My Commute: a step-by-step guide

Published by Adam Fraser on August 3, 2012

To ensure you get to your destination in super-quick time, My Commute was recently delivered to Nokia Lumia via the latest Nokia Drive update. While this is currently being rolled out in the United States, the feedback Nokia receives will go on to improve the service and see more releases around the world.

Download Nokia Drive now

  1. Press the Search button on your Nokia Lumia and then tap Vision
  2. Scan the barcode
  3. Tap on the link when it appears on the screen
  4. Install the application from the Windows Phone Marketplace

As most people’s journey times to and from work occur at the same time each day, the roads at these times can become congested. Rush hour is the bane of many people’s lives and My Commute aims to help you avoid it.

My Commute takes live traffic data from local authorities and also from all Nokia Drive users, including other Nokia Lumia, Nokia N9 and Symbian users. It’s then delivered it to your Nokia Lumia smartphone. Your phone knows where you are using your GPS and My Commute with Nokia Drive uses that live traffic data to automatically find you an alternative route if an accident occurs up ahead, or if there’s a traffic jam. You don’t have to do anything other then follow the route and you’re at work in time for the daily meeting or home in time for dinner.

Because it’s only available in the US at the moment, it’s left some unanswered questions. The main question being “how does it work?” For the curious – or impatient – among you, here’s our step-by-step guide on how to use My Commute in Nokia Drive.

Once you’ve installed and opened the new version of Nokia Drive, you’ll be prompted to setup My Commute. If for some reason this doesn’t happen or you accidentally skip the process, follow these steps: Settings > My Commute > Perform the Quickstart setup. Let’s crack on with the rest of the walk-through.

Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820

Our first Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Be a part of it.

As My Commute is designed to navigate you through your daily driving commute in record time, you’ll be asked to create your starting point for your journey. Seeing as most of us set off to work from home every day, select your home address in field 1.

My Commute define home My Commute define work

The next vital piece of information to fill into field 2 is to input is your work address.

Then, field 3 is where you’ll tell My Commute what time you typically leave your house in the morning, and also what time you leave work to return home.

My Commute define time My Commute confirm

Once you’ve created your commute route hit the pin to start button at the bottom. This will make your everyday journey to the office much easier and quicker.

My Commute Live Tile

The My Commute Live Tile will now sit on your home screen and will do nothing for most of the day. It only springs into action an hour before you’re due to leave the house or office. The Live tile will let you know if there are any problems on the journey and inform you if you need to adjust your travelling time.

The best bit about My Commute is that you can program as many Commutes as you want or need. With My Commute you can create one route manually using the steps above, or if you require more routes your phone can learn them automatically. You simply have to drive there, and My Commute learns. But for a commute to be automatically added, you need to drive there twice.

In future when you make a journey your phone will know what journey you’ll be taking because of your current location and the time of day you’ll be there.

My Commute learns from each and every journey you take. It’s always looking for quicker and easier routes for you to take, so the more you use it, the better it gets. We’d suggest that even if you know the journey like the back of your hand, set up My Commute and have it study your journey for you; you might be surprised if it can find you a new, faster route.

All the details: Nokia Lumia 800

All about our stunning new smartphone.

The specs; the price; the facts

You can use My Commute in other scenarios, too, not just to and from work. It’s for any regular journey. You may drive your kids to football practice every Friday night – use My Commute. You might take a yoga class out of town twice a week – use My Commute. You may even be a truck driver delivering goods to the same place day in, day out – use My Commute

With your help, use and feedback, My Commute will be used to create the best driving-experience not just for yourself, but for everybody else who uses it.

Are you in the USA and used My Commute yet? Let us know how you’re getting on with it and if it’s got you to your destination on time, one week on from it being released, in the comments section below.

Comments

  • http://twitter.com/Desc427 Sorin Marcu

    Badly i’m in Germany, looking forward to get it.

  • http://twitter.com/heendrik25 Hendrik

    I’m also in Germany and it isn’t available yet on a friend’s Lumia. But when does the feature arrive at Symbian Nokia Drive?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_H7XZGHA4CN5PQYAMAHRAH7WZWM Don Farmer

    .I’ve used it and find it very useful, especially the pinned tile. I would imagine if you lived in city or surrounding it would be great.
     
    I also have to say I bought the Nokia Universal Holder than you keep teasing us with and after seeing the great quality, ease of use(it’s on my windshield as my last holder would never work on the windshield.) and great ability to hold the smartphone secure( no more rubber bands), I wanted to bash my head against the steering wheel.  This great Nokia quality is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  Every retailer in the U.S. has smartphone accessories made by the company Youneedjunk.  This is all we see in front of our face at retailers.  Just glad Expansys has Nokia products, but I wish the world could buy our quality products at a least Nokia Finland and ship worldwide.  Also, the Nokia Leather case for the 900 is indeed “a work of art”.  Thank you Nokia and made in Turkey.  Thank you Turkey.  …all which I use on my commute.  I’m hoping Nokia and Microsoft will announce a store partnership, in which store within a store goes both ways with” all” Nokia products sold in Microsoft stores in the U.S. and Microsoft Surface, Xbox,software sold in Nokia stores around the world. (Most cost effective way to grow retail space rather than building new stores and the consumers find it easier to find that perfect needle) The Universal Holder and Leather,oh yaaa, leather case are indeed perfect.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=871425385 Sean Earp

    I was able to setup the one commute with the quickstart, but according to the blog post “The best bit about My Commute is that you can program as many Commutes as you want or need. Your phone will know what journey you’ll be taking because of your current location and the time of day you’ll be there.”.  I cannot for the LIFE of me figure out how to add a second commute, edit a commute, or delete an existing commute.  What am I missing?

    • http://twitter.com/dalydose Jeff Daly

      I can’t figure out to add additional commutes, either.

    • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Adam Fraser

      I’ve asked and it seems there may be a mistake in what we first thought we knew. I’ll change it above.

      Currently, you can only manually create one route using the steps above. However, your phone can learn other routes automatically. You simply have to drive there, and My Commute learns. But for a commute to be automatically added, you need to drive there twice.

      Does that work? Let me know.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=871425385 Sean Earp

        Thanks Adam-  

        Good to know, although that seems to be a super unintuitive way of doing things. 

        I would think that it would only work between to well-defined endpoints, and if I stop to do something else on the way home (pick up milk, or whatever), that it would cause the phone to not see that trip as a commute.  I also assume this means that I need to have Nokia Drive running everywhere I drive.  

        Any plans to allow a simple “add commute” button where I could just add a starting/ending address and time?

  • NeilPT2

    My old Nokia had real-time traffic updates as a standard feature so that my Lumia 800 does not is a disgrace.  And commute is not the answer to someone like me who drives all over the UK.  That Nokia sales literature says that real-time traffic is available when it isn’t is also criminal (literally). 

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Excuse me, what?
      We are quite honest in saying that because we have only recently started developing for Windows Phone, the feature set on this platform does not match the one on Symbian, for which we have been developing for 6 years.
      I know it’s frustrating not having this or that particular feature yet, but have a look at how fast we have implemented many features in the last 9 months (when we first launched Nokia Drive on Nokia Lumia). You will then understand that we are very committed to improve your experience.

      • NeilPT2

        I don’t doubt your commitment.  The Lumia 800 Quick Guide reference 9228581 issue 1.2 en clearly states that Nokia Drive has real time traffic updates.  When it doesn’t.  Had I known this I would not have changed from my Nokia N8.  The guide is therefore incorrect and contrary to the Trades Descriptions and Sale of Goods Acts.  What I find extraordinary is that Nokia Maps does have traffic information yet Nokia Drive doesn’t.  It is perverse. And the sooner you get real-time traffic updates the better becuae it was a great feature in old Nokia phones – but not the Lumia.  In the meantime I am waiting to hear what Nokia are going to do about their sales literature as I for one am not impressed that a company such as Nokia puts out misleading literature.

        • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

          I really don’t see on the user guide http://www.nokia.com/gb-en/support/product/lumia800/userguide/ where we are talking about live traffic information. Can you please quote the exact sentence or give me the page number?

          • NeilPT2

            I am probably missing something here but if “Commute” doesn’t have voice guidance how do you know when to take a different route?  At the start only?  What happens if traffic changes during the “commute” – you have to notice that the screen has changed?  Not sure on the evidence so far that Commute is something I’m going to bother with.  Integrate Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive instead.

          • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

            Hi @NeilPT2:disqus, let me investigate on the leaflet. It would be awesome if you could post a screenshot of it on here.

            “My Commute” alerts you visually (in the video you can see it at 01:17) and with a sound.

            On the integration between Nokia Drive and Nokia Maps, I’ve written more here http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/08/09/a-day-in-london-with-nokia-location-based-apps/

          • NeilPT2

            The leaflet is an A6 printed gatefold leaflet that comes in the box with the phone.  When I asked in the local Orange store (Orange being my network provider here in the UK) whether the Lumia had Nokia Drive, the guy took out the leaflet and went through it with me.  The headline on the leaflet is “Find your way for free” and says “For voice-guided turn-by turn directions, lane asistance, and traffic updates, select etc

  • Rajesh Sajnani

    What’s the difference between using the ‘Commute’ option vs ‘Set Destination’ (Drive) option when setting the same route? It seems when I’m in ‘Commute’ mode, the voice navigation is absent. It seems redundant when I could simply configure the Commute setup and use ‘Set Destination’ (select from favourites), and Commute should learn in the background? It’s not clear to me how ‘My Commute’ helps here..I’ve been using it for 2 weeks now, and the only benefit is the ‘live tile’ feature that provides commute time based on the established route (it never offers an alternative even the established route is traffic-stressed). Please advise. This entire ‘My Commute’ option seems like a waste with little value, unless I’m missing something. Nokia should simply incorporate real-time traffic in the route feature and smartly suggest alternate routes. I dont need directions, timing or routes I already know on my daily commute. The only help is traffic only which is not a stand-alone feature in Drive.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=871425385 Sean Earp

      A big +1 to the “never offers an alternative even when the established route is traffic-stressed”.  My Garmin Nuvi consistently routes me around traffic or onto alternate routes, while my Lumia takes me the exact same way (right through rush hour traffic 100% of the time).  I really want to love Nokia Drive, but it does not work as advertised.

      • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

        Hi @google-0b4a36130460ff3ad248a346b83be521:disqus and @facebook-871425385:disqus, there is a bit of confusion here, I think, which is why I’m going to summarize.
        First of all, when you use “Set Destination” you get voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation, which is totally irrelevant during your commute: you already know how to get to your destination.
        In “My Commute” mode you don’t get any voice-guided navigation but Nokia Drive learns your driving habits and combine them with traffic information. This is different from the mentioned pure “traffic rerouting”.
        “My Commute” is not about suggesting an alternative route per se, but suggesting you the best route among those you usually take.

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=871425385 Sean Earp

          Hello @haikus:disqus -  I have spent the last several weeks trying to make this feature work, and my only hope is that the current horrible design is just due to limited development resources that will be fixed in a future release, and not due to an intentional design.

          A few specific thoughts:
          1) It is impossible to leave Nokia Maps running for 100% of my commute.  If I leave Nokia Maps in the middle (because I want to change my music, or make a phone call, or use GasBuddy, or make a quick side trip on the way home, or any of a million other things), I go back into Nokia maps and it is no longer in the middle of my commute.

          2) This is a problem, as there is no way other than “leave Nokia Maps running” to add a route to my commute.

          3) No human being has ever said “I sure want to know which is the fastest way to work, but only out of the routes that I have driven at least twice before with Nokia Maps running the whole time”.  People just want to know what the fastest commute is (or perhaps the most scenic commute, or a commute with no freeways).  Definitely not “what is the fastest route I have driven at least twice with Nokia Maps running the whole time”.  That is absolutely crazy.  And frustrating.

          I’m hoping for improvements in a future version that make this (otherwise) awesome app useful!

          Cheers,

          -Sean

          • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

            Hi @facebook-871425385:disqus I can assure you that we have deliberately designed My Commute to drive you crazy ;-)

            No, seriously, we really appreciate your feedback. One of the reasons why we are carefully selecting the countries where My Commute is available is also to test the feature and understand where we have to improve it.This is particularly true for the points (1) and (2).
            Having said this, I would like to give you more context for (3). When we started developing My Commute, we wanted to leverage your knowledge. We believe that you know already your commute very well. How many times do you take routes that an artificial intelligence wouldn’t usually suggest? This is the spirit of My Commute: we don’t want to calculate just any route, but one you are already familiar with, we want to learn from your experience on the field.
            Of course if this is not clear enough, if you think that it could work better in another way, we are more than happy to take your feedback into account.

  • NeilPT2

    Hi there.  I’ve just taken the following photos of the leaflet that came in the Lumia 800 box.

  • NeilPT2

    Not sure that the image uploaded!!

  • NeilPT2

    Thanks for the update re the Commute function.  It still wouldn’t work for me.  My commute is over 65 miles long and can take me on any one of umpteen different routes depending on the traffic, time of day etc.  How Drive would work out that I’m “commuting” still seems too vague.  Real-time traffic in Drive is what we had in Symbian & Mango – when in Windows?

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @NeilPT2:disqus, alas the image was not successfully uploaded.
      As you can see in this post and in the video, once you define “home”, “work” and the usual time of commute, Nokia Drive learns your driving habits but it won’t suggest you routes that you have never taken. You will just have the option “commute” instead of “drive” during the commute times you have defined.
      Symbian features of Nokia Drive not yet on Windows Phone will be ported in future releases.

      • NeilPT2

        Pino:  If you want to see a copy of the leaflet its in the Lumia 800 box in the UK.  Shouldn’t be difficult to get hold of one as it is a Nokia leaflet not service provider specific. 
        And whilst I’m sure that real-time traffic updates will eventually become available, in the meantime Nokia Drive is useless.  Satnavs are about avoiding traffic as your Commute function acknowledges and Drive cannot do what your leaflet clearly states that it can.  So it continues to try and get me to join traffic jams. 

        With no real-time traffic and a phone that doesn’t automatically synchronise with Outlook (which my old Nokia also did) the Lumia is a huge step backwards.  And no timetable for when things will improve…………… 

        • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

          As I said I’m investigating on the leaflet anyway. I just wanted to see what you have.
          We never comment on timeframes when a particular feature is going to be available. However, in this case it’s just a matter of extending it from US to other countries…
          I’m a bit puzzled by the missing Outlook sync you are talking about, because it’s in there and much more (the whole Office package is included in the Nokia Lumia).

          • NeilPT2

            Hi Pino.  The appalling Zune software will synchronise videos, podcasts and other stuff important to teenagers.  What it doesn’t synchronise is Outlook.  So as I sit here with my phone connected via USB, my phone calendar and Outlook aren’t synchronised automatically.  Don’t reply about that, it is just another frustration of getting a supposedly better phone that doesn’t do the key things that the old phone did.  But for information I do a manual synchronisation everyday as the only relaible way to make it happen.  Which is rubbish really.  I just want my old N8 back.  That was great.

            And I’m still waiting for someone in Nokia to tell me why they put out an inaccurate  misleading leaflet.

          • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

            Hi @NeilPT2:disqus, I have my hands on the leaflet you are talking about and even if we are also explaining that the availability of some features may vary by region, I understand your frustration.
            On Outlook side: don’t you have any way to use server synchronization? Windows Phone supports different protocols, from IMAP to Exchange.

  • stefan

    From when will it finally works with Germany?

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @disqus_JH4ndS638D:disqus we have recently announced the availability of My Commute in Germany for the coming months

  • http://twitter.com/kzubux kzubux

    do you have a list of countries that my commute is available to?

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Yes: My Commute is available in US, Germany, Russia.
      Later this year will be made available in UK and Brazil too.

  • samyose

    When will be “Commute” available for Portugal?

    Thanks

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      We are working on it. My Commute is currently available in US, UK, Germany, Brazil and Russia.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jackson.wong.9461 Jackson Wong

    Are those feature (my commute, indoor map)available for Lumia 920 in U.S.? Cuz can’t found that on my 920.

    • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

      Hi @facebook-100001253465951:disqus indoor maps are available in the Nokia Maps app. My Commute will made available to Windows Phone 8 anytime soon.

      • http://www.facebook.com/jackson.wong.9461 Jackson Wong

        thanks

  • http://www.facebook.com/marc.taylor.52493 Marc Taylor

    Hello Pino My Commute is not on my Lumia 920 from AT&T Here Drive + does not have My Commute so so do I add this to Here Drive + also why can’t I show traffic on Here Drive +?
    Thank you,