View Full Version : BMW Nav IV
dhthorpe
11-11-2009, 09:22 PM
What do you guys think of the BMW/Garmin gps system? Do they offer a decent mounting system?
Buy the Garmin 660 instead. The car use MSN expires in January 2012, and the extra buttons on the Motorrad unit are not worth having. I have the 660 and love it, but come January 2012, it handwriting is probably fading on the wall already.
BTW, the music player with an 8 or 16 GB micro SD card is great for several thousand songs, Audible Books, and other audios.
126532
11-12-2009, 02:37 AM
I'm leaning toward the Nav IV as opposed to the 660 on my soon-to-be R12R when I get back from the all expense paid trip to Afghanistan that Uncle Sam currently has me on. My rationale for going with the more expensive BMW option versus the Garmin 660 is this:
1. Regardless of which GPS I go with, I'll be putting the GPS mount (part number 71607700742) on the motorcycle, so that's $130 right off the bat regardless of which system I go with.
2. Nav IV comes with all the appropriate mounting and wiring hardware all designed to be compatable with my motorcycle.
3. The 660 lists at $699 on GPSCity.com. However, the motorcycle mounting hardware that comes with the 660 is a universal mount-type design. Call me persnickety, but I prefer using the right tool for the job, so I'd wind up spending another ~$100 or so getting purpose-designed RAM mounting hardware.
4. I kinda like the black BMW GPS color versus the Garmin stock silver. I also like the cradle. Is it worth the extra $150-200? Dunno, but it seems like a small deal to fret over when buying a $16K motorcycle.
Just my $0.02...
cjack
11-12-2009, 08:16 AM
The Nav IV comes with a cradle with the Garmin four holes in it for mounting on what ever you have on the bike. The BMW bike mounts (with the four holes in it to mount to the cradle) are purchased separately for each model bike. The Nav IV does come with the BMW connector on it to plug into the BMW bike wiring harness. A kind of weird thing is that when you put the Nav IV GPS into the cradle, the ext. antenna port and the audio port are covered up. Probably a good thing in the weather (they have a rubber plug over them, but you wouldn't want to pull that aside and use them in the rain). But the wiring harness has an extra plug on it that I assume has the audio...but where would the antenna port be...say for weather, etc. I know it doesn't do XM, but I thought it did weather.
You can still get the Nav Zumo by the way.
The 660 does not have a weather receiver. With a GTM 12 antenna, it can do FM traffic on the bike (mine does). With a GDB-55 it can do MSN on the bike, with weather, but only until 1/2012 when MSN shuts off.
cjack
11-12-2009, 09:14 AM
The 660 does not have a weather receiver. With a GTM 12 antenna, it can do FM traffic on the bike (mine does). With a GDB-55 it can do MSN on the bike, with weather, but only until 1/2012 when MSN shuts off.
Thanks for the info, I was just looking at the 660 cradle and the wiring harness seems to have an extra lead on it...power, audio?, and one other.
Power, audio, and mini USB. The last one takes the GTM-12 traffic antenna, or the GDB-55 MSN one. It is also rumored one day, it could take a GTX-30 (?) XM antenna, but to date, no.
cjack
11-12-2009, 09:41 AM
That makes the BMW version a bit lame...no mini usb that I know of. I think I'll look at it again at the dealer's.
wezul
11-12-2009, 10:05 AM
Very happy with my 660, mounted on my F8ST.
Also there was a discount available if you belong to the AMA, not sure if that still stands.
Hey wezul!
The AMA discount was 20% then. I think it is 17% now. Then again, Garmin could change eligibilty by model and kill it too.
I love the 660 too, just PO'd at Microsoft over the MSN Direct closure now slated 1/2012. Guess then if I still use the 660 (who knows what's next, eh?) I'll have to get another FM Traffic antenna. The pleasure of commuting into Phoenix.
jaherbst
11-12-2009, 09:36 PM
550 ZUMO with XM ant. gives you traffic, moving picture of the weather, XM radio, etc. etc. etc. What more could you want?
Jack
A much larger screen that is easier to read at speed. Oh wait, I got one.
mneblett
11-12-2009, 10:23 PM
I purchased the Nav IV, and ultimately returned it and bought a Zumo 660.
The BMW cradle's harness and the BMW-specific firmware is terribly crippled.
No stereo audio out through the harness, so all those .mp3's on your micro-SD card are useless, unless you like to carry around an over-sized Garmin-labeled iPod for listening to music off the bike -- the only place you can hear music, either through the built-in external speaker or the covered-while-in-the-cradle earphone jack.
No phone audio-out or phone microphone-in when in the cradle, so the Bluetooth phone feature is useless in the cradle.
No mini-USB plug, so no hope of every being able to do XM (I know the 660 doesn't have XM either, but I'll betcha that a firmware upgrade will be issued in the next year or so to add the capability -- likely right after the remaining currently-XM capable 550's sell out).
In order to get audio to/from my helmet via my intercom, the only choice I had was to dump the Nav IV and go with the 660. I liked the BMW mount for my R12RT, and the Zumo's mount bolted right up to it.
$0.02 deposited.
Mark Neblett
Fairfax, VA
wezul
11-13-2009, 04:57 AM
Hey wezul!
Hiya J! :wave
websterize
11-13-2009, 07:50 PM
No stereo audio out through the harness, so all those .mp3's on your micro-SD card are useless . . .
Not through the harness, but the Navigator IV streams audio in stereo bluetooth, from its disk or a microSD card. With my Navigator IV, mp3s are on the microSD. I listen with Etymotic ER-6 headphones plugged in to a Jabra BT3030 headset — it receives the bluetooth signal. And music auto-pauses for navigational prompts. Also, on the Navi IV mount, you advance tracks with the hard buttons and get a nice haptic click. Not so with gloved fingers on a 660 touchscreen. I like those buttons.
I purchased the zumo 660, and ultimately returned it and bought the Nav IV. :) See pictures of the installs here (http://www.r1150r.org/board/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=18191).
vorwac00
11-14-2009, 06:53 PM
Most excellent to learn of someone that has had BOTH the Nav IV and the 660.
Was disappointed to see how BMW blocked off the headphone jack with their cradle. My BMW Nav III provides for the headphone jack at the bottom left of the cradle (underneath the buttons).
Can someone explain the purpose of the "microphone-in" jack? Can I hook a radar detector to the Zumo using the microphone-in jack... and would those radar warnings come through a bluetooth pairing if so?
Thanks!!
Craig
The microphone input is for a mike, not a radar detector. I use a wired headset with the 660 and it works very well to about 100 mph instead of BT, which over 65 is inaudible. The short 4-6 hour limit most BT headsets have can also be a PIA, too.
The other thing is, all over the zumoforums, you can find out about how some BT headsets are incompatible, and some units cannot connect a BT phone and a BT headset at the same time, it is one or the other. This is on the 660 or the Motorrad IV because it is the BT logic and software each have at issue.
So for now, I use my iPhone BT, and a wired headset. I get nav, music and phone all into the headset and the helmet mike is good enough people can understand me at up to 70 mph. Then wind noise makes the mike inaudible to a 3rd person. The ear speakers work fine well past that.
Toadmanor
11-14-2009, 09:00 PM
So for now, I use my iPhone BT, and a wired headset. I get nav, music and phone all into the headset and the helmet mike is good enough people can understand me at up to 70 mph. Then wind noise makes the mike inaudible to a 3rd person. The ear speakers work fine well past that.
Can you tell me a bit more about this?
You have an iPhone paired with a bluetooth what? So you can get music and phone, how do you get nav?
What helmet mic do you use?
vorwac00
11-14-2009, 09:59 PM
The microphone input is for a mike, not a radar detector. I use a wired headset with the 660 and it works very well to about 100 mph instead of BT, which over 65 is inaudible. The short 4-6 hour limit most BT headsets have can also be a PIA, too.
The other thing is, all over the zumoforums, you can find out about how some BT headsets are incompatible, and some units cannot connect a BT phone and a BT headset at the same time, it is one or the other. This is on the 660 or the Motorrad IV because it is the BT logic and software each have at issue.
So for now, I use my iPhone BT, and a wired headset. I get nav, music and phone all into the headset and the helmet mike is good enough people can understand me at up to 70 mph. Then wind noise makes the mike inaudible to a 3rd person. The ear speakers work fine well past that.
I am currently using a bike powered MIXIT2, taking in the output of my Nav III, radar, and iPOD...and simply using wired Er6i earplugs from the Mixit. I would like to duplicate that with the Nav IV... but I can't, as the audio out plug is blocked by the cradle. So I can't feed the Nav IV into the Mixit.
So, I thought maybe I could let the radar go through the NAV IV mic input, let the music, radar, and directions come from the NAV IV, and have everything sent to me via bluetooth pairing between NAV IV and BTS200. I don't care about the phone.
If that won't work, then any thoughts on how can I get my radar warnings fed to me?
Thanks,
Craig
Can you tell me a bit more about this?
You have an iPhone paired with a bluetooth what? So you can get music and phone, how do you get nav?
What helmet mic do you use?
There is a Starcom headset/mike combo made the Zumo. A Google search will find it. It provides nav sound primarily.
The Zumo has BT, as does that iPhone, so I connect them, and on the bike, the audio comes in to the helmet, the mike handles the voice. I use the Zumo in the car too, and there the audio is handled by the speaker in the 660 and for voice, the 660 has a built in mike that cuts out when the line mike is used. You can't BT music on a phone to the Zumo.
If you click on my Blog, the first photo is cropped, but click on it. You'll see the Zumo with phone icon. That's how you dial, use the phone book, I can use voice dial, it is great.
But, for music and audio books, I use an 8GB micro-SD card. For now it has +/- 400 songs, 2 mp3 books, and 3 Audible books. The music, played on Random, could fill 2-3 days of riding. For longer trips, the books work well, too. That card could hold about 2K songs.
BTW, when you make or answer a call on the motorcycle, people are shocked.
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