GPS features to look for the next time I buy

I have bought many electronic gadgets over the years. I don't even remember many of them, and others sit unused and unloved. I didn't need them, I didn't use them, and if they disappeared I wouldn't miss them. Others might be something I need now and then, but wouldn't be in any great rush to replace.

There are few things that are so obviously essential that, if lost, I would run out the same day to buy again. One of them is our Keurig Coffee machine. I can't live without that. Well, I can, but you don't want to know me without coffee in my veins.

The other is our GPS.

We have a little Garmin Nuvi 250. That's a low end GPS that I bought because we were planning a cross country trip. Well, the recession and some other things killed that trip, but having the GPS made us realize how neat it is to have something in the car that tells us what to do.

Yes, I know:  that's what my wife is for.  Yes, very funny.  But her sense of direction is beyond awful, so really, the GPS is great.

Until we had this, we did not understand why they are so great to have. I also misunderstood how they work - I thought there was always a monthly subscription fee attached, and we do not want any more monthly fees. I also had not been paying attention to prices - when I bought the Garmin, I had expected to pay $300 or more and of course did not.

However, as wonderful as even this basic unit is, there are features I would like it to have. Some are available in higher priced units right now, but others, though technically feasible, don't seem to be. That's one of the reasons I'm in no rush to replace what we have; like everything else in electronics, GPS units get better and cheaper every year.

The GPS Features I Want

Internet connectivity and API

Yes, I am even willing to pay monthly for this as long as it also acts as a base station so that I can use my iPad or computer through it if I need to.

Having that access opens up a world of possibilities. The obvious ones like fuel prices, weather and real time traffic are already available, of course, but I'd like to see it go farther. After all, these really are just little computers - why not offer an API and an app capability like iPhones and Droids?

No, I do NOT want to have my phone be the GPS. The GPS needs to stay in the car. The GPS gets used by both of us, separately or together.

However: if both our phones had all the GPS capabilities we want AND each could transfer new destinations and so on to the other AND it could function as a hand free phone while acting as a GPS, then yes, the phone can be my GPS. We just need something to mount it on the dash.

But I still want it to be able to serve as a base station (Wireless Access Point).

Quick Routing Switching

Even our low end Garmin can calculate routes based on shortest distance or shortest time, but it is a pain to switch between them. I'd like to be able to make that switch by voice command.

Route Overview

When I do make a switch like that, I'd like to be able to get a quick voice run through of how it is planning to go. It may be that I know I definitely do not want to be on Rte 44 today, so I want to know if that is part of the planned route.

And with that in mind..

Route Avoidance

If it does include Rte 44 or Summer Street or whatever, I'd like to be able to say "No Summer Street" and have it route around that.

Speaking of detours:

Smarter Detours

If there is a bad jam on Rte 495 between two exits, ideally I'd just like to route around those two exits - I don't necessarily want to be put on Rte 106 for a very long ride home. Give me a way to say that.

I think the smart way is to have "Detour" mean "Try to find a way back to the route I am on after avoiding what is in front of me now" and if I really mean to avoid the road entirely, then "No Route 495" should take care of that.

Learning

I so want my next GPS to learn. I understand that's available in current units - Garmin says

.. automatically learns daytime trends for traffic flow to improve your routes and better predict your estimated time of arrival based on time of day and day of week. will, over time, begin to figure out where you’re going even without your telling it!

Yeah, I want that. But I also want it to realize that if I'm driving and it thinks I'm in the ocean or the woods, there must be a new road or bridge it doesn't know about and it should learn that. Possibly it should ASK, just in case I have done something odd that I wouldn't want it to consider as a route on another day, but learning is important.

Fuel Efficency

This one might be a little tougher, but I'd like this as another choice to add to Faster Time and Shorter distance.

Get Me Oriented

Garmin has this:

"Where Am I?" emergency locator, you always know your location. Simply tap the screen to get your exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and fuel stations.

Show me the speed limit

If it knows how long this route will take, it must know the speed limit. Show me, or tell me if I'm exceeding it.

Customizable display

I'd like to be able to customize my display. My Garmin can show my current speed and it is actually easier to read that than my speedometer. But it's not on the main display, and I'd like it to be. Let me decide what I want displayed where

Talk to my computer

I'd like to be able to send it destinations from my computer - we've just found the store that has the thing we want, why shouldn't I be able to "print" the address to my GPS - and no, I don't want to go get it and hook up a cable. I want to send that address to a server and when I turn on the GPS have it go look for that.

As long as we have this, I'd like to be able to change a preset route by dragging as you can with Google maps directions.

Multi Destination Smart Routing

My Garmin has one Via Point, and newer units let you set multiple Via Points, but I want something much smarter than that. Let's say we are heading to our daughters, but we need to stop at BJ's on the way.

Which BJ's? Whichever one is closest to the route we are going to take. I don't want to add a specific BJ's, I want to add whichever one makes sense based on where we are and where we are going.

More than that, if we need to stop at BJ's AND a supermarket, I want it to figure out what makes the best sense for that - and i do NOT necessarily want to specify Shaw's or Stiop and Shop, I just need any old supermarket somewhere along the way. It might be useful if it showed me some choices and let me pick, and of course if one of those fuzzy destinations was a gas station, I'd want to see prices.

It would be great to be able to get phone numbers too.

Bad neighborhoods?

This wasn't on my wish list, but apparently Microsoft has patented "avoiding unsafe neighborhoods". Although that does raise the spectre of racial profiling and perhaps even more, I have to admit that there are neighborhoods I would not want to drive through and I would not mind being routed around them. In fact, I will route myself around them, overriding the GPS directions. Still, this is a little creepy.

Lane Assist

This is also available now - it gives you more detail in tricky areas where you might otherwise end up hearing "Recalculating.." and see the arrival time suddenly jump thirty minutes.

This is done with "photo realistic junction views".

I don't want much, do I?

Yeah, I know. I'm asking for a lot. But none of it is impossible at all, so why not? I am not aware of any current unit at any price that gives me all this, but I bet it will be available soon.

So, Garmin (or Apple, or whomever) , get on it. I'm ready to buy again as soon as you give me every bit of it,