July 19, 2007

TomTom GO 920 - Advanced Traffic Reporting

The GO 920 should have a the same form factor as the GO 720 (above).

UPDATE: The TomTom 920 and 920T have been officially announced. While they do not have advanced traffic capabilities as speculated here they do have some pretty cool features and TMC traffic capability.
OK I've been sitting on this for a while, but with yesterday's announcement by Inrix, I have to let this one fly.... My guess is that TomTom is readying their new TomTom GO 920 to be an advanced traffic enabled GPS that will hit the market this Fall, which will include GPRS, TMC, and/or HD Radio traffic reporting capabilities as well historical average speed data from Inrix.

This will not be the only unit in the marketplace like this, as I believe that Garmin is working on a similar device that I already speculated would be something like the Nuvi 700 or maybe even the Nuvi 690. It too would use historical average speeds to create a different class of GPS units, and bring the next level of innovation to the market.

Why the TomTom GO 920? See after the jump...

The GO 720 upgrade was announced with no mention of the GO 920; there must be one in the pipeline; you don't just forget to upgrade the top of the line model.

TeleAtlas, TomTom's primary map provider, teamed up with Inrix recently to bundle historical average speeds with map data.

Yesterday the CEO of Inrix, Brian Mistele said, "The demand from leading auto navigation suppliers and portable navigation and mobile device OEMs for this product has been so strong that the first navigation devices using our historical traffic will ship this fall."

Finally, why the non-GPRS technology (TomTom PLUS through your phone)? There is plenty of momentum in the traffic area around TMC traffic over the FM band. The US market is not saturated with data plan enabled Bluetooth phones, which in my opinion has hurt the adoption of the TomTom units in the US. They are offering TMC on the new TomTom GO 720.

I would predict that the unit would retail above the planned $499 for the GO 720, so think about $699+, and it would most likely be in the same flat form factor as the GO 720. No inside information here, just connecting the dots on reports and happenings in the press.

Should be a fun ride, I can't wait. At the rate of innovation that Mio has been working at, I wouldn't be surprised if they are readying an Inrix/TeleAtlas powered advanced traffic model too. Garmin may also be there, and let's hope so for consumer's sake; competition is good! Look to Garmin to consider a NAVTEQ/Traffic.com powered unit.

How accurate are my predictions?
Not bad, but not great; I essentially predicted a lot of changes last year when I wrote about the "8 things I would do if I were TomTom". Check them out, a lot have been done. I am still waiting for my prediction to come true of the Garmin Nuvi 380, an MSN enabled narrow screen product. We'll see.