If you’re in the market for a Motorcycle GPS, you’ll likely come across the two most popular GPS sat-navs: the Garmin Zumo and the TomTom Rider.
What they do well:
Both are weatherproof. They also boast features tailored for motorbike riders, such as glove-friendly touchscreens and winding road routing.
These features are appealing, but SatNavs come with downsides your smartphone already avoids. So given that smartphones have become more resilient to weather, while glove manufacturers have enabled touchscreen capability, it looks like GPS Motorcycle Navigation Units are today’s Walkmans.
Why it’s the end of the road for motorcycle SatNav:
Firstly, they are costly. The latest Garmin Zumo or TomTom Rider will set you back around $300 – $500 USD —a lot when you’re also budgeting for your motorcycle adventure.
Secondly, it’s another device to carry around. While you’re riding, it’s not a problem as they mount on your handlebars, but when you take a break, even a short one, and walk away from your bike… do you want to leave that $400+ just there for grabbing? The optional anti-theft solution is about as safe as a laptop security cable. Carrying your helmet in one hand, the SatNav unit in the other, while fully geared up, and then trying to reach for your wallet at the gas station requires some serious juggling skills. And it just feels unnecessary.
Thirdly, most of these units lack an independent internet connection for discovering and transferring appealing routes on the go.
Routing options can also be a bit of a hit-and-miss without your smartphone’s internet to update the Zumo. Sure, it has winding road routing, but it doesn’t always mean you’ll get a curvy backroad. It could just be a less direct, sometimes more congested route!
Transferring routes requires an app, or in some cases even a cable to your laptop, and this process can be frustrating and time-consuming, involving many steps, which is hardly practical on multi-day motorcycle trips. This could easily be avoided with a device that has everything you need already built in.
Enter the Smartphone
Given these drawbacks—the expense, the inconvenience of carrying an extra device, and the difficulties in route transfer—it’s clear that you need a more straightforward solution. Nowadays, that solution is your smartphone and -hopefully- the No.1 Motorcycle Navigation App, Scenic.
Your phone already possesses all the necessary hardware of a GPS unit—and more. It includes a GPS receiver, Bluetooth, audio playback, Wi-Fi, cellular data, a compass, and even motion detection sensors that can measure various dynamics such as lean angle, acceleration, and g-force. All that’s needed is an app like Scenic to harness this hardware for motorcycle riding.
What Else Do You Need?
Now that the hardware and app are sorted, what else should you consider if you want to use your phone for motorcycle navigation? Several factors, actually, but none are deal breakers for the smartphone solution. Key considerations include weather protection, power supply, and glove control.
Ride Into the Future: One Device, Complete Control
We believe that using Scenic with most current smartphones can perform just as well or better than a motorcycle GPS Unit! Moreover, from a cost perspective, even considering a weatherproof case, phone mount, and charging cable, you’re looking at less than 25% of the cost of a Zumo or Rider.
Ultimately, your choice of guidance needs to fit your riding and lifestyle of course, so use the device that you want. We recommend trying them all out! Here at Scenic, we’re about the ride, and it wouldn’t be half as fun if everyone took the same route.
We hope, whatever your choice, you’ll get the most out of your ride and enjoy the journey!
I ride a 2019 Honda Goldwing DCT Tour. Of course it has a built in Navigation unit but I find that it is difficult to work with. With my IPhone I have access to Apple CarPlay . I decided to use scenic and found it to work with no faults. Works like a champ. It makes me wonder why I spent so much time trying to make Honda Nav work. I have had scenic on my smartphone since version 1. Each upgrade has made the app better. I’m looking forward to scenic 4. Great Job Guido.
Pairing scenic with one of the new carplay screens works like a charm
Will my existing routes still be available to me when Senic 4 starts?
I have been using SCENIC reliably for two years and yes, it has gotten better and better. Despite this, I used my GARMIN Zumo XT in parallel because it gave me more information about the surroundings than SCENIC (land development, rest areas, toilets and so on). I am very excited about SCENIC 4 and hope for lots of new and interesting things. Thank you very much!!
…all of the arguments listed above are valid.
My downsides:
1) the cellphone is your most valuable device on tour. Do you wan to put it at risk being mounted at your bike in case of a crash?
2) at 30 degree celsius at the latest, all of my Apple and Android devices overheated.
—> my current solution is a Car Play/Android Auto Monitor that is working similar to all modern car cockpits and which is touch-sensitive. The Scenic App is perfectly working with these media OS and you can carry it, well protected, in your motorcycle suit.
Though I’m still struggling with the huge size of the monitor but I’m confident to fix this topic as well.
Is the ultimate one of these bike mount paired devices like Carupride that gives the apps (Music, helmet inter comms hub, Waze, IMaps, Google Maps, Scenic) on a large touch screen while your phone is safe in your pocket?
Carupride seems a good solution as if you have a Garmin loom installed already it will mount straight onto it.