Can i guide someone to me using my TomTom

[ColinS]

I am going on holiday in a couple of months, I have bought a new Start 50 and i am lending my daughter who is following me my Start 20. What normally happens when we go away somewhere along the route we will get seperated at lights or a junction and i will not be able to pull over and wait for her. When i do find a place to pull over is there any way i can send her my location to put in the start 20 to find me.

The routes even though they start and finish at the same co-ordinates the routes differ in places. If i could match the routes on the TomTom 50 and TomTom 20 that would be even better.

 

[Arno]

If both devices use the same settings and the same maps and you are more or less driving at the same time, both devices should guide you along identical routes.

Even if one of you misses a turn the device will get you back onto the planned route as fast as possible.

 

[ColinS]

Thanks Arno
I will try again and set them both to start at the same time same date and see if i can match the Routes.

 

[Arno]

It is not a question of starting at the same time.
It is a question of the Settings on both devices.

The "Options" (tap icon in main screen) should be the same on both devices.

Download the user guide at:
http://download.tomtom.com/open/manuals/start/refman/TomTom-Start-ReferenceGuide-en-GB.pdf

 

[canderson]

However (and there's always a however!), the Start 20 and Start 50 are running different code with slightly different routing algorithms. While it is likely that both will pick the same route, it is not necessarily so. More important will be whether the two devices are running the same map version. That is because there is average speed data embedded in the map that decides routing. As maps are updated, the average speed information may have changed over time. It depends a lot upon your route.

Perhaps more important, if your Start 50 is the recent one, I believe that it includes the TMC traffic receiver that provides traffic data that your Start 20 unit does not have. So you may be routed very differently with your Start 50 based upon current traffic conditions. What are the first two characters of your Start 50 serial number? VG? or VJ?

On the whole, I think you guys had better take your cell phones with you!

 

[Arno]

Since you both will be using a device that will try to get you the fastest from current location to destination, is following one another really of paramount importance.

Even though the manual for the Start 20 shows Waypoints, the Start 50 one does not say so.

Since you can use HOME for both devices you could very fast make a POI category for the trip and select locations from a Google map along the route where you can catch up with each other.
I would only have to be done once as it can be copied to both via the PC.

 

[canderson]

@Arno
I am guessing that since the OP just bought the Start 50, and is in the UK, it does not use Home, but rather, MyDrive. Unfortunately, the bright boys at TomTom marketing re-used the model name for Nav4 devices.

The Nav2 version of the Start 50 (and 55) was a North America release unit only, serial number starting with "GU".
Since the OP is writing from the UK, I suspect he has the new Nav4 version of the Start 50, serial number starting with VG or VJ.

 

[Arno]

@canderson
I may very well be wrong but page 31 of the above referenced manual shows how to take the device apart to connect to the PC to use HOME.
The above referenced manual was found by looking for a "user guide" for Start 50.

 

[canderson]

Somehow you grabbed the manual for the old Nav2 Start 50. Again, AFAIK, the 50/55 were released ONLY for NAM, which would seem to indicate that his is a Nav4 unit. Guess we'll have to wait for him to confirm by serial number.

I suspect he has this one >>> http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/drive/car/products/start-50-europe/index.html
Scroll down and see the screen shots. Definitely a Nav4 unit.

See current line-up >>> http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/drive/car/products/index.html

Sure you were on the UK page? I pulled up their Start 50 on their manuals download by model, and got this >>> http://download.tomtom.com/open/manuals/Start_50_5/index.htm which is a Nav4 manual.

 

[dhn]

Think canderson is correct, Arno.

 

[ColinS]

Thanks Guys i appreciate your input.

The first 2 letter of the serial number of the Start 50 is VJ and as far as i know both the my Start 20 and Start 50 use MyDrive, according to the set up instructions.

I take your point that my daughter following me is defeating the point of having a sat nav but she preferes to follow me (feels safer in case of car trouble ect). I only enquured because the last time she followed me (pre-Sat Nav) we got seperated as some traffic lights in the middle of a town and by the time i found somewhere safe to stop she had missed a turning and it took a while to find each other again.

But i had a thought, if she followed me and we did get seperated isn't it likely that her sat nav would most likely follow the same route as mine as even if the route was not 100% the same it would keep adjusting to the new rote taken.

Thanks to both of you for your time.

 

[canderson]

OK -- all on the same page, then! If you keep both units up to date for firmware and maps, the two should stay in sync. Since you have the "VJ" version of the 50, I'm pretty sure that does not include the RDS-TMC traffic cable, so they should not have different routing because of traffic.

 

[ColinS]

Thanks to both of you. I think the problem is now solved thanks to you both.

I appreciate all your help

 

[mvl]

Tomtom has launched a MyDrive cloud service for its latest connected GO models (eg: excludes START in the UK). With the newest models, you can log into the same account with both devices, and if one of you changes a destination (eg: to your current location at the side of the road because you pulled over and lost each other), the other device will automatically revise its destination too.

Won't help you with START models, but is a cool feature to solve your problem on higher end models.