Digital Compass

[CharBaby]

Due to the fact that my vehicle(as in the past) do not have an Auto Dimming Mirror w/Compass &/or Outside Temp, I would like to find/purchase JUST the digital compass that can be mounted inside the car, hopefully w/o wiring into the fuse box. Battery operated will be fine.

However, I am looking for a well made compass(just compass, not mirror) that is accurate, lighted at night and NOT close to the cost of a complete auto dimming mirror w/said compass.

Any ideas are welcome and if you have any personally experience is even better.

Thanks,

CB

 

[Rand]

How often do you need one? they have smart phone apps for that if its very occasional use.

They have a few options on amazon but most have terrible reviews.. or are more for hiking than car.

 

[csandste]

This is one of the things I miss in going from my Buick Encore to my Soul. I downloaded a number of apps but couldn't get any that calibrated-- all over the place. Of course I spent just a few minutes fooling around with them. If I remember correctly, all of them were wildly off, but the same as each other. Interested in suggestions. Don't need a compass very often, but they do come in handy occasionally.

 

[csandste]

Took a quick tour of Amazon. Lots of dash mounted compasses, mostly mechanical, and almost all of them get horrible reviews. One and two stars, I guess cars are magnetic traps and accurate car compasses have to be part of the car to work accurately???

 

[CharBaby]

Mainly because I just like having a compass to glance at quickly. Yes, I know that I can have it on my cell phone and I also have GPS but simply put, I just want one to glance at quickly.

 

[Snagglefoot]

There is also a GPS compass unit on Amazon that looks interesting.

 

[SHOZ]

Your gps doesn't have a directional arrow?

 

[Eddie]

My old Subaru Forester had a compass. You had to drive around in a circle slowly to calibrate it. Supposedly, that negated the cars metal effects and it worked very well. Ed

 

[vwmaniaman]

I had manual compasses in my cars for years. After 3 or 4 days they all pointed East. They weren't near a speaker either. It was me doing it cause my wife would use one first and it would work good. My Dad gave me one that he used in his car and it did the same thing. Who knows??

 

[E150GT]

What I did on my last car and plan to do on this car is get a compass and mirror that is autodimming from the junkyard. The last one I got out of a Saturn. I installed in my cx5. I liked it. There aren’t any real good compass options out there. What irks me is that without the GPS SD card installed in my Mazda, the headunit has a digital compass and even an altimeter, but as soon as you install the SD card it disappears. It would have been really nice to have that. I like the altimeter. There’s no clean option for cars to put one in unless you make one yourself with arduino.

 

[Wolf359]

I have them in both cars. In a previous car, I did buy a mirror on ebay that had the compass feature and what people did was tap into the power for the dome lights to power it. Never got around to installing it. I don't even use the compass that's in the car now. Just might not be as useful as you think as others said, with a GPS, you don't really need to know the direction.

 

[CharBaby]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Your gps doesn't have a directional arrow?


I don't always use GPS!
I just like having something to glance at while I'm driving as when viewing through the rear view mirror.

 

[KrisZ]

I know you said electronic, but personally I had good luck with these types. Cheap and easy to install.

 

[dishdude]

Just do the mirror! None of those add ons work. Donnelly and Gentex make them, look factory and do just what you want but require 12v. Super easy to run wire down the A pillar to the fuse box though (on most cars). You can use a tap that plugs into a switched fuse slot so you don't need to splice any wires.

 

[WhyMe]

if your vehicles had a mirror compass as an option, many times the wiring is already there . i would do some research and see and if they do try to find a factory mirror or one that fits like oem.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

You can get GPS-based standalone systems to install in your car. Perfectly accurate compass, heading, vehicle speed (1/10 mph), etc. Some operate with a Heads Up Display (HUD) to project the information on your windshield.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Did without it for sixty eight years and didn't miss a thing.

 

[Kamele0N]

Any handheld garmin device has it (Oregon...Montana...)

 

[CharBaby]

Originally Posted By: KrisZ
I know you said electronic, but personally I had good luck with these types. Cheap and easy to install.

Yeah, I have several of these but, I don't like'em.

 

[Mitch]

I still have an old "Airguide" compass in my FJ40