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How to customize navigation messages

Bernhard Friess shared this question 3 years ago
Answered

Hi All,

I'd like to customize the navigation announcements provided by Locus Map either when I've planned a route on Locus Map or if I imported a track and navigate along the track.

The background is that I own a cheap smartwatch Amazfit Bip (costs less than EUR 50,-), which is an interesting piece of technology. It has GPS and GLONASS support built in and it shines with a battery lifetime of approx 2 weeks or even more!

Now there is an app Notify for Amazfit wich allows to display the navigation announcements generated by Locus Map on the watch.

It would be great to navigate with this technology having the smartphone in the pocket and get e.g. 10m before a turnpoint a message: "after 10m right" and then perhaps 5m before the turnpoint "after 5m right" or anything similar.

The problem with the current verison of Locus Map is that the navigation announcements are repeated whenever anything changes and when I'm hiking, my position is constantly changing with the effect that I get navigation announcements contiously on the watch, which makes it rather useless.

Couldn't there be a manual configuration exposed through the config file enabled by a simple yes/no switch?

Do I overlook any configuration option already available in Locus Map?

I'm looking forward to all of your feedback!


Best regards


Bernhard

Replies (4)

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1

Hi Bernhard,

"the navigation announcements are repeated whenever anything changes... I get navigation announcements contiously on the watch..."

- when Locus Map navigates along an imported route, it generates the navigation commands according to the shape of the route because it doesn't know where the intersections are. The number of commands can be decreased in settings > navigation > advanced settings > frequency of commands.

When you start navigation via the "Navigate to" feature or along a route made by the Route planner, the navigation commands are only before intersections.

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1

Hi Michal,

Many thanks for your reply. However it seems that the software doesn't work the way one would expect! And to be honest and transparent, I'm not a Android developer so I'm not familiar with the available mechanics and APIs between an like Locus Maps Pro and the Android OS.

However it seems as if Locus Maps Pro delivers navigation messages to the OS from where an App like "Notify for Amazfit" can pick the messages and transfer them to the Amazfit Bip watch.

That is at least what I could observe. What I could observe as well is that the message picked by "Notify for Amazfit" and transfered to the watch is identical with the marked area in the attached screenshots.

Now, whenever a distance in the message changes, which is nearly constantly when I e.g. walk towards the next turning point, the message is updated accordingly and the updated message is picked by "Notify for Amazfit" and transferred to the watch.

It would be great if I could get a configuration option to effectively limit the navigation messages e.g. to 10m before next turing point. But I haven't figured out how. Any hint is welcome!


Best regards


Bernhard

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2

Hi Bernhard,

notifications of the turns during navigation are triggered at certain time intervals before the turn. Default values are 300s, 35s and 15s. These can be modified in the Locus configuration file "config.cfg", stored in the main /Locus/directory. Open the file in a text editor, find the parameter "navigation_announcements_times" and change the values as you need.

best regards

Michal

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1

Hi Michal,

Many thanks for the hint!

I came across this configuration option already but couldn't configure it in a way that it suits my expectations.

What would be the right configuration entry in config.cfg to generate only a single notification per turn-point?

Here is what I currently have:

# NAVIGATION
# --------------------------------

# times before command, when Locus notify (in seconds), default is: 15|35|300
# navigation_announcements_times=15|35|300
navigation_announcements_times=0|0|10
I would expect to get a single notification per turn point 10s before I reach the point when approaching it. Is my assumption or my understanding correct?

If so, what happens if I have two turn points on my route closely together so that the expected arrival the second turn point is less then 10s expected after I have reached the first one?

I'd like to better understand the mechanics and then test it again and provide feedback about my experience. Ok?

I'm looking forward to your feedback, many thanks in advance!

Best regards

Bernhard

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2

No need to insert 0 values. If you need only one notification insert just one, e. g. navigation_announcements_times=10. Notification of the second turn comes right after the first turn, no matter how far it is, provided it is closer than the set interval (10s in your case).

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1

Many thanks for the fast feedback. Will try it out and play with it a bit. Will then return and report my experience :)

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2

There should be a way using tasker and plugins

https://help.amazfittools.com/knowledge_base/topics/amazfit-tools-plugins-tasker-automagic


This is a similar topic which im working on using tasker

https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/wear-os-navigation-is-there-an-option-to-get-a-voicesoundvibration-feedback-at-turns

I dont have an amazfit, but using tasker to customise the smartwatchwatch notifications to your requirements is the main aim thats common to both

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