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Recommended GPS or smart phone

Old 09-30-12, 03:21 PM
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Recommended GPS or smart phone

Well, I'm a cheapskate and don't want to fork out for a high cost of a bike GPS. I don't need much and old cheapo GPS but the lack of battery life is the dealbreaker. Most inexpensive GPS's have a dismal battery life because they are meant to be powered by the car. I took my cars unit and it went dead in less than 2 hours. All I want is something to track my route and tell me where I am if I get lost while experimenting. Someone recommended that I get a used android cell phone and NOT get a call / data plan, they claim that it will still work as a GPS and that I can download a limited set of maps from Google via wifi. Because most cell phones have good standby time the battery life issue won't be a factor on most of my 2-3 hour rides.

Anyone have any ideas for something that will work for maybe less than $200? I'd like something with a 3.5 or 4.5 inch screen.
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Old 09-30-12, 03:53 PM
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Originally Posted by Rootman
Well, I'm a cheapskate and don't want to fork out for a high cost of a bike GPS. I don't need much and old cheapo GPS but the lack of battery life is the dealbreaker. Most inexpensive GPS's have a dismal battery life because they are meant to be powered by the car. I took my cars unit and it went dead in less than 2 hours. All I want is something to track my route and tell me where I am if I get lost while experimenting. Someone recommended that I get a used android cell phone and NOT get a call / data plan, they claim that it will still work as a GPS and that I can download a limited set of maps from Google via wifi. Because most cell phones have good standby time the battery life issue won't be a factor on most of my 2-3 hour rides.

Anyone have any ideas for something that will work for maybe less than $200? I'd like something with a 3.5 or 4.5 inch screen.
You *can* go the smartphone route, but the problem you end up with is that you will generally need a data plan to download maps, It is possible in some versions of Android to "cache" maps in a specific vicinity, which would help eliminate some of that need, but that limits your options a bit.

So I guess my first question is, if you go the smartphone route, are you willing to pay the monthly (including the data plan).
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Old 09-30-12, 04:01 PM
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Originally Posted by ericy
You *can* go the smartphone route, but the problem you end up with is that you will generally need a data plan to download maps, It is possible in some versions of Android to "cache" maps in a specific vicinity, which would help eliminate some of that need, but that limits your options a bit.

So I guess my first question is, if you go the smartphone route, are you willing to pay the monthly (including the data plan).
The idea is to NOT have a data plan and caching would be limited to the area around my usual route, if I remember right Google maps will cache an area like 10 square miles around your route? This should give me more than enough latitude if I put in a basic route covering the direction I'm heading. I could always try and find some place with free or open wifi to update if necessary. I typically only go out about 30 miles or less so this should cover it.

Not ever owned a smart phone let alone one without a data / call plan I was wondering if it is feasible or if there is something that I am not anticipating.

I've even seem some cameras that sport a GPS and would consider them as I would also like to record my treks as well.

Last edited by Rootman; 09-30-12 at 04:05 PM.
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Old 09-30-12, 04:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Rootman
Not ever owned a smart phone let alone one without a data / call plan I was wondering if it is feasible or if there is something that I am not anticipating.

I've even seem some cameras that sport a GPS and would consider them as I would also like to record my treks as well.
Yes, that's true that you can cache about 10 square miles with Google Maps on an Android phone. At least some versions of Google maps, anyways.

One thought is that you could try and score a used Android on eBay - you could use WiFi while at home to download the maps and all that, and you might need to buy a decent sized SD card with some room for the downloaded maps. The whole thing could cost you significantly less than 200$ depending on exactly what type of phone you end up getting.

I strongly suspect the thing will work fine without activation - a GSM phone might need a SIM card to function (but the phone wouldn't need to be activated). Anything Verizon wouldn't have that problem.

I haven't tried any of this, so I can't guarantee a thing however..
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Old 09-30-12, 06:40 PM
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I could be wrong here, but...

-While you may be able to cache GMaps (offline mode), I don't think that the phone will track you unless you have access to the network.
-You will also be draining the battery while tracking your route, assuming you manage to do that without a data plan in the first place.
-AFAIK, phones don't really have true GPS. The ones that feature Navigation do so using triangulation of your position in relation to the cell towers.

You might be better off with using a tablet to cache your maps on and make then consult that from time to time. At least if you find a WiFi access point, you should be able to figure out where you're at by doing a search of the establishment that you're at.
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Old 09-30-12, 07:36 PM
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Originally Posted by no1mad
I could be wrong here, but...

-While you may be able to cache GMaps (offline mode), I don't think that the phone will track you unless you have access to the network.
-You will also be draining the battery while tracking your route, assuming you manage to do that without a data plan in the first place.
-AFAIK, phones don't really have true GPS. The ones that feature Navigation do so using triangulation of your position in relation to the cell towers.

You might be better off with using a tablet to cache your maps on and make then consult that from time to time. At least if you find a WiFi access point, you should be able to figure out where you're at by doing a search of the establishment that you're at.
No, most Android phones do have real GPS, and you don't need data for that to work. There is a "GPS Test" app in the market that shows you the number of satellites in view as well as the signal strength. Using GPS does run down the battery however.

The phones do have the ability to try and triangulate using nearest tower information as well - that's entirely different. But the phone can get an approximate fix fairly quickly using this method.

I should add that the GPS does a mediocre job of getting the elevation. I was using my phone on an out-and-back ride, and I was surprised to see the difference in elevation for the two legs of the trip. My understanding is that a good dedicated GPS unit has a barometric pressure sensor built in which allows for much more accurate elevation measurements. Phones don't seem to have this capability.

I used to travel to Canada for business, and when I was up there I had no data service (I turned off data roaming to avoid expensive roaming fees). When I was leaving the office, I would pull up the maps app, tell it to navigate back to the airport, and get the directions (all via WiFi). It did a fairly decent job of giving me directions on the way home, with no data service. At least until my wife called me on the phone, and it forgot the directions that I had downloaded.

I have an old Android phone upstairs - let me try and charge it up and see what if anything I can do with it with no SIM card in the thing.
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Old 09-30-12, 08:08 PM
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Ah, thanks for clearing that up ^^ for me.
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Old 10-01-12, 08:15 AM
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Here is what I got with my old phone. It is an Android running 2.3.5, I removed the SIM card, and I couldn't find the old SD card (which is really just like a flash drive for storing photos, etc). Having an SD card could be handy if you wanted to cache maps data for several areas, but it really isn't essential for the phone to work.

I had to connect to the WiFi at our house, and I had to connect the thing to my gmail account. After that I could run the "GPS Test" app, and it could see the satellites, and give me a good fix on location. The Maps app also seemed to work (it was giving me grief until I signed into my google account). In this version of Android, the cache of maps data is a sort of a beta, I guess, but once I found it and turned it on, it seemed to work well as I was headed into the office.

For any Android phone, having a google account is more or less required - that's how it keeps track of which apps you have purchased and all that. Fortunately google accounts are free, and you can either create a new one or attach the phone to any existing google/gmail account.

Apparently the map cache feature of Google Maps really became official in Android 3.0, but it is likely that the only way you can get such a device is to get one new, and that means spending $$$. With the version I tested, the cache is available from the "Labs". A little hard to find I guess, but it is there.

I might play with this some more myself over the next couple of days - this phone hadn't been powered up in nearly a year, and there are some quirks that I am curious about.
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Old 10-01-12, 08:40 AM
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Originally Posted by ericy
You *can* go the smartphone route, but the problem you end up with is that you will generally need a data plan to download maps, It is possible in some versions of Android to "cache" maps in a specific vicinity, which would help eliminate some of that need, but that limits your options a bit.

So I guess my first question is, if you go the smartphone route, are you willing to pay the monthly (including the data plan).
There are a fair number of options for the iPhone that store the maps on the device. I'd guess there are some available for Android too.
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Old 10-01-12, 12:22 PM
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If you already have a car GPS and are OK with using it, cheapest solution is get an external battery pack with USB output. I've seen rechargeable ones, versions with solar panels (SparkFun has a 3500 mAh pack with panel, albeit undersized for the battery capacity), and packs that use AA or AAA batteries. If you are even minimally handy with a soldering iron (or have a friend with the skill), build a MintyBoost kit (AdaFruit and I think SparkFun) - recharges USB devices from 2 AA batteries in a small size Altoids can form factor. Or buy one of several now-available dynamo systems designed to power and recharge USB devices on the bike.
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Old 10-01-12, 05:49 PM
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I ironed out a couple of issues (that were specific to my old phone - I had changed my google password, and the stupid thing had the old one cached somewhere so the market wasn't working). I then found the SD card, and then I updated all of the apps to whatever is latest in the market.

The good news is that the new caching capability appeared even through I was running Android 2.3.x. It seems to let you store up to 6 tiles, each one of which can be roughly 7Mb in size. The largest tile that I created was about 20 milesx20 miles, which seemed rather large. It is possible that in areas with more detail that the maximum size of the tiles would be smaller. I was able to turn off WiFi and browse the area, and it seemed about right - the maps got really blurry outside of the square. And as you move further and further away from the tile, the blurriness gets worse in discrete steps.

One other general comment about phones - they don't like to get wet. If you get enough water on the thing, it will kill the thing and it cannot really be repaired. This isn't specific to Android - an iPhone or most any other phone is like this. If you want to mount the thing on a handlebar and it might rain, you ought to have a plan-B of some sort (a ziplock bag maybe) where you could store it and keep it dry. If you need something that would work in a downpour, you probably need to go to a boating supply store and get a GPS unit that is designed for a marine environment.
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Old 10-01-12, 07:56 PM
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One other general comment about phones - they don't like to get wet.
Problems solved. Battery life of 8 hours on the external pack (8 nimh 2500mah) running through a car usb adapter.
The case is water "proof" to the point that it will hold off a rain storm for an hour or more - I've tried. The touch screen works through the window and the booster battery will sit underneath the phone. Total cost to build around $30.
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Old 10-09-12, 10:01 PM
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I use endomondo on my android. When riding i have it on flight mode to save battery and data. It will last over 7 hours like this, and gives a good record of my ride.
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