Recently experienced using the in car navigation/guidance system on a Japanese car in Japan in Japanese for the 1st time.
Have never used this technology before (anywhere).Was shocked at how terrible it was – particularly as compared to either Google Maps or Apple Maps.
I’m left wondering are these things this awful everywhere or is it one of those things, like fax machines, where terrible technology just never gets moved on from in Japan? It felt archaic.
I’m assuming that the system in this Nissan would be at least competitive with other car brands, and that it’s not something that varies greatly with brands. FWIW the car was new within the last 2 years so the actual device was not old or out of date or something like that.
Some examples of what I’m complaining about:
The search function was painful – you seemed to need to put in exactly the correct term – for example, if it was listed in katakana in the system but you used hiragana it wouldn’t find it. No auto-complete or suggested text. If you wrote the name of a train station but didn’t include the 駅 kanji it would find nothing at all.
When it did find stuff it would often show a thing that is hundreds of km away rather than a nearby thing that matches the same term.
Once we eventually got moving it seemed to offer a series of directions that could best be described as “going around the Moon to find the Sun” rather than suggesting a single right turn it would recommend driving 300m turning left, then left then left then right etc.
It claimed to be running on Google Maps, but seemed oblivious to things that were clearly showing up on Google Maps viewed on a phone within the car.
Edits: thanks for the fast and detailed replies.
Seems there are many bad things to be said about Google Maps… I’d used it a lot when walking or cycling but from the comments I’ve seen I’m probably glad that I’m not directly using it when driving.
Seems there may be quite a bit of variation across different brands & models. Particularly as far as running searches goes.
Also thinking that maybe the navi I’m complaining about may be set to something like “safest route”, which would explain some of it’s quirks.
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17 comments
We have a MINI with their built in navi. It seems to work ok. I find the user design underwhelming. Like you use a physical dial to input and zoom in and out and change functions.
The actual navigation is decent though. You do have to get it updated periodically.
Car navigation systems are always inferior to Google Maps. That’s why I always put a headunit into the car that supports Android Auto/Apple Carplay
Built in navis are rubbish. Many run on data drives that need to be updated at a garage. There’s a reason carplay capability is a paid optional extra.
Navitime, 400JPY a month for the ad-free extra features, is the best car-navigation/public transport planner/walking and cycling directions system in Japan and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. In all seriousness, in-car systems can be out of date and generally don’t get live roadworks/traffic info and Google seems to struggle with some elements of Japanese geography. Navitime is the best and worth the 400 yennies in my honest opinion. You do need solid Japanese to use the full system though.
A lot of car Navis will “go around the Moon to find the Sun” because they’d rather keep you on an arterial road for as long as possible. For a long time, Google and Apple Maps were notorious for putting you on the shortest path possible, even if that path sent you weaving through residential neighborhoods for 25 minutes as opposed to a relatively simpler more round about drive that is far less white knuckle.
> It claimed to be running on Google Maps
This is likely the problem. In the last decade of using various Toyota official navigation units I never had a problem searching for or navigating to a place. Yes, the data needs to be updated periodically (my newest car finally got auto-updating maps over built in LTE modem) but the route selection is always superior to google maps because “shortest path to destination” is not always the best way to go, especially if that short path involves some one-way streets limited to 30kmh.
My experience with Google Maps vs. built-in navi was the opposite.
I found that route suggested by the Google Maps app didn’t take into consideration the width of the road, and made us travel along an old road that was barely wide enough for one car.
Once we reached the destination, the inn owner was shocked that we used that particular road; apparently even the locals avoid using it.
On our return trip, we used the built-in navi in the rental. It took us along a major road which was a little farther than the route suggested by Google maps, but much more easier to drive.
Mine is a bit older than the one you mentioned, a 2017 Toyota.
It does suffer a bit with newer roads and locations that are not added.
But it doesn’t have the issue with the input needing to be exact. I can write in Hiragana, with no need for using the small kana or the correct Hiragana/katakana, for example I write ひよういん, and it will understand that it’s either 病院 or 美容院. It does have different input modes though, one of which is if I need exact kanji or alphabet, so it might be that the one you are using have this input mode as default? Check if there are different input modes.
>Once we eventually got moving it seemed to offer a series of directions that could best be described as “going around the Moon to find the Sun” rather than suggesting a single right turn it would recommend driving 300m turning left, then left then left then right etc.
In your description you’d ent up going left, not right. Do you mean a left, left, left to end up going right?
Maybe it thinks that right turn is illegal at that point? Or it avoids right turns due to traffic? Some roads a possible to go right, but should be avoided.
Mine does attempt to avoid traffic in similar ways, and fails sometimes. In these situations you have to think for yourself. But I have the same issues with Google Maps, sometimes worse. Google maps has tried to lead me down on roads that are not for cars, while my navigation system never has, so far..
Since you say your Navi is running on Google maps, it might get some traffic data via VICS that can explain the difference?
I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again but even my 10+ year old built in navi that has never been updated works better than Google maps.
Yes, searching is a pain but other than that, it is much better. Google maps will gladly have you go up/off highways at every entry/exit, send you over some back road over a mountain that can’t really be called a road or have you drive through a city center because it thinks its shorter, poor lane indication etc. Oh and then there are the genius UI design decisions such as trowing full screen we have found a better route options in your face while driving that require you to click a button to tell it to fuck off.
Built in navi sends me where I need to go in a sane manner.
My car navi has shortest path and shortest time settings.
Shortest time is the default and often ends up being some convoluted mess but it is indeed faster as it avoids most of the traffic and street lights.
It consistently beats Google Maps (which severely struggles with proper time estimations) and is on par with Navitime as long as the maps are kept up to date.
If you don’t have a car navi, the Navitime app is the best option.
I have hardly ever used them and though they came with my last two used cars, I took them out and put a cassette deck in just so I could use a cassette adapter with my portable music player.
But the fact I know of no navi system that gives up-to-the-minute traffic info EVEN THOUGH THEY COULD means, from the start, you have such a major factor in choosing the best route absent, you already have a better alternative using maps and your own brain.
For one thing, it puts eveyone on the same route, ENSURING more traffic jams. I am an impatient man in constant search of short-cuts and now I have to find them more because people don’t think anymore. The systems don’t even tell you where the road construction is!
And there are so many other weaknesses mentioned by other posters here. I just cannot be bothered to drive down the road and have to constantly second guess this mechanical voice in my car.
If I don’t know where I am going I plan my route out using Google maps. I might write some points down like route numbers but otherwise I use the software I was born with and developed over the years….and remember my plan.
So yes…I have to say they suck everywhere, not just Japan.
Japan has a big problem though…poor signage….like roads not marked with their numbers….there I think navis can help but it does not make up for the other stuff for me.
I have formerly worked as a developer for one of those Navi systems.
It is indeed difficult to be competitive with Google or Apple Maps, but some Japan specific things could be done easier on our system (e.g. I found that phone number search does not work on Google?)
Your specific problem luckily does not sound like the Navi I helped to develop. We were definitely agnostic to Katakana and Hiragana.
I have Android Auto and Carplay. In my experience the built-in Navi (Internavi for Honda) has better and updated routes. For phone I have Yahoo Navi, I find it better than GMaps.
If you really need to use the car’s built-in like for rentals. When inputting a destination, it’s easier to find direction by using the phone number or better yet MapCode if the navi has one. I almost never use the manually input address or finding business names or whatnot.
What was the actual year and model of that Nissan? The navi system in my new Sakura works great, including the search. The navi system in my husband’s older X-Trail is a lot more basic.
Here’s my “hack”. Google the phone number for the destination (even the railway stations have a phone number), then search by number in the navigation. It works about 80% of the time and speeds up the hit and miss game.
Also google maps has gotten a lot worse outside of large metros since they lost access to zenrin map data. The POI is still good but I would say the actual road map layer is better on Apple Maps now. And that’s for walking, driving directions and public transport routing for sure is better on local apps. As you others have said the built in Toyota navs are really good and Navi time works well as well.
My car Navi is much better than Google.
Car Navi: In one km turn left…..in 700m turn left….at the next traffic signal turn left…….turn left
Google:……………….TURN LEFT!