The suction-cupped Garmin and TomTom dashboard guide that said 'recalculating' until free smartphone apps like Google Maps gave directions for nothing.
Born
2004 CE
Died
2015 CE
Lived
11 years
Dead for
11 yrs
At its peak
Garmin and TomTom shipped tens of millions of units a year in the late 2000s
Cause of death
Replaced
Replaced by
Smartphone navigation (Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps)
The Obituary
The portable navigation device (PND), sold mainly by Garmin and TomTom, briefly owned the car dashboard. From around 2004 these suction-cupped screens used GPS satellites and stored maps to give turn-by-turn voice directions, and “recalculating” after a wrong turn became a familiar refrain. Sales ran to tens of millions a year by the late 2000s. Then smartphones added free mapping apps with live traffic and constant updates, and the standalone unit had no advantage left. PND sales fell sharply through the 2010s, surviving mostly in trucking and outdoor handhelds.
Worth remembering
A synthesized voice and a suction-cup windshield mount became standard road-trip equipment.
'Recalculating' after a missed turn became a small, weary cultural catchphrase.
Gallery
TomTom Go 720 portable automotive GPS navigation devicePublic domainTomTom Go 500 handheld car GPS navigation unitDarren Meacher · CC BY 3.0
Watch
1986: Satellite navigation for cars of the future — BBC Archive Tomorrow's World
Sources
Portable navigation devices from Garmin and TomTom boomed in the mid-2000s Wikipedia
Smartphone mapping apps caused a steep decline in standalone PND sales Wikipedia
Free Google Maps and Apple Maps on smartphones made dedicated Garmin and TomTom navigation units redundant, collapsing the standalone GPS market. Network World
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.
Buried nearby — by shared fate or a neighbouring lifespan.
