The TomTom GO has got a bit of a reputation for suffering from reflections in strong sunlight making the screen difficult to read. There have been a number of attempts to overcome this, from screen protectors to screens.
The latest of the screen products is the Glarestomper II from BidNutMan. This is made from a felt like fabric that fits behind the front bevel and shields the top and sides from sunlight. Boldly emblazoned on the top of the Glarestomper is a pair of feet that look surprisingly familiar.
The original Stomp-Stomp shade was received with mixed opinions in the forums here. This version appears to have a number of design improvements. Including the embroidered branding. Whether it will generate the same conflicts of opinion remains to be seen.
Basically the Glarestomper is constructed from 2 pieces of fabric. The main piece is the shade and is a reasonably thick material which seems to have a certain amount of "memory" as to it's intended shape. The second is a much thinner piece which is the anchor and fits in between the body of the TomTom Go and the front Bezel.
Fitting the Glarestomper II
Fitting the Glarestomper is a bit tricky, but this task only has to be done once. I, of course, did it a few times to determine what was the easiest way to do it.
The most effective way I found to fit it was to pop the whole bezel off. This is done by pressing the rear of the Go connector plate near the round external antenna plug. this pops the front off a bit then you need to get a nail (finger please no iron implements...) under and just unclipping the rest of it.
I then positioned the bottom of the bevel back in the go and closed it until I could just slip the Glarestomper in. With a little sawing motion the Glarestomper is seated and aligned in the top. Note I haven't done the sides yet. I then completely fit the bevel.
Next I popped the bevel open again. This hinges from the bottom leaving the top fixed properly. As you hinge it out you can fit the sides in properly, clip the front bezel back in and you are ready to "GO" (sorry I couldn't resist that).
Storing the GO
The Glarestomper has an elastic strap on it which is used when storing the GO. The sides of the shield fold in and the top comes down. The strap then holds everything in place.
As you can see from the photo to the right this adds additional protection to the GO screen. Something that is always useful if you were ever to drop it, and believe me I have dropped a couple.
With the Glarestomper folded away it can be zipped into the TomTom carrying case.and stored or transported safely. I found it a bit tight, initially, but the TomTom case expanded after I had used it a couple of times.
I did find that after storing it like this it often didn't spring back into shape. this was remedied simply by folding it back over the body of the go and then pulling it back into it's proper shape.
The Glarestomper in use
I used the GlareStomper for a couple of weeks and typically our great British weather would not co-operate. That was until today, the hottest October 27th ever recorded. Off came the roof and I want on a 150 mile trip to test out my GPS devices. Did I ever mention that I love my job?
Well in my car I had a Tibo, a Garmin i3 and a TomTom GO with the Glarestomper. We were blessed with typical autumn light full sun streaming into the car at low angles. Perfect for creating glare and reflections.
Interestingly the Garmin i3 was the best of the three devices. This is because it has a high density, high brightness, non-touch screen display. The benefit of not being a touch screen really shone through (sorry for the bad jokes).
The Tibo fared the worst. the screen was dull and unreadable a lot of the time.
In between the two was the TomTom GO with the GlareStomper shade. It may look a bit strange at times, but it certainly did it's job. There were occasions when the shield couldn't protect the screen from the low rays of sunshine, but they were few and far between. More often the lower portion of the screen was slightly in the sun, but I did find this acceptable. To prove the point I folded the GlareStomper back over the GO and tried driving like that and found that it was difficult to read the screen in a lot of cases.
Interestingly the Glarestomper could do nothing about the worst case reflection for the GO. When you have direct light coming in through the windscreen. This is shown on the bottom of the two images. |
