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Touch Screen Satnav & Vcard Transfer Of Poi's From Tomtom


AJW1100
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I have recently purchased a Toyota Avensis 2012 model with
‘Touch Screen’ SatNav, previously I used my TT730 for route guidance and used
the PGPSW speed cameras and Poi’s. Updating the TT was easy with the SD card plugged into the
PC, the car is not quite so easy to plug into the PC. Looks like I might need a smart phone....

It would seem I can ‘Register destinations from an external device (USB)’ and the Owner’s Manual states:

“VCard” formatted data can be transferred from a USB memory to this system. Transferred addresses and numbers will be stored on the ‘My Destinations’ screen and ‘Contacts’
screen.

There is also an option to ‘Register from Geo-Coordinates’ I assume this is longitude and
latitude which I think is what is shown in ‘POi Edit’ programme?

I also have quite a few of my own Poi’s on my TT which I would like to transfer to the Toyota system, however I cannot find out, from the manual anyway, whose SatNav system they are using.

Having an installed Satnav and a TT730 running at the same time seems rather daft, and my wife seems to have intentions of nicking the TT for use in her Jazz! Sort of “What’s yours is mine and what’s mine I intend to keep”!!

I do not wish to mess up the SatNav so will take a backup before I start to experiment.

Is it possible to copy/transfer destinations and Poi's from TomTom to the car?

Is it possible to add your own Poi folder to the system?

Regards

Alan.



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  • 1 year later...

Alan,

I see that over a year has elapsed with no replies, but over 500 viewings. I wonder if you managed to achieve your aim, or are holding on to your TomTom, or have lost interest...

Dave

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Hi Dave.

No progress I am sorry to say, I have not been able to find a way to add POI's to the Touch & Go as you can to the TomTom so I still have the TomTom which I still use when needed. I use the T&Go for normal route planning.

I think car manufactures are short sighted when trying to charge a small fortune for updated mapping, you can buy an excellent satnav with lifetime map updates for less than one 'car type' map update. Many map suppliers also supply the same maps for the car manufactures and although it may need modifying to suit the car's satnav the high price is enough to put many off buying it. If it was a more reasonable price more would buy it and in this case - Toyota - would have happier customers and sell many more new maps!

These days its all about 'functionality' the more of it - the more we buy it.

If 578 (as of 10/04/14) people have read this thread that's 500 Toyota owners who probably want the same as I do. Wake up Toyota :driving:

Alan.

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Alan,


Regarding the cost issue, it seems that most car manufacturers have a similar pricing policy - try Googling " Watchdog: Shock cost of built-in sat-nav updates" - I'd give the web address but it seems a bit odd. At 2012, in a list of about 14 manufacturers, Toyota was roughly in the cheapest 25%.


I don't know if your Sat-Nav is the same as mine - mine is a Touch and Go dating from the second half of 2012.


The only way I've managed to import locations via USB memory is on a one-by-one basis.

As the book states locations can be imported in vcard format with the files having a vcf extension, although I've found that the required format doesn't seem to be identical to the vcards generated by Mobile Phone Address books/ Microsoft Outlook etc.

These self generated vcards will load into the sat nav via the Touch and Go "General Setup" menu but NOT from the Sat-nav "Enter Destination from USB" button - this is contrary to the Sat-Nav instruction book which indicates that this button will load vcards.


Additionally, I've also used the Toyota online portal "MyTrips" application to generate and download a number of destinations, one-by-one again, to a USB memory. These files all have a .csi extension.

The loading of these from USB is different from the vcard ones - these csi files won't load from the "General Setup" menu, BUT they do load via the Sat Nav "Enter Destination from USB" button.

It might be that different Sat-Nav software versions give different results, so on this issue YMMV.


Incidentally, my TT ( a few years old) has various POI files, each with file extension ov2. Each file contains a long list of eg petrol stations. Another has a list of camera locations, and so on. Using a free download called POIEdit gives a screen display of all the entries in each file, showing item name and the lat and long coordinates, which I've used to make my own vcard locations.


The ov2 file can also be saved in a number of other formats, but unfortunately not automatically in the form of appropriate individual vcard files. At least I can't find a way, but maybe someone with the right software skills could.


Dave

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Hi Dave.

Thanks for the informative reply, I will need to refresh my memory cell with the Toyota manual as it was a year or so ago I was trying to get things compatible.

I have a TT 740T unit and have many PWGPS POI's intalled including their Speed Camera database. These are 23 POI's with icon,bmp - location,.0v2 - and speech,.ogg files, making for my use a total of 69 files, the .0v2 files are updated every couple of weeks or so and having to do each one individually would be very time consuming. Then there's the National Trust, Supermarkets......etc......

Incidentally, my TT ( a few years old) has various POI files, each with
file extension ov2. Each file contains a long list of eg petrol
stations. Another has a list of camera locations, and so on.

Using a free download called POIEdit gives a screen display of all the entries
in each file, showing item name and the lat and long coordinates, which
I've used to make my own vcard locations.


I have POIEdit somewhere but did not find a way to transfer to the T&Go, As said it was a year ago and I have probably forgotten what to do! Would you please expand on the way to transfer to vcard?

My T&Go should be the same as yours as it is a 2012 spec car registered December 2011.

Regards

Alan.

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Alan,


The way I've managed to generate and then load locations via USB memory on a one-by-one basis ---


The initial method I followed was as follows. You don't have to do this but this spells out my initial approach.


#1 I initially deleted all saved destinations and then set a convenient new destination (eg my own address) on the Touch and Go.


#2 I downloaded this destination to a USB memory stick, using the "Backup stored contacts to USB" function in "Setup - General"


#3 On my PC, I opened this file using "Notepad". The actual file is located in the "Nav" folder, which is inside the "Contacts" folder, and this folder structure has to be maintained.


#4 In Notepad, I used the file as a template but changed the various entries to correspond to the name/post code/road name/Geo coordinates of a new location of interest to me.


#5 Saved this file with a new name and making sure the extension was .vcf.


#6 I then plugged the USB memory stick into the Aux/USB socket and went into the "Setup - General" menu on the Touch and Go to select "Restore contact backup from USB".


#7 Verified that my new destination information had been transferred to the Touch and Go "Saved destinations" list. Then confirmed the new map location corresponded with reality.


At this point I found that the vcards will only load by the method in step #6, but don't load if using the sequence "Enter destination" - "Advanced" - "Load contacts from USB" method. As I mentioned earlier, the csi files obtained from the Toyota Portal online "MyTrips" application will load by this sequence, but not from the "Setup/General/Backup stored contacts from USB" method.



Example of my vcard generation for a NT location - Ascott House near Wing, Bucks.


From my TomTom NT location file, using POIedit I obtained the lat and long values.

Note that the minimum location information required by the SatNav is these lat and long coordinates, together with a name.

Additionally if available, the Postcode and Road name can be included.


From my TomTom NT location file, using POIedit I obtained the lat and long values for Ascott as 51.89844N and -0.70647W.

Then as optional additional information, from Google I obtained the Post code and Road name reference ie LU7 0PR and A418


The corresponding vcard file is:


BEGIN:VCARD

VERSION:2.1

FN;CHubikT=UTF-8:Ascott House NT, LU7 0PR

LABEL;CHubikT=UTF-8:1

GEO:51.89844,-0.70647

NOTE;CHubikT=UTF8-1:<IFT>LI<*><CTR>United Kingdom<*><CAB>GBR<*><STR>A418<ZIP><*>LU7 0PR<*><GEO>-0.70647 51.89844<*><NAME>Ascott House NT LU7 0PR<*>

END:VCARD




Notes.

The entries occupying 2 lines and starting with "NOTE;" seem to be essential for the Touch and Go to identify the location, although possibly in this example there is redundancy with respect to the post code information.

I don't know if the previous lines starting with FN; LABEL; and GEO; are necessary.

The coding symbols < and > are not part of the official vcard protocol as far as I know.

As far as I can tell, the meanings on these lines seem to be as follows:


<IFT> = don't know

<CTR> = Country

<CAB> = Country abbreviation

<STR> = Street / road name

<ZIP> = Post code

<GEO> = coordinates, with longitude then latitude (which is the opposite order to the "GEO:" line above the "NOTE;" line)

<NAME> = Location reference name

<*> = probably a field separator


If the post code etc is not known, the corresponding entry can apparently be omitted.



Using the above as a template I've found its possible to construct an excel spread sheet into which the name and map coordinates are entered, plus if known the post code and road name, and the excel sheet then generates the corresponding vcard contents, as in the above example.

I then copied and pasted the appropriate excel cell values into Notepad and saved it with appropriate name and vcf extension.

The advantage of the excel template is that once I got it right, all subsequent locations give the "right" vcard form without errors creeping in.


The next step might be to have some sort of batch file process which performs an automatic transfer of the appropriate POIedit name and coordinates into the excel sheet, followed by automatic saving as the vcard file.


However, haven't yet reached that point.


You might like to try cutting and pasting the above vcard location into Notepad and saving as a vcf file to your USB memory, but make sure the file is inside a subfolder with name Nav, inside another folder named Contacts.


Dave


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Apologies,

For some reason there is some corruption in my post.

In the vcard listing, the characters ChubikT seem to have appeared in place of CHubikT, 3 times.

Hmmm

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And again!! At least on my screen ...

The correct version with spaces added, which should be removed is C H &#33;Removed&#33; T to replace CHubikT

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Hi Dave.

I know how you feel, I have also experienced changes of my entered text, also when using quote boxes that are shown on my 'reply' screen but disappear (With only the text showing) when posted making the quotes out of context with the reply, very odd!!

Anyway, many thanks for your excellent reply. I will have to experiment and see if I can duplicate your success after I have printed it out and backed up everything on the T&Go.

Fingers crossed!!

Regards

Alan.

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Alan,

Let me know if there seems to be glitch with the vcard - the outcome might just depend on the software version...

The "corruption" of my text is I'm sure owing to this site having some in-built moderating software - if you look at the original four letter sequence that was mysteriously changed when it appeared in this forum you'll see what I mean.

regards Dave

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You are right about moderation software, a member from s c u n t h o r p e used to have the same thing.

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Alan,

Further to my previous explanation of the method I have employed with an Excel spreadsheet to help make the vcard generation process easier, I have come across numerous web references to using a Visual Basic macro in order to automatically carry out the process of copying a range of spread sheet cell values, pasting as text into a text file and then saving with vcf extension.

Although the manual way is easy enough, an automatic process would be preferable for handling a relatively large number of locations.

Looking into it.

Dave

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Hi Dave.

I have been trying out the suggestions and have had limited success, for some as yet unknown reason I cannot download from Server, either there is some setting on my phone that is not right or it just wont work. The satnav can see my phone so I am not sure whats wrong, according to the T&Go manual it should download via bluetooth. I have my phone connected to my internet hub and bluetooth connected to the car, oh well...back to the USB stick.

According to the T&Go manual I can have 200 contacts which seem to have to be in one folder, so it's an all or nothing scenario, I have around 50 contacts stored leaving 150 spare slots so to speak.

I may be well off the mark here but if I copied all the Nat Trust locations to vcard and installed them, that alone would exceed the 150 slots left, I only need the NT locations if I am in that area or on a day trip. Also supermarkets or other attractions while on holiday. Also there are 1000's of speed camera locations so there is no chance of importing them all and keeping them updated from the PWGPS website which is updated every week or so. To convert them all using POIEdit would take ages and I am not even sure if they would work with the associated icons and .ogg voice files. I would not want to include them as contacts as I would not want to specifically navigate to speed camera!!

In principle this is a great idea and I would love to be able to install my own POI's to the T&Go as I can with the TT 740T, with this I have a main destinations then secondary folders (N.T Supermarkets, etc) to access when needed and have speed camera's easily updated.

As said perhaps I am completely wrong and have not understood your posts suggestions.

Best regards

Alan.

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Alan,

I agree with you that a maximum of 200 locations via vcard is somewhat restrictive, but changing that wasn't mentioned in your original posting!


So far I've just been finding out how the vcard file content has to be formatted for destination purposes (rather than for listing of phone contacts, which might be what most business people need).


I think the speed camera database aspect is another ball game, requiring access to and changing of the Touch and Go inbuilt firmware.

My understanding of several online accounts by different people who apparently understand the relevant issues, and have attempted to gain control, is that this is seemingly impossible without "inside knowledge".

Personally I wouldn't trust a camera location database that I downloaded last week to tell me the where the cameras are this week.


I think that blue tooth communication issues might be making your "download from server" trial a bit dodgy.

Have you tried the method of downloading POI to USB memory from the Toyota Portal to your PC, and then transferring these via the USB memory to the Touch and Go?


Dave

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Hi Dave.

I (wrongly it seems) took the locations of speed cameras to be POI’s or a form of anyway. I also find Toyota ‘Contacts’ which are actually
destinations and Phone ‘Contacts’ which are actually people somewhat confusing.

With only 150 ‘destinations’ left then I will have to continue as I have been doing for the last year, use the T&Go for general use and the TT730 for destinations not incorporated in the T&Go. I really do not trust the POI’s in the T&Go, I tried searching for a Tesco fuel station near to where I live, it showed lots of Tesco’s and some with fuel pump icons but a nearby location shown as a fuel station has no fuel.

I entered a new destination to my Toyota Portal and selected send to car, then did it again as send to USB, I used my dedicated T&Go USB
Stick. In the car I tried the bluetooth option of download from server which as said before ended with ‘Connection failed’. I then tried download from USB which resulted in ‘No Content Found’ or similar. I will try another USB with only the download – mydest.csi - on it to see it that works. In the meantime I have emailed Toyota regarding the internet connection problem but am still awaiting a reply.

As regards the speed camera I will continue with the TT730, I am not a speed freak and often use the Toyota speed governor but even so I am
still wary, I feel that a week old database is far better than my Toyota’s over a year old one, and a lot better than no database at all. I agree that risking
a mod the T&Go firmware would be courting disaster!

I will be interested in your research into the vcard format as I am sure many others will be as well. All I can say is that I have learn’t a lot more over the last week or so than I did over the last year or so!!

Best regards

Alan.


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Alan,


The following is probably only of academic interest to you since the POI and camera location storage capabilities of your TomTom are relatively without constraint, but in case you want to try a few more Touch and Go POI experiments -----


I found that the POI "mydest.csi" files, downloaded via the portal to my USB memory, would only load into the Touch and Go by using the following sequence:


Satnav "Enter destination" button, then choosing "Advanced" and finally "Load contacts from USB".


This is the same sequence as described in my handbook "Section 4. My Destinations" in the part headed "Registering from an External device", following steps 1 to 6.


However step 7 of these instructions in my handbook gives a screen shot reporting "successful loading of vcards".

But this is not what I see, surprise, surprise!


The screen message that I see, after loading three of the csi files, is: "Loading contacts successful. 3 contacts have been saved to your stored contacts".

(And BTW the mydest.csi files have to be located in the root directory of the USB stick.)


For the alternative vcard method (loaded via the Setup/ General menu) with my vcard files on a USB memory stick, on which I have the above three csi files plus thirty of my vcard destinations, after touching the screen button "Restore contact back up from USB", the following sequence of screen messages appears:


1st screen message : Of duration about 1 second : "Load contacts from USB", followed by


2nd screen message, also about 1 second duration: "Restore contact back up from USB", followed by


3rd screen message of perhaps 3 seconds duration "Your USB device contains server contact files too. You


may want to load them under Navigation/Advanced/Load contacts from USB".


There is also another rather clunky way of using the POI data in your TomTom and getting it into the Touch and Go, one-by-one. You might already have tried it.


I'll describe it in another posting to this forum.



BTW there seems something curious about the logging method in this forum giving the number of times a topic has been viewed. Just before I post this the number of viewings is showing as 834 and has been for at least 24 hours. My suspicion is that immediately after I post my comment, the number will jump by possibly several tens.


Dave

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Slightly OT but MyToyota is still showing the latest map update for my T&G Plus as from last March.

a) is this the same for everybody?

b ) if so, I thought that there were meant to be 2 updates per year

btw it's supposed to be a Harman system. http://www.harman.com/en-us/newscenter/pages/HARMANintroducesapplicationdeliveryplatformforToyotaTouchGomultimediasystem.aspx

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Scott,

I don't know the answers.

But a man who might is at http://blog.toyota.co.uk/how-to-use-the-toyota-touch-and-touch-and-go-multimedia-systems

Yes Harman is responsible for the Touch and Go - many people would prefer it to have been designed, implemented and supported by TomTom.

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Harman also supply other brands like Mercedes Benz so they must have a decent offer/reputation as an oem.

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Hi Dave.

Still interested in increasing my knowledge of the T&Go so will keep up with this thread, after all I did start it!

Having a search here it seems that not all 'Compatible' phones are that compatible, many others have experienced the failure to connect to the Toyota server via their phones, so I am not the only one who had this problem. According to the manual you are supposed to be given the option to select your internet provider, this entry I have never seen so it won't know if I am on BT or Sky or Talk Talk so how can I select the right one to enter my login details?

According to the phone compatibility list my Samsung is fully compatible so I should be able to navigate to my phone contacts so I put a lot a lot of addresses in to the phone and guess what the T&Go cannot navigate to one every one comes up 'Address not found' enter the address exactly the same into the T&Go and it finds it no problem, grrr!

I used the Portal to download a destination to my USB stick, I had given it a name of Alans Holiday Hotel and it had full 7 digit postcode, the screen message I saw was something like '1 contact added successfully' (I've been to sleep since I did it) I then checked through the Stored tab and did not find the name I was looking for, nothing under A. Okay I thought something went wrong so I deleted all files on the USB and tried again, still nothing shown so I then scrolled through all the stored contacts and found two identical but incomplete postcodes, instead of NG22 9WH I had NG22 9 the WH was missing on both entries and there was no 'name' attached, the destination area shown was not very close to to the right location so if I had relied on the entry and merrily set off I would not arrive where I expected to.

I am thinking that the Portal may be a waste of time as it seems that neither Download to Server or to USB is in any way reliable or accurate. You're better off just tapping the details straight into the T&Go - at least that way you can check it before setting off on a mystery tour. Say you had 6 places to visit after a known location, you downloaded the 6 and set off to location 1, then tried to find the next 6 with only part of the postcode to go on for each one...... I think I would be somewhat late home that day.

For under £45.00 I can get 4 map updates (plus 2 free) for the TomTom over 18 months or one update sometime, maybe this year, maybe next year for £109. I think I know where my money is going.

Regards

Alan.

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Alan,

Just got time for a few words--- that location (Alan's Holiday Hotel) is a tricky one - located ok on web but seems they know their post code is odd for satnavs. Seems wrong on my TomTom so the location error is not unique to T&G.

If you search for establishment name in Toyota Portal (ie not searching for the post code) the destination file gives this name correctly on T&G and in correct location on map.

Dave

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Hi Dave.

I entered the postcode on my TT730 and looked at the destination via Browse Route, this seemed to be correct and matched the Google Earth map on the PC

Also re-entered the destination with name and not postcode on the Toyota Portal, this time it came up so added this to my 'Trip', there were 7 other destinations we wanted to visit while we were on holiday so I then added these, on attempting to download to USB the error message appeared advising that I had version 1 of T&Go and so could only download destinations one at a time. :disgust:

As I wanted to keep these destinations separate from my 'normal' destinations - easier to find and delete later - I named each one prefixed by the number 1 and saved it, I had noted that on the T&Go screen there was a 1~9 search as well as the normal A~* *~Z tabs.

When downloaded via USB to the car the 1 was ignored and the destinations were mixed in with my other destinations. I then renamed them all with a Z prefix, (in case it did not like the 1 prefix) took a little time, pity you cannot just arrow to anywhere in the name to edit it, you have to delete all to where you need to change.

Regards

Alan.

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Alan,

I agree that I've also found the Portal Method for POI is quirky and erratic and my preference is to avoid it. This has been by using the Portal online to my PC, probably identical if in the car using internet via a mobile phone linked by blue tooth to the T&G.


My current preference is to use the T&G for actual driving instructions and if there is a some doubt about the accuracy of the T&G destination information, then resort to my "hybrid" method which combines the storage of the TT with the instructions from the T&G.


This hybrid scheme is not appropriate for speed cameras, but ok for most other categories such as hotels/fuel stations/ supermarkets/ National Trust etc.

It might seem at first sight to be a slightly convoluted approach but its actually fairly easy.


In essence the TomTom acts as a lookup table for destinations to be used by the T&G SatNav.


The method with my TomTom (and probably applies to all TT models), is to look up a POI/post code on the TT and have it centred on the screen, for which location the TT screen shows the Lat and Long values. (I have set my TT to show these in degees/minutes/seconds format). These coordinates are then be copied by hand into the Touch and Go, via "Enter Destination" then "Advanced" then Geo-coordinates". A convenient POI name can also be applied for this point into the T&G (rather than just the coordinate numbers appearing as the name.)


You might well ask why not just fully use the TomTom for all satnav purposes with its superior traffic warnings etc?

Good question!


I rather like the Touch and Go screen size and don't want the nuisance of having to have the TomTom in a possibly compromise position inside the car in an effort to combine ease of visibility/control by driver/navigator with the need for good GPS reception.

There is also the nuisance of the trailing power lead for power.


But of course others will prefer to use their TT /Garmin for everything.

Freedom of choice!


Dave

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Hi Dave.

I rather like the Touch and Go screen size and don't want the
nuisance of having to have the TomTom in a possibly compromise position
inside the car in an effort to combine ease of visibility/control by
driver/navigator with the need for good GPS reception.

There is also the nuisance of the trailing power lead for power.

Could not have put it better myself, my sentiments exactly!

I will try your hybrid suggestion which sounds quite useful, it may end up with me using the T&Go for navigation and the TT & camera database when traveling in unfamiliar locations and searching for nearby locations, if I can ever get the car to work with my phone that is! Sitting in the car on my driveway with the phone connected to the car by bluetooth and to our home BB by wireless to the phone I cannot get a car connection to the internet. Very frustrating.

Regards

Alan.

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