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Magic Earth and spurious closures (poptalk.scrubbles.tech)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've tried Magic Earth a handful of times, but each time I dumped it because it marked a street as closed or wrong-way, creating a circuitous detour. There's no such issue in OSM; it simply hallucinated something.

I was testing it so I knew where I was going, but I'm reluctant to rely on it when I really need nav. Have I been supremely unlucky?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I've never had a problem with magic earth, personally. They have a feature that allows users to report road closures, speed cameras, etc... What may be happening is that a user local to your area is falsely reporting things for one reason or another. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there is a whole lot to do about this. It might be worth contacting the company about it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The user reported events don't directly affect routing AFAIK.

I share your experience though, no problems for me yet. Their FAQ ~~heavily~~ mentions that you should contact them in case any of the data is wrong.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I've experienced the same. Contacted them and no solution was given. I quit using it because it's useless to navigate around my city.

I had to contact them 3 times in 3 months to get a reply, and this is what they said:

we've checked and it's a quite difficult case.

There is a roadblock (data coming from our traffic data provider) which refers to a bridge in construction.

OpenStreetMap does not have this bridge. So the roadblock data is decoded as if it was referring to the nearby streets. (check attachment) We cannot disable the roadblock data individually. I'll add the bridge to the OSM data and it should hopefully fix the issue.

Fortunately, they also attached a screenshot showing the closed bridge drawn on top of what I assumed is the software they use, next to Google Maps where the bridge is mapped and marked as closed. I quickly checked OpenStreetMap and... the bridge was mapped and marked as closed. It just seems the software they use doesn't download closed ways and they just mark as closed whatever road is nearby what has been reported by their traffic data provider. I quickly replied to advice against editing the correct data on OpenStreetMap. It's been more than one year and the issue is still there. They don't seem to care.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

One of the first times I used it I ended up 30 minutes away from my destination while it INSISTED I was AT my destination.

I've been looking for alternatives ever since, but it seems with Android Auto no matter what you install and use, Maps still gets your data, so I'm kinda ready to just throw in the towel, or get an iPhone just for nav or something ... not sure, I've put a pin in it for now.

Seems getting away from it will be the right move for me though based on your experience!