Hello expert Androiders! I'm feeling my way around a the excellent Google find my phone functions - but wish to enhance performance and reliability. Can you help me understand how best to use a permanently installed/ powered Smartphone as a Car Tracker Device? I'm installing it as an always-on (hidden inside car with hard wired 12v - and with an Anker Powercore battery). I have a Moto G4 and have checked its GPS satellite performance (which is fine) but I am conscious it needs reasonable line of sight (though I've read there is some signal bounce). My questions are as follows: a) is the optimum location for the hidden Smartphone and battery inside under the boot floor/ outside on the underside arch/ chassis/ underneath the rear (plastic) bumper - or somewhere else...; b) is an external GPS of real net benefit eg Garmin GLO BT - and if so, would it be better sited above a parcel shelf for strong signal (and, is Glonass worthwhile - in this context); c) is there an APP/ method to track (independently of the GPS signal - ie by IMEI/ SIM number/ by Phone number/ Triangulate (if the GPS were lost/ blocked)? THANK YOU for your expertise and kind assistance!
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Basically I have an XDA2, and I'd like to get a GPS for it, but I have no car. Does sat nav provide any benefits for people walking the streets?
I was thinking maybe something along the lines of city maps with pubs marked on, or maps of popular holiday destination with points of interest highlighted, that kind of thing.
Is there anyting like this?
TomTom 5 has route planning options for *on foot* but if you are in town areas on foot walking on the pavement the satellite signal won't be as good, and you might find out it drops the line of sight quite often.
Gaz, as the man said, tomtom 5 has the pedestrian option when planning routes and will choose the shortest route by foot. You will need a bluetooth gps which you can strap to your arm with an armband or maybe on your head/hat. You could use an sd gps but then you wouldnt be able to use tomtom 5 because of memory restraints. It maybe that you can download smaller maps for sepcific areas, in which case the sd card method would be the tidiest and least cumbersome. Do not buy a cabled gps as this will be unusable in the pedestrian situation. The other option would be purchase of the backpack for xda 2, this gives you an option to use cf card gps while leaving the sd card slot free for your maps and tomtom. Having said all that, it might be cheaper and make more sense to buy a standalone gps which will allow downloading of street level maps plus poi's and maybe autorouting feature. Some of the cheaper ones allow planning a route on the pc which is then downloaded to gps as a series of waypoints, others allow full autorouting on pc or gps. Make sure you do your research and that the kit you buy actually achieves what you want. I would go for the bluetooth option with tomtom, there are a huge amount of third party points of interest freely downloadable and you can even make your own and share them on the web. Just do a search for tomtom poi.
The TomTom mk2 bluetooth GPS device that comes with TomTom 5 for PDA's has a hole through it so you can attact it to a lanyard or something.
Most rucksacks and backpacks have a pocket at the top of the bag, so of you carry one of these, it would be fine in there.
Except that Rucksacs are soon to become a banned item in the UK.
Yes, and dont wear a heavy coat either.
just wondering if anyone has used the assisted gps functionality,.
3 UK have this functionality with some of their Motorola phones and I have to say it's a little rubbish. Time to Lock seems slow compared to a standalone GPS reciever despite the assisted part and when it does lock the possitioning is very vague and puts you in a general area rather than your exact location to within 10 meters.
Updating was also very slow and it would nowhere near be usable for car satellite navigation. (You would probably get away with walking, if it wasn't for the dodgy possitioning).
However 3 uk use it for finding local services, so in terms of a where's my local post office, cinema etc it works ok and will provide a map of the local area, so you could work out how to walk there.
I only tried this on a moto a835 and a925 so these may have been rather early models and GPS reciever quality may improve, but I wasn't impressed. I get much better functionality using a standalone bluetooth GPS reciever and 3rd party sat nav apps.
im thinking of getting a navigation system for my car. ive used a garmin c330 which my friend lends me on long drives. i generally like it for its ease of use.
now my question is:
1. since i have an 8525, is getting a gps bluetooth reciever (suggestions welcome) and a mapping software (suggestions also welcome) comparable to the garmin c330? like voice, turn by turn instructions and what not.
2. im thinking going the 8525 gps system will be cheaper. am i right?
thanks for the help guys.
Yes it will work out cheaper and do just the same in terms of navigation turn by turn instructions etc.
You will need a Bluetooth GPS device, and some Navigation software / maps there are plenty to choose from, I use Route 66 and TomTom. (Depends where in the world you are located though as to which mapping is best)
Don't forget to get a car holder and power cable for use in the car, if you run off just the battery you will flaten it very quickly running software such as TomTom - Mike
hello !
does anybody have further informations about the built in(orbit2) gps receiver.
Manufacturer ?
Accuracy ?
Comparison with others.
There´s nothing to find in the net.
thx in advance
v-al
I don't know. The hardware buttons are all a problem. How to map them? I wonder how...
No extensive comparisons here, but, previously used an external 'KeychainGPS' receiver which was much better. It held a fix in places where the Touch Cruise doesn't, and much less zig-zag than the Cruise. With the Cruise, in Google Maps or Windows Live Search, when I'm walking, the Cruise shows me in the middle of the freeway, on the other side of the freeway, walking through homes and buildings, on the opposite side of the street, etc... The KeychainGPS was far more accurate...
It works fine though, gets the job done. There are annoyances with turn-by-turn and CoPilot Live 7 though -- receiving the voice prompt to 'take exit' just as I'm passing it
tech. GPS informations
Hi!
Look at the information i've listed. These infos came out of the htc manual.
Frank
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Internal GPS antenna
Chipset solution
QCT MSM7200 with XTRA support
Sensitivity -145dBm for cold start and -155dBm for tracking
Support NMEA 0183 version 3.0 or above
Dynamic parallel channel GPS receiver
Acquisition time
Hot start: 8 seconds, typical TTFF (open sky & static condition)
Warm start: 60 seconds, typical TTFF (open sky & static condition)
Cold start: 75 seconds, typical TTFF (open sky & static condition)
Update rate: once/1sec (default)
GPS Accuracy
Position: < 15 meters, 95% typical
Velocity: 0.05 meter/sec steady state
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ahh, very nice - thx a lot !!
Has anyone come across or developed a software or prog that will read the hardware mcu signal level or value from the car fm aerial?
Not wifi, bluetooth, gsm etc.
I've looked for ages for a simple hardware meter type thing to measure the signal from my antenna, but no luck.
Most meters 'out there' are either very professional and expensive or are for transeiver type swr.
Thanks
Is it an MTCD type unit
Hi, yes it is. Why I posted in this group. It's possible though someone has made a general android app that is universal.
If it's even possible.