Type S Digital Compass

I hope this short reveiew helps others, like the prior ones I read right here on Amazon did for me. This is a nice little unit; it does exactly what I wanted it for. I recently purchased a newer car, my older vehicle had too many gadgets to suit me. I never used three-quarters of the stuff. But the one thing I did like was the compass in the rear-view mirror; hence my purchasing this battery operated compass. A couple of things of note: It said in the instructions that you would need to (ideally) find a large parking lot or space, to basically drive in circles to calibrate. I did that and it still didn't calibrate. So, I thought, since I have wasted almost 15 minutes on this action, I'll do it at another time. But, then, on my way to the grocery store, wham, it calibrated itself. It was easier then the instructions led on. All positives from this end. Not obstuctive sitting on the dash. The sticking unit for the base holds it down really good. The ONLY thing I wish is (that is why I didn't give 5 stars), that the little light that goes on for a couple of seconds when you press it, would stay on longer, or maybe constantly when pressed once. Then shut off when pressed again. Otherwise, I don't think you will be disappointed in your purchase.

It looks nice, it works good and accurate. Has a lightning button which lasts for a few seconds at night, and an auto-turn off feature. Warns when batteries run on low, however can run for a rather long time after it.

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Even though I have a portable Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS system, which works very well, I find I often need to know in exactly which direction I am headed, e.g., when the Nuvi says, "Go north to ..." I had purchased one of these compasses for one of my vehicles, and decided to buy one for the other.

I have found that it works very well, once it is calibrated, unless the batteries vibrate loose. It was very difficult for me to figure out how to open the battery compartment, since they provide no understandable instructions, but very easy to do so once I figured it out. I wish the backlight would stay on longer after being turned on. I find it interesting to see how much the direction shown changes before and after calibration, i.e., after it has adjusted for the car's magnetic field with the engine running.

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The compass was easy to calibrate and works fine, but it is limited if used at night. Although there is a button to push to provide light, the light doesn't stay on. This is a severe limitation for night driving. An on/off switch to keep the light on as long as desired would be preferred. As configured at present it could be less than safe to have to fiddle with finding the light button in the dark.

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My truck has a fancy-shmancy mirror with built-in compass and thermometer. When I got a used car, I missed those features so I bought a Type S digital compass and a taylor 1522 thermometer (thermometer reviewed separately). Some of the reviewers complained that they couldn't calibrate the compass. The ones who had trouble seemed to be the ones who drove in tight circles. I hit the calibration button and drove around the block once and it calibrated easily. I don't know how accurate it is because I don't have anything to compare it to, but it gives me the basic information I need. My only complaint is that it is clearly designed to be mounted to a horizontal surface like on top of the dashboard; and there are no screw holes or slots. You are supposed to use velcro, which doesn't provide much stability. I don't want anything sticking up from my dashboard so I made a bracket out of angle iron which I screwed to a spot on front of the dash next to the steering column. It looks okay there but still moves around quite a bit because of the velcro. I may have to find a way to clamp it down better.

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