Peaklife GPS

Hello,

The pic of extrernal power pad (look inside). Two left pins (red wire) for the DC power and two right pins (black wire) for tew Ground/DC-. The fifth middle PIN intended for Antena.
Unfortunately I was not able to find if it is some sort of industry-standard or proprietary one.

Best Regards,
Vlad

Hello,

As you can see on this picture the water can get inside only though the gap between the rear case and the speaker's platform. It looks like mine attached too tightly but anyway it could be good idea to add the silicon along the dash red line.
The sole serious problem with this device is that I can't pair it neither to the SR10 (Sena) nor to <s>F4 </s>legacy Interphone headset. In both cases I get the message "Connection failed".

Update 03.05.2012
It seems that both either the first generation BlueAnt Interphone (bluetooth v1.2) headset or SR10 support only the HFP, HSP bluetooth profiles and don't support A2DP which may be the only option for Peaklife.

Personal opinion:

Pros.
Good price
Good quality
Fast CPU
Perfect gps signal reception
Variety of GPS software for Windows CE5

Cons:
No support from vendor
Bluetooth is not working (tested only with the SR10 and first generation BlueAnt Interphone (v1.2, HSP, HFP))

Best Regards,
Vlad

I had tried kml files but when imported to the unit it makes thousands of waypoints along the route as opposed to just the few I had used to make the route, this makes it very hard to see the route and almost impossible to change the route once on the unit. Any hints on a fix for this would be great.

Just sold the bike I had hardwired this unit on and have ordered another unit for the new ride, still very happy with it especially at around 15% the cost of an equivalent Garmin ! Just goes to show how much these units actually cost to make versus what they are sold for (by Garmin) .....

Sorry to bring this back up but has anyone put OS maps like memory map we have in the uk on it , i already have TOMTOM installed and would to run OS maps also.

Guys, need the wisdom of the forum.

Can I load City Navigator, Tracks for Australia, Oztopo 2.1b, Shonky Maps, and the standard basemap and select them individually on the 'Peaklife' GPS or is this beyond it and my capabilities. It looks like a well made unit but I'm lost.

When I look at the higher priced Garmin Units (rino,montano) I find faults with these. This is alright but some of their GPS retail close to $1000:eek1. This is alot of money if it gets damaged.

I know other inmates have loaded the above maps on a Garmin and if I can't figure out how to do it, the fall back would be to pay for Garmin upgrades ( like $99.00 to GPSOZ and have upgrades like V4 of Oztopo maps installed).

Sorry to seem needy but I really need to know what the 'Peaklife' is capable of and some blokes here seem to like them enough to be on their 2nd one. Cheers in advance.

there are two kinds of maps, vector based and bitmap based and gps units are only designed to accept one type (far as i know). all garmin maps and shonky maps are vector, where the images are made up of lines and various shapes. most other gps units use bitmap images, meaning every map is actually like a photo, e.g. made up of pixels so you need to access different images when you zoom in and out.

i think garmin gets away with charging a lot because the good offroad maps are almost all vector based. the exception i know of is oziexplorer maps but they cost a fair bit and there's a bit of a learning curve with their software. a quick google shows you can load oziexplorer on to the peaklife.

i'm a budget too, i got a garmin 1450t from dick smiths for $150 and a ram mount from ebay for $50. five inch screen, you can load up shonky maps for free and get the free garmin mapsource software for your pc then plan and upload custom routes to your gps. only drawback is its not waterproof so carry a clear plastic bag and a twist tie around.

their cheapest waterproof gps is the garmin nuvi 550 for $300. i think they are discontinued now but you can still get new ones on ebay.

All gps units are just mini computers. The software dictates whether they run vector or raster(bitmap) based maps. Garmin, Igo, TomTom are vector whilst Oziexplorer is raster. If you know what your'e doing and are prepared to muck around out of curiosity you can get all these programs to run on these units. Best to stick with units that have ce5 and not ce6 as it will be easier. Bluetooth problems arise when the unit is programmed to a particular passcode which a corresponding headset also has. The old Aldi m/c units are great to play with and are waterproof. Same physical case as the tomtom rider and strike gps. The earlier units had ce5 but not bluetooth, while the 2nd gen had ce6 and bluetooth, but tied to the headset.

Just bought a senna smh 10 to work with this device but cannot pair it, i have tired a few different bluetooth devices like a mobile phones, they show the device when trying to pair bit i keep getting "pairing failed " , anyone able to help ?
Thanks

Hi all,

I recently bought one of these from Chinavision after reading the views on this forum and I have to say, it's awesome!!!
I loaded igoPrimo onto it as it came with no software then put NZ/AUS maps on it no worries....the POI's on the maps I used don't work too well, but I can live with that.
If anyone needs a hand with info about how to do all this, let me know and I'll see if I can be of assistance.

www.bikehike.co.uk is a decent site to use to create your maps as it recognizes forest trails and the such from all over the world, I then save the file as a kml, then import it into google maps to add waypoints that the GPS can follow. May seem a long way around of doing it, but seems to be one of the only ways of putting forest trails and the like on the maps I use...

End of the day, it is a great/cheap unit that should work for long enough!!

I also bought one of these, $126 delivered. I expected a light flimsy device, but it is actually quite heavy, and the handlebar mount is is diecast aluminium, which I expected to be plastic.
So far I'm only riding dirt country roads, and it works great. For the price it is the difference between having one or not, as a Zumo is just not on the budgetary horizon. Prefer a new set of tyres.

I just wanted something that told me where I was, and easy to use, and on both counts it succeeds. When I bought mine, I just asked whether Australian maps were included, and they quickly responded and said no problem, and trued to their word, I just turned it on and it worked, nothing else to do, which is all I wanted. I really did not want to mess about loading this and that and rooting etc etc. I found a stray plug under the seat of my BMW F650GS, and wired it to that, taking advantage of the wiring loom, and the GPS software automatically goes into a 10 second shutdown routine when I turn the ignition off, which I really like, avoiding having to press the button on the side for 5 seconds to turn it off.

I have a 5" chinese GPS in my car, also IGo8, so it was dejavu for me, but this version has a march larger arrow head so that it it quick to find in a quick glance. I haven't messed with the Bluetooth side of it, or the MP3 player, but it does have quite loud sound for a small gadget.

Like someone else said, if I get a few years out of, I will be very pleased, and happy to upgrade when the time comes. Its easy to use, accurate, and does the job for a really cheap price. Recommended!

This sounds like something I'm looking for. As it runs Windows CE5 it should be able to run Oziexplorer (which I've been running on an HP Ipaq for years now).
How does this go in sunlight, is the screen easy to read or (as in the case for my IPAQ) near impossible to see in the day?

just bought one from china and was worried about the maps. no need it came with maps of australia and am amazed at all the extras.:

Just got mine today... definately a lot heavier (substantial) than I expected. Screen is the same size as the Ipaq PDA I'd been using. Loaded up Oziexplorer and maps. The short test on the way home, it seems to pick up satellites reasonably fast and thus location pretty quick. So far so good.
2 mounting kits (1 handlebar, 1 windscreen).
The supplied OS utils are typical Chinese software, it works, but pretty crap. However this is not why I bought it, so it shouldn't really be an issue.
Things to change...
boot up screen. It's sold as a motorcycle gps, so why is there a picture of a car???
ability to turn off the bluetooth, currently it doesn't look like it can be turned off.
ability to select different gps programs from startup. It would be nice to have choice of tomtom and oziexplorer.

overall, looks ok, will need to wait till the weekend to wire up to the bike and test it more.

I have installed OziexplorerCE and it looks like its all running ok. But when I turn on the find a gps location it says it finds one and goes back to the map. But it isn't showing the location and then it freezes. Anyone had the same issue?

Recently got one. Fantastic deal for $122CDN especially considering all the included mounting hardware for bike and car (bike power supply, car power supply, bike cradle, car cradle, handle bar mount, windshield mount), the water proof and shock proof case, and the glove operable touch screen. Never got charged taxes either for some reason. Hardware is of very good quality and installed Igo Primo which seems like good quality software. Also installed Navtec map files for North America which work well.

Is there an easy way to export custom routes to this unit?

Voice prompts are terrific. Unit is water proof after two rides in the rain and shock proof after a few drops on pavement from waist height.

Recently installed on the bike with a SW-Motech mounting plate designed for the Garmin Zumo. The holes lined up with the Peaklife motorcycle cradle but I had to use my grinder to take 2mm off the top lip of the plate to allow for a protrusion from the cradle for the power cable.

Feel free to PM me if you need software help.

Sorry about the picture quality my camera phone over exposed.

Hello Normlas,

Would you mind explaining how you made Tomtom Work on the Peaklife GPS unit. I am struggling. I have Tomtom Navigator 7.910.9185 and the lastest maps 865, 885 and 895 and it just wont work. Once I select a map it either crashes or tells me that the Activation failed.

Your support would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

I finally figures out how to make it work. I still have one question though. I don't seem to see any Bluetooth option within the Tomtom preferences. Did you managed to make Bleutooth work?

Cheers and thanks for the answer.

Hiya Polanskiman, sorry but I never got the bluetooth to work because the headset I had was stuffed, I've since sold the bike with the peaklife and when I ordered another one from chinavision they had sold out - I ended up forking out for a garmin Nuvi, spent around $400 and wish it was as good as the peaklife - the Nuvi is a huge disapointment.

Hey Normlas,

Thanks a bunch for your answer. Bluetooth seems to be a problem with this version of Tomtom Navigation. I actually managed to make it somehow work. I first have to pair the headset with the Peaklife, then launch Tomtom. This however is less than ideal as Tomtom is not managing the Bluetooth in any way and therefore I cannot listen to my MP3s while hearing the Tomtom's guidance instructions...they just overlap in terms of volume. IGO8 however manages this nicely and reduces the MP3 volume when necessary but I really don't like IGO. It is more complicated and has loads of options unnecessary specially on a motorcycle.

Why didn't you go for the Tomtom Rider Pro? It seems to be a good GPS...apart from the price of course!!

Cheers.

PS: did you managed,when you had the Peaklife, to Access Win CE OS?

iGo Primo, which is the latest version of iGo is even better. It is the software I would recommend for this unit. It uses Navtec maps.