BRZ OEM Navigation: Adding and using Alert Points

[PMok]

Did you know you can add alert points to the Navi, save them, and receive audible or visual alerts when you approach those points? There are a number of alert types to choose from, from things like hospitals to dangerous areas you know about. There are even alerts for traffic cameras (red light cameras) and speed cameras/speed traps. When I first saw this in the settings I got excited because I thought the Navi already had such locations stored in some database and it was just a question of turning the alert on. By default the alerts are Off and when you turn them On, it gives you a warning that using the feature might be illegal in some areas etc and are you sure. Which got my hopes up that it had some of this data already stored. But I have driven past some known and established cameras in my city and it had no indication at all. So I think the system is there for you to use but you have to program in the alert items you know of and then turn on the alert function. There’s some interesting settings you can mess with, the conditions for whether or not it gives a warning as you approach, and a speed limit above which it triggers the alert, that sort of thing.

The specific uses I see for this, is to mark known traffic cameras along my everyday routes and such to provide me a reminder/warning as I approach, especially if I am going above a certain speed. Also when I go driving on the twisty backroads, it pays to do a little pre-drive recon and maybe mark out the most tricky hairpins or other dangerous sections, to give you a little advance warning that it’s coming up. And maybe also mark spots that you happen to know that cops like to hang out and wait for you to come by speeding.

How to mark a spot: Navigate to and then touch the area on the map you want to add an Alert Point. You’ll get a little animated red spot with a red triangle pointing at it. Place that where you want, and then select More menu. Scroll down until you see the option to Add Alert Point. Choose that and then it will let you specify what kind of Alert Point it is (e.g., Speed Camera, Redlight Camera, Railroad crossing, Dangerous Area etc.)






There’s some brief mention of this feature and how to turn it on and off in the Navi manual, but it isn’t very detailed. See p. 164 of the Navi manual.


I did a quick search and didn’t see anyone else posted about this, so perhaps no one has really messed around with the OEM Subaru/Fujitsu Navigation system or bothered to mention this. I know a lot of people complain the Navi is kind of clunky and don’t bother to learn the system. I’ve felt the same way but decided to put some time into playing with it and learning it, since it’s paid for and included in the car, might as well use it best I can.

[Imperius]

Can you elaborate where did you activate those features ?
I'm looking for it with no luck !

[Kimsey47]

You must have a lot of extra time!

[PMok]

Originally Posted by Imperius

Can you elaborate where did you activate those features ?
I'm looking for it with no luck !

From the Navi screen... Menu > More... > Settings > Sound and Warnings > Alert Point settings.

like I said before it's on p.164 of the manual.

[Imperius]

I found it ok, yet what i'm really interested in is the speed limit sing and speed warning when you go above the speed limit like you would have on any Igo/Amigo GPS.

any luck with that ?

[PMok]

Originally Posted by Imperius

I found it ok, yet what i'm really interested in is the speed limit sing and speed warning when you go above the speed limit like you would have on any Igo/Amigo GPS.

any luck with that ?

Not familiar with the GPS you're talking about, but from my limited playing around with the BRZ navi, it's a 'dumb' system. It has no data about speed limits, traffic cameras, etc. to begin with. You have to manually enter each item yourself. So for instance if on your daily commute you know there's a regular spot where highway patrol or local PD hang out. And you want a reminder to stay under the speed limit. You could program an alert point at that location, and set warnings to occur if you are moving at say 40MPH+ towards that location. It's all manually input by you there is no existing data to use.

[Imperius]

wouldn't it be much easier if this DUMB GPS had the speed limit feature like the rest of them out there, and IGO in general have this feature, but for some reason every time when OEM comes to play they F... it all up. :-(

[robot]

I wonder if you can store these on an sd card and maybe pass them around?

I'm thinking it would be very useful if you could download a set of known speed cameras from waze or open street map or something else and do a conversion to the correct format and put them on your brz headunit.

[PMok]

Originally Posted by robot

I wonder if you can store these on an sd card and maybe pass them around?

I'm thinking it would be very useful if you could download a set of known speed cameras from waze or open street map or something else and do a conversion to the correct format and put them on your brz headunit.

it would be cool, but to be honest it's probably way easier to just get a dash or windshield mount for your phone, run Waze and keep it open while you drive.

[Imperius]

than why we need this HU with this GPS if its not doing its job to begin with ?

[TouchMyHonda]

Nooooo shitttttt

[DoomsdayJesus]

Thanks for posting this, I figured it was an extra feature they were going to have you pay for later (i.e. database download).

[TouchMyHonda]

If your battery dies are you fucked? Would that require re entering all the alerts? I'm in Chicago and we have hundreds of cameras I wouldn't want to have to re enter lol.

[PMok]

I don't know for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say the Navi probably saves these points on the SD card that also stores the Navi data. So if that is true then losing power will not affect the memory, it will be safe on the SD card. I'm not gonna disconnect my battery to find out though.