10-20 minute delays from the start of the climb all the way at least to the Eisenhower Tunnel and the report was correct.

You’ve picked a tough one here Craig due to the number of variables involved. It will however be interesting to hear from other members who have done comparison testing.

I’d like to add a couple of points to your usual very thorough post.

The city coverage lists for both HD and Live traffic can be deceiving. When you click on the link provided for HD traffic, http://www.navteq.com/hdtraffic/index.html you can click again on each city and bring up a detailed coverage map. In my travels around PA, NY, NJ, CT and MD, I find them to be fairly accurate as long as my GTM60 traffic receiver has a clear view of the sky. When you compare these coverage areas, some overlap. There are also many “dead zones” with no coverage in between.

The city list for Live traffic, http://www8.garmin.com/automotive/nulink_traffic_coverage.ht... does not show individual city coverage areas. For that, you have to go to the Navteq / HERE real time traffic page https://www.here.com/traffic?lang=en-US and scroll down to the United States section. From there you click on an individual city.

When you select New York for example, you see real time live traffic reports listed for about a 50 mile radius around the city. If you zoom out, the coverage area expands to include Boston and Philadelphia with no obvious “dead zones” in between. There are many mid-size cities covered that do not appear on the list. In fact, you can move the map over the entire country and see every Navteq traffic report. It quickly becomes clear that coverage gaps occur as you move toward the central U.S. Although there are no definitive boundaries for coverage areas, over time, it becomes clear where the reports are being generated.

These reports are what you should see on your Smartphone Link enabled GPSr providing you are in a 3G / 4G cellular service area and there are no server delays. This of course will vary by cellular provider. Keep in mind these reports are only as good as Navteq’s ground / air reporting sources. There are always errors and omissions. The same is true with HD traffic.

In any case, with the comparison testing I've done here in the Northeast, Live traffic beats HD traffic hands down.

As you said, individual results will depend on where you are located and some trial and error may be required. Comparing the HD city list with the Navteq / HERE map may be a better comparison.

Rick

A question. Your link:

https://www.here.com/traffic?lang=en-US

offers a link to Phoenix AZ:

https://www.here.com/traffic/usa/phoenix?map=33.44825,-112.0...

From the resulting map when expanded to cover the entire state, it appears that the entire Interstate system in Arizona is covered, so if my smartphone has a data signal, I should be able to find out about traffic issues anywhere in AZ on an interstate highway. Is this correct? Has anyone experienced a livetraffic result well outside of Greater Phoenix that covers an interstate highway (e.g., Kingman, Winslow, Holbrook, Yuma, Wilcox, etc?)

In another thread, my reading of an alandb reply is that in Iowa, both HD and livetraffic are extremely limited even though your Here map for Iowa shows that all interstates and even a couple US/state highways should be monitored and offered to livetraffic as long as a cell phone signal is available for receiving the data.

One more Garmin Smartphone link question: If I subscribe to livetraffic for $20, then decide I prefer HD traffic, can I configure the nuvi to still use the other smartphone link features (photolive and advanced weather, etc.) and disable only livetraffic? I know I can disable the nuvi from cell phone calls while keeping the other features but haven't heard if I can singly disable a specific feature like livetraffic while keeping everything else.

Thanks, Rick, and thanks in advance for future comments from folks here.

I’m far from being an expert on Garmin traffic. What I have learned, I picked up in bits and pieces around the net along with some personal experimentation.

As far as I know, there is no way to disable just the Live traffic feature. In order to switch to HD traffic, Smartphone Link must be disabled entirely. This link may offer more information:
http://jkcarp.blogspot.com/2012/01/garmin-smartphone-link-li...
A 3490 was used for the illustrations but the screen and menu structure is similar to the 3597.

I don’t believe there is a defined coverage area for Garmin’s Live traffic like there is for HD traffic. Live traffic uses the Navteq / HERE database which is capable of tracking road reports throughout the US and in many foreign countries as well. Some areas appear to have no coverage simply because there are no “eyes” out there to make the reports. Coverage seems to be more a factor of population and traffic density rather than a specific geographic area. I suspect the minimal number of reports in some states like Arizona and Iowa is due to the lack of reporting infrastructure.

BTW, Arizona is God's country IMO. I'd gladly swap locations with you Craig if you want better traffic coverage (lol). I get out there whenever I can. I'd move to Flagstaff in a heartbeat if I could convince my wife to go.

From experiments I’ve done running Garmin Smartphone Link and Waze side by side, I believe the Live traffic screen in Smartphone Link is capable of displaying any report generated by Navteq / HERE as long as it is within a specific distance of the GPSr’s location or along a route it is navigating. I don’t know exactly what that specific distance is but it seems to vary with geographic location.

When I get the time, I’m going to try running Live traffic on a 3597 side by side with the Navteq / HERE real time web page booted on a Windows tablet. That experiment should yield some useful information.

Wow, the link you provide is two years old so Garmin's had the chance over and over to revise the phone app or nuvi firmware but hasn't.

Clearly, the reports we read show livetraffic as a real gain over HD in the Northeast US, at least from DC up to Massachusetts or thereabouts and going west into PA. But for those elsewhere, adding livetraffic may cost $20 with the result of eliminating traffic reports from the nuvi permanently unless we're willing to give up the app's weather and other features!

I'd pay the $20 if it even occasionally helped me in AZ but I'll wait for folks with actual AZ livetraffic reports before I consider it.

PS—If you'd like Flagstaff, also consider Prescott. (Prescott is similar but has a Culver's and a Trader Joe's—Costco, too, but I don't covet that like it do frozen custard or TJs.)

I doubt that Smartphone link is a big money maker for Garmin. They are releasing occasional updates to fix bugs and such and to keep current with smartphone OS updates but there have been no major improvements that I’ve noticed. It remains to be seen just how long they will continue to support the product.

It obviously depends on where you travel if Smartphone Link is worth the $20 price tag. If I owned a Nuvi that was both HD Traffic and Smartphone Link compatible, but the unit didn’t include the GTM 60 traffic receiver, I would probably try Smartphone Link at $20 first before investing $60 on the GTM 60 HD Traffic receiver.
Specifically these Nuvi models are: 2457, 2495, 2497, 2577, 2595, and 2597.

This is a bit off topic but I find the free Waze smartphone traffic app to be quite useful, especially when used together with a separate GPSr.

Using Arizona as an example, boot the Waze live map https://www.waze.com/livemap and zoom in on the Phoenix area.
Now boot the Navteq / HERE Live traffic map, which provides data to Garmin’s Smartphone Link in the Phoenix area https://www.here.com/traffic/usa/phoenix?map=33.44825,-112.0...

Waze shows far more reports than Navteq and they are updated more frequently.

I’m by no means endorsing Waze here. Like every other traffic reporting system I’ve tried, it also has its problems. Low or loss of audio and Bluetooth conflicts are among my biggest complaints. Still, at $0, I find it an acceptable alternative when paired with a GPSr.

I'm quite satisfied with the HD traffic. It has always worked well for me and I see no need to pay for anything else. But, each to his/her own.

Garmin HD traffic works fine around the NY area on my 2495LMT.

I use Waze app as a backup