Technology Moving Too Quickly

garmin-nuvi-260w

Helaine is driving to Santa Monica this weekend. That posed a problem. The power outlet in her car, what in less enlightened times was the cigarette lighter, stopped working. Using her iPhone for navigation would be fine but somewhere along the way she’d run out of juice!

Time to fix the outlet. It wasn’t too hard. An old plug must have shed parts in the outlet, shorting it. A pair of needle nose pliers to pluck the old pieces and a spare fuse fixed it.

While doing my stint as tech support I cleared out the car’s center console and came across a Garmin Nuvi 260W standalone GPS receiver. It’s at least five years old, maybe older.

There are two roads within a mile or two of here which might appear on the GPS. Everything else is newer.

It’s possible to buy new maps, I suppose. But why? What this box did is now done faster, cheaper and better by Helaine’s phone.

I guess I should throw it out, but it kills me. Five years, that’s it.

11 thoughts on “Technology Moving Too Quickly”

  1. Buy some road maps and you wouldn’t need a GPS. I think Thomas Guide still makes them per county. I wouldn’t trust a GPS in So. California. Since Helaine is driving down to Santa Monica, she could end up in the Pacific Ocean.

    1. Carole – That makes no sense. Why would you want to use a paper map which is dated as it’s printed? Helaine’s iPhone has all streets, takes traffic into account and talks to her, instead of being forced to look at a map.

      1. I grew up reading road maps. In fact I still have a lot of them including LA, Orange and San Diego counties. I also keep road maps in my car. You can’t always rely on a GPS, they love to take you on the scenic route. A friend of mine & I were discussing it last night. A mutual friend of our went miles out of his way to reach his destination. So don’t always believe what a GPS tells you. LOL

  2. The only reason I’ve held onto either of my Garmin systems is for foreign travel. Thanks to still-exorbitant data roaming rates, my phone isn’t an option as a navigation device when I leave the States. If it weren’t for that though, my GPS units would’ve hit the recycling heap a year or so ago. It’s sad.

  3. I bought a new GPS (with lifetime map updates) recently because data connections are hard to come by in many of the places I need directions the most. Plus, with the built in way points I can find the things I need when I can’t use Google search.

  4. I received a GPS for Christmas 2 years ago and have probably used it once! I always use my phone and always use the Travel app that came with the phone. Many times it’s more reliable than my husband’s Sirius navigation.
    Maps are great (I love sitting and reading maps before a trip), but only if you have someone else to read it while you’re driving. I don’t keep one in my car – but long trips or motorcycle trips, we definitely have one with us.
    Geoff, it sounds like you have a “where old technology goes to die” drawer like I do. I can’t bear to throw out anything – a part may come in handy someday!

  5. Even the most updated maps *still* don’t have my house on them, and the GPS still insists I live at the other end of the road.

    Rural areas simply do not get updated on the satellites. That means your phone won’t work any better to get you to my house than that outdated Garmin Nuvi.

    1. My house was listed on the wrong side of the street in Google. I reported it and they corrected it.

      A new ‘main’ road was opened a few months ago. It quickly appeared on Google maps and quickly became a preferred route. That’s what makes these new GPS apps so good.

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