GPS

Review of the Aoocci C3Plus Carplay device

I’ve been looking for an alternative to Garmin’s GPS universe for some time. The Garmin ecosystem seemed to be getting a little stale, with motorcycle equipment just one part of a huge range of (highly priced) devices, at the same time that Google Maps was becoming effortlessly reliable and useful – it really does save your previous searches etc. Added to that we have seen the development a number of moto-specific navigation apps designed for smartphone that should, in theory, transfer well onto Carplay. The particular app that I’ve signed up to is MyRouteApp.

My first attempt at escaping the Garmin ecosystem was trying, by which I mean spending an awful lot of money and selling again at a significant loss, a Thork Racing DMD T865 Android tablet. I didn’t get on with it for reasons I go into here.

When, as a result of some targeted promotional YouTube vids by the company that make Aoocci carplay units, I discovered one of these devices for less than £100, I was interested, like a lot of people. On their website the company claims to have been founded by a lone tech enthusiast working in his garage in HongKong. But there are many fake-origin stories put up by companies on the net, that its hard to know. (Run a Google image search on the photo of the ‘founder’ on some sites and you will often find that it is a stock photo used in a variety of other fake sites were the person in the photo is given different names.) Anyway, regardless, the company makes units that do no more than display your smartphone’s navigation and other selected apps on a small GPS-looking screen that you can fix in various places on your motorbike. I wouldn’t mind betting that many other buyers, like me, thought – if this turns out to be a pile of crap, I’ve only lost £80 or so…

So what is it like? So many of the sponsored promoters sing its praises.

My version came only with wiring to hard-wire to the bike, in my case via a power distribution unit which made it simple for me. I would have connected it in that way anyway. The only problem was that without a usb connector for its proprietary connection you can’t experiment with it apart from when its connected to the bike and the bike turned on. And if things go wrong with the unit, as they did for me and, by the look of it, many other owners, you have to be able to plug it into a PC to update the firmware. Sorry no Macs – only clunky software for Windoze. Journey number 1: yes it works fine, using Google Maps – result. End of journey number 1: let’s connect it to the two supplied tyre pressure monitors – nice idea in theory – just to see how accurate it is. This is where the device stopped working for me and others. Updating its firmware is possible, and the company do have an update ready but its implementation is not straightforward though doable, eventually. So, back up and running let’s try again. The device starts up, works as before but seems to have gone off the idea of talking with the TPMS.

My second investigation was seeing how MyRouteApp would run via this device. Its smartphone implementation is good, though I have not used it because I have never mounted my iPhone on the bike. When connected to CarPlay I discovered that it has a limited usability. First here’s a screenshot from MRA on a smartphone. You can move the map around on the touchscreen nicely.

Now here is the implementation on the Aoocci device, using Carplay. The first screen shows my list of folders of routes I have previously plotted with MRA presented to me, the middle shot is what you see when you click on the search icon from the first MRA screen you see and the right-hand screenshot is the working map page from MRA. When you have Google Maps on the Aoocci screen you can move it around with your finger (if your gloves are not too thick) but with MRA you cannot move it. You have to tap on some direction arrows. This seems a limitation to me.

Obviously I like MRA’s ability to let you design a route quite simply and you could be guided by your smartphone. I am not sure how this is going to work using Carplay and the Aoocci device. I like the MRA ecosystem so want to persevere a little before trying something else.

I forgot to mention that I found the connection bracket that was supplied with the Aoocci unit was of limited use so I glued a RAM mount ball head that I had onto the back of the Aoocci mount and could fix it easily on an adjustable RAM mount.

I also forgot to say that perhaps the biggest discovery in this has been noise-cancelling Apple Earbuds (Pro 3 or similar). I have found that these do an amazing job of cancelling motorcycle and wind noise while allowing instructions from Google Maps to remain crystal clear. They fit very well under a helmet and don’t fall out when you take it off. The only slight downside, particularly when travelling and camping, is that they would be yet another thing to have to charge up at the end of the day.

Update: now that I’ve tried using a route planned on MRA to navigate me on a thirty mile loop out to Balsham and Dullingham I feel a bit more positive about the set up and using MRA to navigate around a nice ride. All works well. It even makes a good effort to rescue you when you have gone off the route. The map is clear and the voice prompts are in good time. Once back I even managed to get Aoocci to read the tyre pressures though somehow they are the wrong way round. It showed me that my front tyre lost a lot of pressure – down to 18psi before I pumped it up again. I wonder what has happened to it.

Accurate tyre pressures just the wrong way round

Also displayed on the start up screen

DMD T-865: shall I keep it or ditch it?

Having now taken the DMD tablet on two or three trips, I’ve made some progress with it but I find there are still some serious problems with using it that amount to deal breakers for me.

First the positives: I’ve worked out how to turn up the volume and assign a button to that so I have been able to hear the turn by turn instructions from Google Maps and DMD – when riding at slow speed at least.

I’ve worked out how to tether my iPhone to the DMD so now have a live connection that allows Google maps and Myrouteapp to work properly.

With stick on fingertips on my gloves the touchscreen works pretty well most of the time.

These are all major problems solved. But there are still some unsolved issues that make me consider deinstalling this outfit and putting it up for sale:

1 The screen is not very bright – nothing like the Garmin Zumo XT and I can’t understand why people say that it is. See the picture. DMD is set to 100% brightness. It is pretty much unusable when the light shines directly on it, in even dull sunlight.

2. The link to the iPhone keeps dropping out and is long-winded to reestablish involving two separate set up screens – certainly too involved to do safely while riding. And when there is a poor mobile signal, there is no GPS mapping – at least on the Google maps app.

3. The DMD app map seems to have centred itself in a large blue ocean somewhere and does not seem to auto centre on where I am. Again, this would take time to sort out – involving stopping.

4. When using it, the map does not seem to keep where you are updated.

The pros still are: I can just take one device on journeys that I can use as a Kindle, for internet browsing and blog updates

Leaving Galicia, arriving at Palacio de Cutre

Sunday 21st July

Today started nicely with a fond farewell from my hosts at Casa Camino. (Their kitchen was amazing I thought). Once wobbling down the stony drive, I was off, not very confident that the GPS would take me directly down to the main road after its confusions on the way there and my host’s disparaging remarks about Garmin and Spain (see later near disaster). But soon enough I was on the motorway travelling approximately east. I was trying to remember, as I rode, my previous visit, and in fact other early expeditions to Europe. I could not quite get back in touch with them but I had a sense that my concerns and focuses while travelling had shifted. But this morning, with a good road, very little other traffic and courtesy of cruise control the first hour or so travelling was very relaxed. My equanimity gradually unravelled though. First, it started to drizzle and the temperature dropped, then I discovered that the signs indicating what in the UK would be a motorway service station, are in fact pointing to scratchy old petrol stations and two or three miles off the motorway in a forlorn town. But being fuelled up is a good feeling and, via one blocked off re-entry to the motorway, and much riding in drizzle behind slow moving cars, I was back up to speed, but getting damper and needing to find somewhere to re-establish homeostasis in the face of the growing pressures of the body and two cups of coffee, and three glasses of orange juice at breakfast. So the next phase of the journey was not as relaxed at it could have been. I eventually stopped at a service station – a rare cafeteria by the motorway. These places are definitely not the shiny chains that you encounter in the UK, but places with a few tables and a long bar, with some recently made food on top. I ordered café au lait and tortilla then headed off. All going reasonably well from the motorway to an A road but still not confident that the GPS would take me where I wanted to go, along the route that I expected. Ok, it said, turn right. I obeyed. Turn left to join the – number of the road I had just been on – and then the tarmac road turned into a woodland stony track plunging downwards, then into a muddy puddle, still with the GPS urging me on. But when the track curved off steeply down to the right I decided to cut my losses and turn the bike on what looked like the last bit of disused tarmac that remained from some ages old road – a godsend as to turn the fully laden bike on a narrow track running down hill would have been a huge challenge. Hopefully all this is captured on helmet cam.

the road less travelled

But back we went this time through the mud without slowing down or skidding and another 4k down the road before turning off to the left, over a level crossing, down narrow twisty lanes. I have grown nervous about the entrance to rural hotels and campsites and the Palacio is no exception.  It has a steep drive made of irregular cobbles. I stopped to gauge the challenge then went for it, going rather faster than I wanted to but making it up without dropping the bike – the vision of which always quickly flashes unhelpfully into my mind.

The Palacio is not what I imagined, especially after three days of rural simplicity and newly refurbed buildings. This is a rather swanky hotel/restaurant/wedding reception type place with floral wallpaper and floral coverings on everything possible, doyleys, antique dolls, rocking horses and cots on every landing. The staff that I have come across, though, seem friendly and helpful, telling me that the restaurant is closed on Sundays but offering a snack instead. In fact, now that I have gone down and been served by them a generous platter of cheese and meat, with two glasses of unusual white wine, their hospitality has won me over. I talked with one of the owners afterwards for quite a while about her daughter who is studying at Greenwich University. There was a wedding here last night and the last guests were driving off in Mercedes as I arrived and now workmen are dismantling the base of the marquee down on the lawn – using my favourite noisy power tool to undo the hundreds of screws.

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My room is under the roof, with an old-fashioned bathroom suite and it required some window-opening to get a breeze into the musty atmosphere. So I made it with the usual minor dramas and high anxieties – leading to the usual sense of exhaustion. But the wifi seems strong here which is a real treat.   I have to decide how to spend tomorrow and the squaring up to the challenge of riding up that dreaded drive if I ride out somewhere.

The GPS tells me that I spent four hours riding a total of 213 miles.

Getting lost in Bedfordshire


On the warmest day probably of the year so far (about 20 C) I scrawled down some simple directions for this trip on a scrap of paper: out on the Barton road towards Sandy, turn right into Potton, which has its own brewery, then back via the Gransdens, across the Old North Road and back through Comberton. Of course it all went awry and I forgot to take the bluetooth for the GPS. Looking at the track, I can see if I had just gone another couple of hundred yards at Wrestlingworth I would have found the route back.

Lots of bikes were out today unsurprisingly and luckily only one behind me to zoom past.