Red Light Cameras in Garmin GPS

[JimD]

I found another fun thing you can do with a Garmin GPS. I use a 885t in the BMW mount for the Plus/Pro accessories on the dash of my 128i. It uses a feature of Garmins call customer points of interest (POIs). They are explained at this website and there is a little exercise to "warn" you when you are approaching your house:

http://home.comcast.net/~ghayman3/ga...tm#pagepoitext

The basic idea is you create a small text file with the coordinates you want to alarm around and if you want the alarm you include the word "redlight" in the file name. You can also have a visual that is displayed when you get to these coordinates and a mp3 file that will play. You then run a free program from Garmin (POI loader) to create the files you upload to the Garmin. You can create these warnings for whatever you want. I did it for restrooms along the interstate. You get get the restroom file and the redlight file at:

www.poi-factory.com

This is not the only place to get custom POIs, it is just one I have used.

The alarms work either for distance or speed and there is a way you can trick the Garmin into doing both (explained at the first reference). So if you are driving up to a camera at 74mph in a 65mph zone and have the alarm set for 72, the alarm goes off. If the alarm is set for 75 it doesn't go off.

Seems pretty neat to me. Many times I have been on the interstate and wondered how far to the next rest stop. You can just look at the POIs to know. And I also have it set to warn me 10,000 feet away (about 2 miles).

Jim

[BrokenVert]

So the redlightthing is like trapster?

[JimD]

Maybe somewhat. I had to google trapster to find out what it was. As I understand it, trapster is a way to share information on speed traps. Some might be permanent installations but probably most are mobile systems where an enforcement officer has set up for a few minutes to hours.

The redlight database is for camera systems taking your picture if you run a red light. It also contains stationary speeding cameras. I don't think it would be practical to put temporary systems in this way because you would have log in to get the data (or get it over your phone), put the coordinates into an ascii file, run the Garmin program to load the points into the Garmin, then boot it up to use it. Too many steps.

Jim

[BrokenVert]

Trapster also logs redlight cameras and permenant speedtraps

[bozola]

The Escort 9500ix Detector does this as well.

[MikeinAlexandria]

I have a Garminfone and a NUVI 550. Both have the red-light camera database from www.poi-factory.com. The data is free, fairly accurate and all you need to do is make a couple of posts occasionally to get the latest updates. The files and sounds get loaded using Garmin's POI loader. Well worth it!

Now I just need a tiny 128i srf file in Le Mans blue... I have a One Series Coupe. (srf files are the vehicles Garmin displays when you are navigating)

[JimD]

It is possible to make a srf file but you need pictures every 10 degrees of the vehicle. If you could find a model of the 1 series it would be pretty simple to get the pictures. It could be done with your actual car but it would be a lot harder to position yourself to get the exact angles you need. I found an article on how to do it at GPS Passion, here is the thread:

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/t...25&whichpage=3

I use a silver Z4 which is at least somewhat like my white 128i vert.

Jim