Imagine my fright last night when my TomTom XL somehow switched itself on in the middle of the night and started giving instructions: “In 200 yards, go across the roundabout, 2nd exit.” People have heart attacks for less!!! I definitely hadn’t left it on by mistake, as it’s been a couple of weeks since I last used it, and the battery would have surely run out by now.

Anyone else experienced anything similar, or was this just my TomTom’s revenge on me for always ignoring it in favour of my own faster and shorter routes?

This seems to be a "feature" of TomToms. Though have to say mine is well behaved (so far )

Obvious solution to the instructions bit is to clear your route once you've finished with it. Fairly obviously if there is no route it won't try to tell you where to go

Not entirely sure if anyone has found the definitive answer to why it turns itself on though. And stopping it doing it doesn't seem to be easy either. There doesn't seem to be any definitive solution for that either.

Just do a Google search on "TomTom turns itself on" and you'll see what I mean

Thanks for the tip! I hadn't cleared the route before I switched it off the last time I used it. Will try to remember to do that the next time, and also not to store it anywhere near my bedroom, although some navigation instructions in there could always come handy