Scenic Motorcycle Navigation App

[Shafer]

*****please delete if this is not allowed. I don’t work for or have any affiliation with this company. 

I wanted to share an amazing motorcycle navigation route planning app I just found.

You may already know about it, so maybe I've been living under a rock. ��

The apps name is Scenic Motorcycle Navigation.

I have it for IOS (Apple) can't speak to the Android experience.

Before I found Scenic I was using Rever. It's trash compared to Scenic.

Scenic is not very user friendly at first but very easy once you take a moment to figure out how it works.

Here are some YouTube videos I watched to jump into using the app.

They are short but a little dry but great information, it's worth your time.

Link to original page on YouTube.

Link to original page on YouTube.

Cost:
You start off with 20 credits for free. Plenty to see if you like the app.

$20ish per year or $80ish for lifetime.

******OK here's what sold me*******

It has a magic feature in the power planner called round.

You set how long a ride you want, how twisty and road preference. And it randmizes a route.

You can even tell it what direction you want the random route to be created. It's made me take roads I would of never discovered before. It's amazing!

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[Alex]

Sounds pretty cool! I've been hoping that the phone nav apps would get better over time. For motorcycle route planning - especially when sharing for group rides, we've been using GPX tracks to be loaded onto Garmins or similar for over 20 years now. It works, but it's often clunky to develop the route, to make sure it is following exactly what you'd prefer, and to make sure it loads properly and identically on different people's GPS's that might have different aged maps. Then you have to deal with all of the issues one would expect when it comes down to dealing with any computing device applied to people with let's say, varying levels of IT aptitude.

Apps on a smart phone with orders of magnitude better processing power, always-on connection to the internet, and the ability to incrementally improve the app day by day due to user feedback (compared to GPS software releases that could be yearly if you're lucky), should eventually result in a better experience. It sounds like this app could be one of those things.

I don't want to mount a phone to any dash or handlebars of a motorcycle, at least not a phone I cared about - but I'm intrigued by that carplay/android auto device that has been posted up elsewhere on the board. That begs the question, can any apps like this integrate with carplay/android auto?

[Shafer]

Originally Posted by Alex

Sounds pretty cool! I've been hoping that the phone nav apps would get better over time. For motorcycle route planning - especially when sharing for group rides, we've been using GPX tracks to be loaded onto Garmins or similar for over 20 years now. It works, but it's often clunky to develop the route, to make sure it is following exactly what you'd prefer, and to make sure it loads properly and identically on different people's GPS's that might have different aged maps. Then you have to deal with all of the issues one would expect when it comes down to dealing with any computing device applied to people with let's say, varying levels of IT aptitude.

Apps on a smart phone with orders of magnitude better processing power, always-on connection to the internet, and the ability to incrementally improve the app day by day due to user feedback (compared to GPS software releases that could be yearly if you're lucky), should eventually result in a better experience. It sounds like this app could be one of those things.

I don't want to mount a phone to any dash or handlebars of a motorcycle, at least not a phone I cared about - but I'm intrigued by that carplay/android auto device that has been posted up elsewhere on the board. That begs the question, can any apps like this integrate with carplay/android auto?

Scenic makes it easy to load gpx files. I imported all my routes from the Rever app I was using. You will want to import with the way points so you can still have turn by turn navigation. If you do a straight line import you get a nice line to follow without navigation. (Ask me how I know, lol) It also allows you to download offline maps.

I'm pretty sure you can share routes also. I haven't tried that yet.

The power planner for routes makes it really easy to build the exact route you want to follow. And you can set the (I was looking at something and blew past my turn) detour settings options to fine tune to your personal preference.

I think it also has the ability to build routes on your computer using Furkot and Route You. I haven't tried it yet but will soon.

I worry about my iPhone camera on my bike experiencing the vibration of death.

I started with a Ram mount but have moved over to a Quadlock with the anti vibration dampener. Truly amazing design for protection. I'm a very picky person when it comes to phone cases and I really didn't want a proprietary Quadlock case. But I come to love the Quadlock case. The mounting indent on the back is perfect place for your fingers for holding your phone plus the case is extremely high quality and rugged.


According to Scenic's website they support Carplay. I have carplay in my Golf R I can confirm later today for you.

https://scenic.app/help/apple-carplay-support/

I'm loving the app so far, it's kind of a hidden gem. I had never heard of Scenic until I found it on a random internet forum post. I've tried just about every motorcycle navigation app and this is by far the best.

I'm pretty sure it's free to use with 20 credits to use the advanced features. I bought a one year subscription right away so I can't comment on the free version plus credits experience. I do plan on purchasing the life time option for 80ish.

[InvisiBill]

I can verify that the app does support CarPlay (on the above-mentioned device even).



I haven't really done anything with it yet, but it seems like a cool concept at least. Things like turn-by-turn directions and the Round planning cost 1 credit to try out, and they give you 20. Like Shafer originally said, it should give you enough to try things out and see how you like it.

I really hate the way everything is going to subscription models. With the lifetime option costing the same as 4 years, it's probably close for me. It's not a huge amount for lifetime, but a lot could change in the phone/app world in 4 years too. Generally speaking, I'm more likely to buy the lifetime plan for something if I find it useful (and don't expect it to die in a very short timeframe).


I recently downloaded the Roads by Porsche app too. It has an annoying thing where it takes you to an authentication webpage to login (not native to the app), and it can't do that while on CarPlay, so you have to get the app going before you connect it to CarPlay. There's not a lot in the app around here (not a lot of amazing terrain, and not a ton of Porsches either), but it seems like you could use it to find new twisty routes entered by other users.

[Bob KellyIII]

do any of these apps keep the smart phone on in real time ?
I used google maps on the phone and it turns itself off after a few minutes so it is useless to me, even with the screen saver disabled.
I haven't figured out how you guys can use these maps on the phones yet but it sure would be handy to have ! I'll admit that.... especially on the back roads where the road splits into 3 roads and they all look like the main road.... I gott'a stop pull out the phone get google maps out ...find my location, zoom in and then see where I am and zoom out to find the road I want.... it is a major P.I.T.A ! I thought seriously about a GPS because of that but having to pay yearly for a service I will only use once or twice a year is a no go for me !
.....
Bob........

[InvisiBill]

Originally Posted by Bob KellyIII

do any of these apps keep the smart phone on in real time ?
I used google maps on the phone and it turns itself off after a few minutes so it is useless to me, even with the screen saver disabled.
I haven't figured out how you guys can use these maps on the phones yet but it sure would be handy to have ! I'll admit that.... especially on the back roads where the road splits into 3 roads and they all look like the main road.... I gott'a stop pull out the phone get google maps out ...find my location, zoom in and then see where I am and zoom out to find the road I want.... it is a major P.I.T.A ! I thought seriously about a GPS because of that but having to pay yearly for a service I will only use once or twice a year is a no go for me !

At least with iPhone, I think the phone relies on a lot of its sensors to determine if the it's being used to decide whether or not to keep the screen on. While listening to music in the shower, sometimes the screen will still be on when I get out, and other times it's not. As far as I know, I'm doing it the same way every time, so I'm not sure why it gives me different results. My phone has FaceID and I have an iWatch, so during normal usage (not when I'm in the shower), I also have non-phone inputs helping it decide what to do. It's usually quite good about it, but there are occasionally times when it seems to do the exact opposite of what I want.

I've been a Waze user for 10 years or more, so I don't have much experience with other mapping apps. But I think Waze has always kept the screen from shutting off. There might also be settings in the apps themselves to enable keeping the phone awake, besides just the main settings for the whole phone. Generally speaking, I feel like all the mapping apps I've used in my car keep the iPhone screen awake. Occasionally I'll switch to a different app to check something (e.g. switching to GrubHub to see if my food is ready while I'm on my way to pick it up), and then it does shut the screen off after a while of inactivity.

Check out Motorcycle CarPlay/Android Auto screen too. With that, your phone stays in your pocket and links via Wi-Fi to a separate screen mounted on the bike. It's a lot like a dedicated GPS unit, but it just shows data from your phone rather than having an internal program/data. The screen is wired into the bike's power, and your phone saves on battery because it doesn't need to keep the screen on (plus the engine vibrations won't ruin the camera's stabilization system). Admittedly I'm a bit biased because I really like Waze, but this feels like the best of both worlds - a rugged screen hardwired to the bike, but fed updated data from your phone in realtime. The downside is that it does require your phone to do anything other than play music from a MicroSD card.

[Shafer]

Originally Posted by Bob KellyIII

do any of these apps keep the smart phone on in real time ?
I used google maps on the phone and it turns itself off after a few minutes so it is useless to me, even with the screen saver disabled.
I haven't figured out how you guys can use these maps on the phones yet but it sure would be handy to have ! I'll admit that.... especially on the back roads where the road splits into 3 roads and they all look like the main road.... I gott'a stop pull out the phone get google maps out ...find my location, zoom in and then see where I am and zoom out to find the road I want.... it is a major P.I.T.A ! I thought seriously about a GPS because of that but having to pay yearly for a service I will only use once or twice a year is a no go for me !
.....
Bob........

Yes I can confirm that the iPhone screen stay on when using.

Also got to try out the offline maps worked great and I was about to search for food and lodging destinations without cellular service.

[Guaire]

"I wanted to share an amazing motorcycle navigation route planning app I just found."

I'll look it up. I run an iPhone.

"I've been a Waze user for 10 years or more, so I don't have much experience with other mapping apps. But I think Waze has always kept the screen from shutting off."

Yes, it does! In the over crowded DC area, Waze is a great choice. It shows where the traffic flow has slowed down or even completely stopped, as it does sometimes.
I had to get home to Arlington, from uptown DC. 16th Street and others were plugged up heading south. WAZE showed me a route that was a mob scene or a parking lot.

[Shafer]

Originally Posted by Guaire

"I wanted to share an amazing motorcycle navigation route planning app I just found."

I'll look it up. I run an iPhone.

"I've been a Waze user for 10 years or more, so I don't have much experience with other mapping apps. But I think Waze has always kept the screen from shutting off."

Yes, it does! In the over crowded DC area, Waze is a great choice. It shows where the traffic flow has slowed down or even completely stopped, as it does sometimes.
I had to get home to Arlington, from uptown DC. 16th Street and others were plugged up heading south. WAZE showed me a route that was a mob scene or a parking lot.

Waze is my choice for when I'm driving the cage for simple point a to b. It's not helpful for planning a multi point motorcycle trip.