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Creating voice navigation using RideWithGPS

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Creating voice navigation using RideWithGPS

Old 07-26-21, 01:44 PM
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raybo
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I'm looking into paying to get voice navigation on my tours. I have a trial month Basic subscription to rideWithGPS. The cue sheets it generates are incredibly verbose. It appears you need a Premium membership to edit these cue sheets down to something that doesn't comment every .1 mile. Since I only have a Basic subscription I can't seem to do this? Is this correct, or am I missing something?

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Old 08-03-21, 09:45 AM
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I've got a premium membership, and I don't get the kind of super-frequent updates you're describing. AFAICT, if you're using voice nav, you potentially get three prompts per cue: One right after your last cue, one about ¼ mile before your upcoming cue, and one right at your cue. You can turn off the first two (More > Settings > Navigation > Advance Cue Warnings & Nearing Cue Warnings). If you're on a twisty-turny route, you're going to get a lot of prompts.

There are some unnecessary cues, such as where a road changes names, which add to the auditory clutter. These are usually an artefact of automatic route generation, and if you really want to, you can edit them out. You can also add in manual cues to remind yourself of important waypoints.

Also, separately, it can report your performance stats at regular intervals. I've got it set to do this every 15 minutes.
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Old 08-03-21, 01:56 PM
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My workflow, which may or may not work for you (and isn't 100% foolproof either):
Create route (RWGPS, Strava, or whatever) on computer -> upload GPX to Google Drive -> download GPX on phone -> move to Osmand's track directory -> use Osmand for navigation
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Old 08-03-21, 04:27 PM
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Never used a rwgps cue sheet. I just created routes in the site, turn it into gpx, and send to my GPS device.

A youth cycling group I help run uses rwgps and we pay a membership which allows each user to get audible directions when they run a route. I create basically all routes for the group and no routes are overly verbose when the audible setting is engaged.
I've heard it in use many times- it tells you ahead of time what road and direction to turn. Pretty simple.
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Old 08-03-21, 05:03 PM
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Originally Posted by raybo
IIt appears you need a Premium membership to edit these cue sheets down to something that doesn't comment every .1 mile.
This seems odd. It would be interesting to see the route page.
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Old 08-03-21, 05:18 PM
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Originally Posted by njkayaker
This seems odd. It would be interesting to see the route page.
Here is the route I created: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/36929424

I know that I can turn off some of the announcements. Having used this voice navigation a couple times, I found that it often tells me to turn left, then sharp right, when, in fact, I want to turn right. Since I've ridden this route hundreds of times, I don't actually need the cues (I'm testing audio navigation on my devices), but if I was on an unknown route, the left/sharp right directions would be both confusing and likely lead to wrong turns.

One of several examples:

Keep right onto 8th Avenue 3.8 mi
Turn sharp left onto 8th Avenue 3.9 m
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Old 08-03-21, 06:53 PM
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Obviously this is an urban route and there are going to be a lot of cues. I can assure you that out in the countryside, it can be spookily quiet.

Originally Posted by raybo
Here is the route I created: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/36929424

I found that it often tells me to turn left, then sharp right, when, in fact, I want to turn right.
I don't have this happen a lot, but I have seen something like this. Once it told me to turn into an empty parking lot, and then turn back out of it. No reason. Sometimes it has weird ideas about how you should negotiate a certain intersection that result in convoluted paths.

I've also found that when dropping landmarks to create a route, it is very sensitive about where they're dropped: if I try to drop them right on a corner, sometimes it interprets that as overshooting the corner, so in order to get to my next landmark, I'm supposed to double back and turn the opposite way. Which might be what's happening in your example. What I do instead is drop the landmark on the route just before or past the point where I would turn, to avoid this misinterpretation.

Also, FWIW, tech support at RwGPS is very responsive and generally helpful, in my experience.
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Old 08-03-21, 10:01 PM
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That is a lot of cues. I don't know about a Basic account I never had one. With my Premium account I can delete, add or edit cues. A lot of times I'll delete all the Continue cues. It looks like you have quite a few of them but I mostly get them when a road changes names.
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Old 08-04-21, 09:38 AM
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Originally Posted by raybo
Here is the route I created: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/36929424

I know that I can turn off some of the announcements. Having used this voice navigation a couple times, I found that it often tells me to turn left, then sharp right, when, in fact, I want to turn right. Since I've ridden this route hundreds of times, I don't actually need the cues (I'm testing audio navigation on my devices), but if I was on an unknown route, the left/sharp right directions would be both confusing and likely lead to wrong turns.
That was helpful.

Some of this is related to the many quick turns in an urban environment. You kind of dove into the deep end with this routes (routes in other places won't have as many potential issues).

Originally Posted by raybo
One of several examples:

Keep right onto 8th Avenue 3.8 mi
Turn sharp left onto 8th Avenue 3.9 mi
Turn right onto Lake Street 4.0 mi
This one (and a few others) is related to how you are clicking to create the route.

Whatever you are doing (it's not clear) is causing spurious turns in some places.

The "sharp left at 3.9 mi" isn't "real".

You'll get better routes with these tips:
  • Don't click at intersections (I usually click after them).
  • Don't click too frequently. Click "just enough" to get the route you want. (With lots of turns, you may need to click more frequently.)
  • Be careful to click on the right side of the street (click slightly on the right side of the street). This reduces the risk of clicking on the wrong side of a divided road.

Note that RWGPS has an "edit" mode that lets you change an existing route. To enable this mode, click the "Control Point" button (at the right side). The "Add to Route" button changes the mode to extend the route.

In "edit" mode, you can remove control points (the white circles) by clicking on them. You can add them by clicking on the red route line. Think of the control points as pins that fix the red route line to the page.

If you can identify the odd "turn", you can add control points around the region and remove the in-between control points. Then, drag the red line away and back. This should remove the odd turn instructions. (Note that RWGPS may add some control points automatically).

Because you are often using the same roads for outbound and inbound legs, it's going to be harder to find and fix issues with the route. One way of dealing with that is to create two routes for each leg.

Last edited by njkayaker; 08-04-21 at 10:23 AM.
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