Video: Testing the Honda Fit's Navigation App

In fact, on the Honda Fit, if you want navigation, you have to step up your game to the EX-L and spend just under $22,000 with destination. Our Fit just a little over 19, but no nav. So what are you going to do? Well, this very nice, very high quality seven inch touch screen will allow you to integrate a factory type of navigation system, but it's not through traditional means. In fact, we have to use this adapter and this phone, and we'll get a factory like navigation system in our Honda Fit EX. The Honda Fit has an HDMI port in it. and through that port, a digital AV adapter, and a Honda specific navigation app, you're able to port navigation directly from your phone into the seven inch touch screen. And that's going to cost you about 160 bucks. It's $60 for the app and the adapter is about a hundred dollars. The secret to all of this is the HondaLink. Now HondaLink is standard on the EX and first you're going to have to download the HondaLink app which is separate than the navigation app and it'll let you use numerous features with HondaLink in the car. So first we're going to assemble the cable, which is an HDMI port there, the lightening in a USB, and then one end plugged into the iPhone and the other is going to plug in to the HDMI port and USB cables underneath the climate controls. and once that is plugged in, you can start HondaLink. On the Fit screen it'll ask you do you want to start HondaLink on your phone? And of course yes. And there it is, popping up. Once HondaLink launches you have the option of navigation in the screen. And clicking on navigation will bring up the app. Once a nav is up it's surprisingly very similar to a factory navigation system in how it looks just the graphics, the way the buttons are laid out. Everything is really easy to read, which is better than a lot of factory navigation systems. Once the map is up on the screen, everything is done through the seven inch touch screen, including entering destinations, changing routes, all settings, that is all done through the touch screen. And it works pretty well, pretty fast too, especially like how when you enter a destination, you can enter the number, the street, the city, the zip code, everything just right from one screen. It doesn't ask you a series, all right, enter the city now enter the zip code, now enter the street, now into the street address like a lot of factory navigation systems do. It's not completely quirk free though, however. When you're driving and someone sends a text message, this actually goes blank. You lose your navigation whenever someone sends you a text message and says, when it's safe, check your phone. Once the phone is hooked up you're kind of left with a lot of awkward slack in the cable and there's no designated spot to put it so you kind of have to coil it up and then shove it in the storage compartment. It's very graceful how it all kind of just fits in there. It's not. And then it takes up a pretty usable storage cubby. There's gotta be a better way to store your phone when it's connected like that. There are still some quirks, but I really like the potential of integrating navigation from your phone to the Fitz screen in this application, $60 is still a lot to ask for a navigation app though, especially when you know, they'd come free on your phone and not quite ready to give up my suction cup mount for using navigation, especially because phones are just so big now you still have a big screen to look at, but maybe in a few versions down the road we'll be ready to use HondaLink and this navigation app exclusively. (car trunk closes)