I recently took a multistate 1K mile drive. On the center screen, the route was well marked but, there was no indication of which state I was in at the moment. On my 222, this was clearly shown wheas on the 223, no. My question: is there an adjustment to the maps app that I need to make?

 

No, not that I'm aware of and frankly I don't remember using any navigation system that showed this. Google Maps etc. don't show this kind of information, either while navigating. As somebody who travels frequently in Europe, though, I know many navigation systems, including MB's systems, put up a splash screen when crossing country borders to alert the driver that they are now in a different country. Specifically it displays the prevailing speed limits in the new country. What year was your 222? My FL 205 has the same COMAND system as the 222 and it doesn't show which state I'm in on the map screen.

 

Prior 222 was 2014 date.

 

I see. Yeah that was an older system. Do you have a picture of where it showed the state? I'm still not sure where this was shown on the map even in the older system. Navigation systems used to have a current position screen that showed the current GPS coordinates along with other information such as possibly the state and country of the current position. I don't recall if the newer systems still have that. I believe they do, as that is also where you can see how many GPS satellites it currently tracks, but I don't quite remember where in the system that is. While I rarely cross state lines by car, there are usually big "Welcome to <state>" signs on the side of the road, so I generally know what state I'm in.

 

I have a question for a similar situation. Yesterday I attended an event about 60 miles from home but in a different time zone. The system seemed very slow to recognize the car had entered a new time zone. Does the car use GPS or cell towers to set the time or is it just a slow process?

 

It uses GPS and the actual time zone boundaries from the map data, so it's more accurate than using cell towers where the signal from one tower can bleed into the neighboring time zone. How do you know you had actually entered the new time zone? Time zones are not straight lines down the globe and your phone will likely change time before you are actually in the new time zone, because as said, the cell signal from a tower doesn't just drop off at the boundaries of a time zone, so depending on which tower your phone selects it may receive the new time before you officially entered the time zone.

 

I worked in that area for nearly 3 years moving back and forth between the time zones on a daily basis.

 

Still doesn't really answer my question. Did you take out a time zone map and draw a line in the road exactly where the time zone officially starts and then see if the time changes in the car as soon as you drive over that line? Or what is your accurate reference data you are comparing it to? Having said that, there's likely a delay built in, so that it doesn't jump back and forward near the boundary of two time zones due to GPS accuracy. It might wait until your presence is clearly determined to be within a particular time zone. With cell phones, those who live at the edge of two time zones often have to force their phones to a specific time zone, or otherwise it may bounce back and forward. This can also happen with GPS based systems, because GPS is not a 100% accurate. If you've ever inspected a GPS data stream you'll notice that the coordinates constantly change even if you don't move the GPS sensor one bit, so if you are near the edge of a time zone it could ping you on either side of it until you are further into one of the two time zones.