Took a 300 mile each way car trip over the last 2 days. I had my Captivate and 4 year old Tom Tom XLS with 9 month old update. We didnt need the Tom Tom until about 10 miles from our destination. Turned it on at the same time as opening Navigation on the Captivate. It took around 5 minutes for them to get a satellite lock. The interesting thing was they locked at EXACTLY the same time.
Now, the Tom Tom (TT) usually locks in 30 seconds or less if I turn it on near home. If I'm over say 100 miles from home it takes several minutes to lock on. I had heard this is due to the TT looking for the same satellites or number of satellites as when it was last locked on.
So that said, when we were leaving, I turned on the TT and Captivate and did the same thing. TT locked in about 30 seconds, Captivate in about 5 minutes. When we were 100 miles from home I turned off the TT and Captivate. Turned on again at home and they both took exactly the same time to lock on again - about 5 minutes.
I noticed a similar lag with my Tilt 1 if I didnt download the quicksat updates. If they were installed, the thing locked on very quick.
So could the Captivate have no historical data of the last lock and thus is always trying to track and locate satellites that are not visible, gives up then locks onto new ones?
Am I smoking something?
With everyone complaining about the gps, I have had absolutely no trouble with it. Being very inaccurate with the famous blue circle around it is only when it does not have a CLEAR view of the sky. I bought a holder that sticks on the windshield and it locks on in about 2-4 minutes, and it deadly accurate from there. I have the cheap tom tom and the captivate is just as accurate as the TT. Actually locks on faster than my TT if Im moving. I've tested it a lot to see if I can have trouble, but unless I block its view.... I have 100% reliable operation out if it.
klloyd said:
With everyone complaining about the gps, I have had absolutely no trouble with it. Being very inaccurate with the famous blue circle around it is only when it does not have a CLEAR view of the sky. I bought a holder that sticks on the windshield and it locks on in about 2-4 minutes, and it deadly accurate from there. I have the cheap tom tom and the captivate is just as accurate as the TT. Actually locks on faster than my TT if Im moving. I've tested it a lot to see if I can have trouble, but unless I block its view.... I have 100% reliable operation out if it.
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2-4 minutes sucks bad for locking and needing a 100% clear view of the sky is also bogus. What happens if you don't live in the flat rectangle known as Kansas? The GPS on these flat out sucks. I have a 10+ year old "cobra" handheld GPS that locks faster and holds lock / is more accurate.
I live in that flat rectangle, and it still would get lost.
OP
I think you are on the right track. In addition to othe issues with the gps, such as incorrectly intrpreting the time zone and having GMT 5 hours off, regardless what other people say, it seems to be starting in"cold" mode always, whic means it needs to download all the positional data first, determine the satellites positions and the attempt to get a fix. This takes about 5 min in any gps, simply because the transmission rate of the gps satellites is very low.
Your tomtom attempts to take a shortcut assuming it's not too far from where it was turned off last time. If true, it can get a fix in 20 secs or less, if false, it would take 5 min.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Mine always locks in within 20 seconds, whether I am moving on stationary, hot start or cold start. I've even tried turning it on 100s of miles from my usual location and still locks and holds while driving to 32ft accuracy. I am already on my second captivate, the first one liked to turn off randomly. The first one didn't have a gps problem either.
I did do the supl.google fix to both though. They were slow with factory settings.
Under LbsTestMode do you have it set to HotStart and MS Based?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
jmgelba said:
Took a 300 mile each way car trip over the last 2 days. I had my Captivate and 4 year old Tom Tom XLS with 9 month old update. We didnt need the Tom Tom until about 10 miles from our destination. Turned it on at the same time as opening Navigation on the Captivate. It took around 5 minutes for them to get a satellite lock. The interesting thing was they locked at EXACTLY the same time.
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I did notice the same thing when I was on a trip in Wyoming two weeks ago. I hadn't turned on either GPS (in this case the car one was a Garmin) and when I did both locked at the exact same time (probably after about 3-4 minutes after turning them on). It was quite surprising because I thought the Garmin would go much faster than my Captivate, but this was not the case.
I was extremely lost last night in the city with buildings all over on a cloudy night. Gps found me and directed me in about 1 min coming from a car garage .
I've noticed it locks faster if you back out of Google maps while its finding your location and go back in. It seems to get a lock quicker. Same goes for navigation, I enter a destination and hit navigate, if it don't find a lock within say 10 seconds like it usually does for me ill hit back once and then navigate again. Then it usually finds a lock fast almost instantly ..
I do get the blue circle while navigating sometimes , but it moves along perfectly . Ill even just use google maps without the navigation and watch myself move on the map nicely...
I usually get from 4 to 7 satellites out of 12 or so.
Works for me, if it can be better cool, but its done me well so far can't complain too much.
I tried using it last night. Not sure how many satellites it locked on to, but it did give me the accurate to 5 meters message in Maps.
That said, it was ever so slightly off (probably 6 or 7 meters instead of 5) and my compass is blown. Even after calibrating it, its still a few degrees off (15 - 20 maybe?).
Related
I have a fairly new touch pro and have been having nothing but trouble with the built in GPS. At first I thought O2 had released a customised model without gps because it could never get a fix. After going through all the tweaks it now gets a fix somatimes. I can only get a fix if moving at over 30mph. Even then it takes 10 minutes! I can leave it for an hour outside with poer and if it is still it will not get a fix.
Tomtom 7 asks if I am indoors because of the poor signal even when outside.
It is driving me mad trying to find something that will help get a fix in less than 3 minutes (even that is a long time). A dedicated sailing gps will get a lock in under 30 seconds even inside my house. Even my other half's iphone will get a lock indoors in less than a minute.
Lastly when the GPS does have a lock the altitude is always wrong. It shows +60 meters when at sea level (literally with waves crashing at my feet). The altitude readings sometimes go down as I go up or up as I travel down.
It is rather bad considering the retail price of the device.
Anyone have some suggestions as the rest of the phone is rather good (battery life could always be better).
Come on....
There's several threads about this. Use the GPS Tweaks Cab in the lag thread it fixed the loss of lock issue.
I bought my first Captivate at the very beginning of August. I wanted the GPS to work, so I could use it instead of a separate GPS unit sometimes. After about 5 days the GPS was really struggling to lock. I put it outside under the open sky for 5 minutes with GPS Test, and it saw lots of satellites but used zero. I reset the phone and poof, it worked properly again. That seemed like a strange bug to me. I heard an update was coming by the end of September, but that was going to be outside my 30 days, so I returned my Captivate to Best Buy and got my $230 back, no problems.
Sept 7, I bought a new Captivate, now only $150 at Best Buy. This one worked fine and the GPS never completely failed like the first one did. But I didn't test much as I waited for the update. September 22 I forced the update on my normal unrooted captivate, and it went fine. I did some testing and the GPS seemed to track OK and lock in a reasonable time. Now its a week later and it still seems good.
Here are a couple comments.
First a note on my GPS experience. I own 3 GPS units besides the Captivate, and older MIO C230, a Garmin eTrex Centure HC, and SPOT 2 GPS Messenger. I also have extensive experience with a Garmin Nuvi 1390T. I ride a dirt bike in the desert and have used tracks to navigate extensively.
- Time to get satellite lock. The Captivate does often take a while to lock on the satellites. But so do all my other GPS devices. Sometimes they lock quickly, but often they can take a minute or more. This is related to whether they have stored data on where they are, and thus know where to look for the satellites. At any rate I don't always get a quick lock on the Captivate, but it has never failed to get a lock under a clear sky if I give it up a minute or two. 10m resolution is typical once locked under a unobstructed sky. For those having trouble with this: Are you giving the Captivate a clear view of the sky and a couple minutes? Yes, sometimes GPS's lock indoors and really quickly. But in my experience this isn't always true. What I'm saying is the Captivate works similarly to the other GPS's I use. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. But it is always locking under a clear unobstructed sky within a couple minutes.
- Google maps. After it locks, the captivate shows my location on the map well. As I said above, sometimes lock takes a minute or more. And it requires a clear view of the sky most of the time.
- Track quality. I tested with "My Tracks". I run around town on a scooter every day, so its easy to turn on the tracker and and see what happens. I put the Captivate in my pocket on my thigh, back side facing the sky. The only thing obscuring its view is my body. Basically, it seems to work fine. It certainly works as well as my Garmin eTrex. The eTex tracks are always a bit rough too. Yes, the Captivate track does sometimes cut the corner or the curve and is off the street that I actually rode on. But it basically follows my route well. It has always followed me when I loop around a block, or drive down a short dead end and come back. I can definitely tell where I went and what roads I took when I look at the track. I'm not bothered if it shows me 20-40 feet off the road on occasion (as I have noted, so does my Garmin eTrex). I expect this with a 10m resolution.
- Navigation. I've been using the google Navigation app on drives in the car. I mount the Captivate in a mount on the dash, so it has a clear view of the sky through the glass. It's not on the seat, or in the ashtray or in a cup holder. It's mounted to the windshield close to the front, so it has a good view of a broad expanse of sky. This is exactly how I mount the Mio GPS or Garmin etrex or Garmin Nuvi when I use those in the car. Used like this, my Captivate navigation has been excellent. Frankly, its far better app than the Mio or Garmin Nuvi 1390T that I have used. The searches are quick and I like the presentation. Obviously, in Navigation the app knows to lock you on the street. And when I drive past an indicated turn it always notices immediately.
Summary: So I don't know what has changed since my first Captivate, but this one seems fine to me. I don't know if it's the hardware, or the SW update. But so far mine works as well as the other GPS devices I have used. If it keeps working like this for another week, I'm definitely keeping it. I'm sure some have trouble, as I did with my first Captivate. And I do think some others expect too much: I don't expect the Captivate to be "THE BEST GPS" I have ever seen. I expect it to lock within 2 minutes, work for navigation in my car, to find me on a google map and to record a track of where I went. This all seems to be working for me. (And usually it locks in well under a minute for me). I think I'll keep it... if this performance keeps up.
IMO, YMMV
Carl
vintagephone/Carl. Yours is a very useful write up. I use a Garmin GPS for Geocaching, some street navigation and bicycle riding in the country. What you wrote should be very helpful to someone not so familiar with GPS devices in general. Thanks.
= Ron
I completely agree. People looking at 'my tracks' and showing that there are some slight variations - we don't even know if the google maps is 100% accurate, as I know there are certain places where it doesn't match up directly with the road. I think as long as no errors are being presented during navigation (mine is doing fine in navigation mode) there is not really any complaining that can be done. Even my built in car GPS makes a mistakes once in a blue moon.
I'm not sure what Garmin Nuvi you're using, but I have a 2 yr old 250W and it smokes this phone. The phone has me driving through people's yards and buildings. It has gotten better since the JH7 update, its almost what I would call usable now. Try doing a Mytracks track on it, its a joke how far off it is. Its certainly unusable for that.
derek4484 said:
I'm not sure what Garmin Nuvi you're using, but I have a 2 yr old 250W and it smokes this phone. .
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I'm very familiar with the Garmin I used, a Nuvi 1390T. Negatives for the Garmin included horrible traffic reports, and searches for my destination took forever. Basic Navigation was OK, if you knew the address of where you were going. And if you were going someplace more than 30 miles away (a common undertaking in the LA basin), you just couldn't get there. Searches on the Nuvi only include locations within 30 miles. Frankly, the search was much worse than on my old Mio. I had the Nuvi 1390 for a couple weeks and returned i just as I got my second Captivate. For basic GPS navigation, the Nuvi was OK, but I saw no advantage over the Captivate. Are you mounting your Captivate in the same way and place you are mounting your Nuvi? I actually use a modified Nuvi windshield mount with my Captivate, so my mounting is literally identical.
Now, you Captivate my not work as well as mine. My original Captivate was worse than this one. As I said, YMMV (your mileage may vary).
I use a Garmin V GPS receiver for Geocaching and some other activities which demands a very high degree of accuracy. This receiver will use as many birds as it can find (seldom less than five) to determine its location but a cell phone GPS receiver may limit the number of satellites it tracks to conserve battery power.
Using four satellites, the accuracy of the Garmin V typically comes down to a target area that is two to twenty feet in diameter. This unit is fast; I can watch the current location triangle move past streets just as I am able to make out the street signs.
The Captivate I ordered will not be here until later today so I can't report anything about my experience with that device. I have been using an HTC device (AT&T "Tilt") and Google Maps for several years now and can report it has very good GPS accuracy and speed when compared to the Garmin unit. I would be pleased indeed if the Captivate even comes close to the performance of the Tilt.
As with any GPS device, it has to have line of sight visibility with at least three satellites to report its position with any reliability. Clouds (with heavy moisture), trees and tall buildings can reduce GPS accuracy substantially. Bicycling through heavily forested areas reduces the accuracy of my Garmin V from a few feet to hundreds of feet. As it takes a few minutes for the receiver to "lock on" and recalculate its position, after pedaling through a forested area I can be a mile up the road before the display catches up. Even at bicycle speeds (15MPH) I have missed turns simply because of trees!
With the Tilt, moving on foot around tall buildings, Google Maps sometimes can't figure out where I am. In the car, I usually pull the sunroof shade back so the Tilt gets a clear shot at the sky.
One final point: If I have the Garmin running at home, shut it off, then restart it again when I am fifty miles from home, it takes maybe five minutes to find three in-view birds. There is a feature in the Gamin that allows me to move its cursor to about where I think I am and it, then it uses this information to find new birds. I use this feature frequently and it usually saves two or three minutes locking on to a new set of birds. That feature is not available with the Tilt and it can take a full five minutes for it to find three birds when I change location with the GPS receiver turned off.
I hope these comments are useful. A cell phone with GPS capabilities is understandably no match for a single-purpose GPS receiver and particularly so when the two devices sell for about the same price.
I doubt that it is Maps or myTracks that is off (although I had wondered about this as well) because when you run the Captivate side-by-side with an N1, the N1's lock and track are very fast (almost instantaneous) and flawless. Of course we all know the Captivate's lock and track issues. The N1's track would not be so perfect if it were an issue with the base map accuracy, when the app on both phones is the same and accesses the same data.
The issue can also be seen running GPS Status or GPS Test together too, the N1's lock is always better, although I see no appreciable difference in SNR values for each satellite. It is just like the Captivate simply will not lock, even when it sees the same satellites. That is why I am sure it is the driver issue and therefore fixable.
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So half of the time when i use my gps, it will lock me with towers and be up to like 1600 meters or something. and one time i let it sit for 10 minutes and it got no closer. If i toggle the gps on and off once or twice though it will work usually (and it works fast when it does). also one time i just restarted the phone too.
anyone else see issues like this?
My GPS issue is that even though it locks on within 7 seconds when I run Cardio Trainer it always shows me at least 1.5 to 2 tenths of a mile farther than I have gone. I have checked the distance with my Vibrant and also with my Nexus One and they both show the same distances. For whatever reason the MT4G seems to add on distance not traveled.
mine doesn't like to lock on, but before I goto nav I just go load GPS status and reload the aGPS info every so often and keeps it honest
This phone definitely has gps that is inferior to one in G2 or even G1. However, my gps has no problem locking on and holding on to my exact location. Every now and then it losses orientation and spins the map around but that only lasts a sec or two and only happens when its cloudy or in downtown. Get your phone replaced I would say.
Sent from MT4G.
As I'm waiting for my Nexus 5 I'm interested on GPS performance of this new phone. Anyone can take a screenshot showing GPS signal and how much does it take to lock in?
GPS Test on Play Store
Anyone?
No one? I'm guessing it uses, glonass gps.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Mine took 10 seconds to get a lock on (19 in view, 11 in use) after clearing aGPS history in the app. This was done indoors about 5m from a window.
Hardly scientific, but hope this helps!
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Is anyone experiencing long delays (2+ minutes) while waiting to get a lock (subsequent locks are faster)? And once a lock is achieved, the accuracy is about 30 meters? Lock should only take a couple seconds, accuracy should be 10-20 meters, right?
GLONASS
Does Nexus 5 has GLONASS sensor?
Aerowinder said:
Is anyone experiencing long delays (2+ minutes) while waiting to get a lock (subsequent locks are faster)? And once a lock is achieved, the accuracy is about 30 meters? Lock should only take a couple seconds, accuracy should be 10-20 meters, right?
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no problem here.
indoor lock (near a window) takes less than 30 second, 23 sats in view, 14 locked, 5-10 meters precision.
Aerowinder said:
Is anyone experiencing long delays (2+ minutes) while waiting to get a lock (subsequent locks are faster)? And once a lock is achieved, the accuracy is about 30 meters? Lock should only take a couple seconds, accuracy should be 10-20 meters, right?
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I get long delays, and sometimes it doesn't lock at all.
Same here. Very long lock delays every time.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Same Problem here.. Sometimes it only locks to five and the accuracy is bad.. Notably while playing ingress today
i went out running with mine last night, the gps was terrible, had it on high accuracy as well, nowhere near as good as the N4 or S3
I find it locks on very quickly. Fat far quicker than my old galaxy nexus
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
What is the difference?
So some of us are getting poor GPS on the N5 and others are getting great response as you would hope.
What is the difference? I got mine early out of Hong Kong and I am getting the slow variable quality lock.
In case it is relevant my build no is KRT16M, Baseband vers os M8974A-1.0.25.0.17 and Kernal vers is 3.4.0-g9eb14ba.
Happy to provide anything else if relevant.
Of course it might be something mis configured at my end, but there seems to be a group with poor experience.
Not as fast or stable as my Samsung s4
Very fast. About 10 secs or less.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
I noticed that mine is very slow indoors, but works faster outdoors. It still take a few seconds to lock.
I was driving in Salem, MA last night and constantly losing GPS signal. It was a clear night, and I'm not aware of anything that should have interrupted signal. I was streaming some music and connected to my car's head unit via bluetooth, neither of which should have affected it.
I used it the other day to find a hobby shop. It connected in about 10 seconds, I only had to go about 3 miles but it was perfect.
As long as I'm not hiding it under my desk of electronics, it gets a lock indoors in about 3 seconds, and resolves all the way down to about 10 feet of accuracy in less than 10 seconds. I haven't had it lose GPS once since I've gotten it on Tuesday, and I've used it every single day several times.
Vincent Law said:
As long as I'm not hiding it under my desk of electronics, it gets a lock indoors in about 3 seconds, and resolves all the way down to about 10 feet of accuracy in less than 10 seconds. I haven't had it lose GPS once since I've gotten it on Tuesday, and I've used it every single day several times.
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Good to know I rely on gps n wifi tether on att ... cant wait for ups to deliver it already
I use my phone for geocaching and so it is very important that the GPS is accurate, problem it that the accuracy is usually around 39 feet which is not nearly good enough for what I need it for. Is there anyway to fix this or does the phone just have a bad GPS?
I practically always get down to 10 feet in a few seconds, unless I'm in a canyon or under dense trees.
Download GPS Test and see what it really going on. It'll show you actual GPS satellite locks and signal strengths. I'm at 30ft right now and I'm inside my house and behind dual pane tinted windows.AVG sat signal is in the low 30's.
I've found you can clear up GPS issues sometimes by clearing the AGPS data via GPS Test and then refreshing. Just seems to get confused once in a while.
Thanks for the help, I've already done that though. I dusted off my note 2 and it locks on immediately to 20+ satellites with 10 foot accuracy while my nexus 5 maybe gets 10. I think I will stick with my note 2 for geocaching.