The next time you decide to travel to a foreign city or go camping in a new area, make sure to pack VITO SmartNavigator with you. This off-road routing software works great in areas that have no maps or rarely updated maps and will be one of the best investments for the avid trekker or backpacker.

Installation
Setting up this software was very straightforward and simple. You can download a trial software which works for 14 days or you can choose to buy it for $29.95. There is no difference between the trial and registered software, save for the time limit of use. If you do decide to purchase it, I would recommend being online to do the registration as offline registration is known to be a lot more troublesome than just typing in your code and tapping ‘Register’.

Setting Up
The first time you use the software, you will be greeted with a 3-display screen. What is interesting is that if you want to display other information, you can easily do so by tapping the triangle on the bottom right of each display. This would bring up the relevant options available and selecting the one you one immediately brings that display into action. It couldn’t get any easier than that.

Main Screen: speedometer, direction
Bottom Left Screen: watch, compass, direction, speedometer
Bottom Right Screen: compass, direction, speedometer, sky

For those with a GPS device, setting up is just as straightforward. For those using external devices, ensure that your GPS is turned on and connected to your PDA. Eten Glofiish X500 users can skip this step. Next, go to Menu > Settings > GPS to get to the GPS Settings screen. Tap Scan and it will go through the different ports and baud rates to get the best possible connection. Once you see the GPS data streaming in, you know you’ve got it working well. Yellow bars beside the word ‘GPS’ signifies No Fix while green bars means that you have a lock-on and are good to go.

If you have a map, you can also load it quickly. Select Menu > Map > Load VTM. It doesn’t matter which ‘Load VTM’ you select as both allows you to do the same thing. I am not sure if this is a bug, but even if it is, it is a cosmetic one. Select the map and you are good to go. If you do not have a map, do not fret as this software works just as well without one.
Note: Only maps in the vtm format are accepted. You can get these maps by either purchasing them from VITO Technologies directly or you can use their MapManager (free for personal use, there is a charge for commercial one though) to create your own vtm maps from picture files.

Use
Once you’re all set up and customized, you are good to go. Just move and the software will track your route for you. You can even zoom in or out to get the bigger picture. If at any point in time during your journey you want it to stop tracking, just select Menu > Track > Pause and it will stop tracking your movement. Select Menu > Track > Resume to continue from your current position. This is very useful if you are taking a break or venturing off to a destination that you do not want recorded. You can even save the current track and start a new one while on the go if you choose. Not to mention that you can even overlay import a track with the current one to compare them in real-time.

With all this travelling, you surely must have a destination right? Or at least a start point that you want to take note off? SmartNavigator allows you to do just that. Tap and hold on any position in the map (it can even be your start position) and you will be brought to the ‘Manage Pushpin’ screen. Type in a name in the name field to help you identify that location and a description if you choose. Tap on the icon to change it to something that is more relative to that location. You will notice that the Longitude and Latitude of the location is displayed. For those of you wondering what is a Permanent Pushpin, it means that the location will appear in all maps used. Thus if you do not select it, loading a new map would remove the pushpin from view.

If you have several pushpins recorded and you would like to move to one of them, select Menu > Pushpins > Choose Destination. You will be presented with a screen where all the available pushpins you have saved are at. Selecting one will make that your destination and from there, you will be directed by a red arrow to your destination. If you were to switch to the 3-display screen and select ‘direction’ for the Main Screen, it would show you the direction to take and the distance to your destination. How great is that?

Summary

Pros
- Very easy to set up and use
- Maps are available or for sale and download and custom ones can be created
- Large display makes it comfortable on the eyes

Cons
- Pushpins do not allow you to manually input co-ordinates
- No customization of device buttons to different functions of software
- Does not allow for on-the-fly map creations

Recommendations for the next upgrade
- Allow for users to capture maps using their built-in camera and use that picture for navigation
- Allow for chnaging the co-ordinates of the pushpins manually
- Allow for linking with VITO FindMe to allow friends to track each other

All in all, this very simple software that will not make tracking complicated. If they can beef it up a little more, it would definitely be a serious contender for other off-road navigation software out there. Do you use VITO SmartNavigator ? Why or why not?

Tags: commercial software