Hi My question is ref to the internal compass and also the gps within the hero. I normally use a garmin CSx60 for caching and like the option of switching the compass off when around items that could affect its reliability. I cant seem to find any apps that will allow this on the hero. As the compass works by in effect measuring the magnetic field in its current enviroment, ( which in the open would be the earths north and south etc, but not when close to metail over head cable s etc etc) this is less than useful if the unit is in a car body or by anything that could disrupt the magnetic sense! Ok the hero worked ok when we got out of the car, but the garmin worked fine on just gps sats in the car and I could then switch to compass if we were in heavy tree cover giving poor sat performance.
Pity we cant switch the compass off and leave the gps on! Anyone else had this problem. We have two heros giving same sort of effects. Just one other point how can I use the hero on a car windscreen mount? It appears that the hero needs to be kept horizontal to get any meaningful reading, i.e. same plane as a normal compass would be.
Anyone else having similar problems?
Cheers
Mike
I agree it's a pain, on a propa Gps you can switch the digital compass feature off there by just using GPS satellites
*daydreams* if only someone made a app
Related
Hello everyone!
I recently bought a HOLUX GPSlim 236 mouse to ue it with a navigation software on my beloved MDA III!
My decision for the HOLUX was actually based on various posts in this forum, where that GPS mouse has been praised as a very good, fast and responsive device!
Unfortunately, the results I have so far achieved, are almost pathetic!
When turning the HOLUX on after it has been turned off for the night, it takes the GPS pretty long to get a fix (which is usually signaled by a blinking light on the device). Sometimes it really takes forever! For example, today I turned it on when leaving the appartment. I went down the three stories to the street, walked on the street for 2 minutes, waited for the tramway to arriv for 1 minute, sat in the tramway near a window for 15 minutes, walked to the office in 5 minutes.... finally, shortly before arriving at the office, the HOLUX got a signal and could show me my position!
But even then, the position of me walking down the street was not even close to precise. Exact position and walking direction are almost always wrong when on foot!!
In a car, when finally getting a fix on the satellites, the positioning is sometimes better..... but only sometimes!
Long story told short: The results of positioning are poor! I wonder, where the problem might be!
DAMAGED DEVICE?
FAKE IMITATION? (how can i check what chipset is really woking in that thing?)
IS IT THE DEFAULT OF THE MDA3 and its poor Bluetooth abilities?
WHAT ARE YOUR EXPERIENCES WITH THE HOLUX 236? SPEED? POSITIONING?
dont know what to do....
any help is very much appreciated!
regards,
krz
Did you try Holux Support site? I have the same model and had some issues, and they helped me resolve them.
Here is their website: http://www.buygpsnow.com/support/show.asp
I've been using the GPSlim quite satisfactorily. It does sometimes take long to acquire a fix though, and I'm not sure of all the reasons for that. (Other than that obviously Bluetooth and the BA have nothing to do with it.)
GPS devices generally take longer for acquisition when they are switched on in a different place from where they were last used. They store a so-called "almanac" which helps them find a quick fix because they already know most of the position data. (This is called a warm start.) If switched on away from the old position, they have to re-acquire to almanac, which takes longer. ("Cold start.")
As for the lack of accuracy, unless your GPSlim is damaged, I'd tend to blame that more on the software. The software knows about streets, etc. and will try to put you on one of them if the data is not close enough. With e.g. Tomtom 6 on the BA this usually works very well. If your software doesn't do this sort of "magnetic snap" to a street well then your position will not be so accurate. It could also be that the "snap-to", which IMHO requires some measure of anticipation about which direction and speed you are moving, works better when driving than when walking.
I can't really complain about the Bluetooth performance with my BA & GPSlim ... however for navigation on foot I tried to put the GPSlim (as it's so small) into the zip hood collar of my coat but found that the bluetooth connection doesn't work with the Holux on my back, behind my head, but does work if I slide the GPS in to the tip of the collar -- but it works best if I'm holding the BA in my hand the same side where the GPS is in the collar tip ... so the quality of the Bluetooth connection does seem very delicate!
Greetings,
Malkovich
Isn't GPS by definition line of sight. i.e. your phone needs view of the sky to get a a gps signal or satellite lock.
I have seen multiple posters saying that they are in their house or office building and not getting a lock or signal. Unless you are by the window or skylight, you shouldn't be able to get a signal by GPS alone. The only location information would be gotten from the network.
If people are having trouble getting location lock 'inside', doesn't that mean that there is a location problem in general, not just a gps issue?
I am definitely a noob, but I have been using GPS since the technology came out and my general understanding is that without a view of the sky, you will not get a signal. Or am I missing something?
Its radio based not light based so it will go through some materials. For example, I get sat lock in my second floor but I cannot see any sats downstairs.
Sorry, nope!
See this link:
electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/travel/gps.htm[/url]
In the second paragraph it states that you need a CLEAR view of the sky.
On this link it explains it even further stating that NO GPS reciever is designed to work indoors.
gpsinformation.net/multipath.htm[/url]
Further, satellite TV isn't light based. But it still needs to be outside so that it can get reception from it's satellite. So your statement about it being radio based rather than light based does not answer the question.
Anyone else?
I'm not a GPS expert but I used to get a lock anywhere with my G1. W/O using network so yeah, this GPS officially sucks.
XDA Mobile
MonteCristo22 said:
Isn't GPS by definition line of sight. i.e. your phone needs view of the sky to get a a gps signal or satellite lock.
I have seen multiple posters saying that they are in their house or office building and not getting a lock or signal. Unless you are by the window or skylight, you shouldn't be able to get a signal by GPS alone. The only location information would be gotten from the network.
If people are having trouble getting location lock 'inside', doesn't that mean that there is a location problem in general, not just a gps issue?
I am definitely a noob, but I have been using GPS since the technology came out and my general understanding is that without a view of the sky, you will not get a signal. Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Certain radio frequencies, including those used by the GPS satellites, are considered line of sight. That is to say, to get a good signal you need to have a clear path to the transmitter. Some radio frequencies actually bounce of a layer of the earth's atmosphere and can travel around the world, and are therefore not line of sight.
If a receiver is sensitive enough and a signal is powerful enough (and depending on the frequency), a signal can still penetrate some degree of cover, so it's possible to get a GPS signal indoors, but as you mentioned, it's usually when one is close to a window. Some GPS receivers are terrible unless you're well out into the open, some can pick up a signal under tree cover.
GPS satellites are something like 12,000 miles above the earth, so by the time a signal gets down to earth it's not all that powerful. Radio power dissipates over distance just like any other form of energy.
You will get the best signal with a clear sky view, but basically modern GPS receivers are now also able to work off reflected signals, as well as the very faint signals which may leak through building walls and so on. A relatively high number of signal errors just translates into reduced accuracy.
Furthermore, satellite-based GPS can be "enhanced" through short-term inertial tracking. Most in-dash nav systems do this (my Suburban will sometimes show a "GPS" icon with a slash through it, and then it relies on inertial nav until it gets a signal again). Your phone can do similar things with the tower signals and perhaps even WiFi SSIDs to help your sat-GPS cope with suboptimal conditions (and it ought to be able to use inertial nav via the accelerometers, but I don't know whether it actually does this).
If you want very high-res GPS, you still have to be outside with one of those backpack-mounted rigs. (A friend of mine does GIS and surveying, and under the right conditions they can get centimeter resolution with those.)
Satellite TV isn't a good comparison for many reasons. First of all, an audio/video stream is a gigantic amount of data compared to the relatively simple timestamped pings that GPS satellites emit. Second, there isn't any demand for electronics manufacturers to provide hyper-sensitive reception: mounting antennas on a roof or exterior wall (or in the case of something like XM, on top of your car) is fine with most people.
Hello Developers,
I bought a Galaxy 5.0 for my brother and we love it. One problem we have though, the compass doesn't properly, I hear because of the 2.3 upgrade. I've rooted it with enropy's daily driver and I've played with some roms, (CM9 ) But I'm looking for a rom that has a working compass that is at least relatively stable. I would even consider downgrading to 2.2. A bug fix from Samsung probably wont come, so a fix from here is much more likely.
We tried to use the player as a gps and the map kept spinning because of the compass.
The software we use for the gps is Copilot.
Any ideas?
the compass on google maps/navigation works fine for me on gingerbread. have you tried that?
The map looks fine, but the pointer may spin in many different directions or stay in one direction. The other app I used, spins the entire map based on the compass, so it became unusable for pedestrian directions.
try turning on sensor aiding on the location and security menu in settings. (mine was unchecked, i checked it and got a super fast lock on my location) if its already on, try it without. you may be near some magnetic fields that are screwing with your gps.
Hey, thanks for the tip. I already tried it with both the box checked and un-checked, and still no help. Here's a video I found on youtube with someone with the same problem. youtube.com/watch?v=PnPU4UV_ywI[/url]
that happens to me sometimes but i just put it on a flat surface and wait until the gps icon on the status bar stops flashing and its usually fine.
if your arrow doesn't stop moving or the gps icon doesn't lock after maybe 3mins then the issue might be the whole magnetic field thing.
The compass on other devices I used in the same place worked perfectly well, and putting it on a flat surface doesn't really do much to help it, because it become erratic again when you pick it back up. It's more apparent in any compass app. On my phone, it always points north, even if I spin or move. On the SGP5 it just points to a direction and stays there , then jumps to other directions that are wrong.
I've noticed the same thing. I don't think it's a matter of finding "the right thing to try". I suspect that it's either the device or Samsung's implementation. I hope for a Kies update someday.
Yeah, but I heard it worked before the gingerbread update. I wish I know, but mine came with gingerbread already installed.
so did mine. although i didn't spend much time on stock before i switched to another rom. Right now I'm running my own custom rom that I may release to the public when I think its perfect, you may try that once its released since I told you myself I have no issues. If you want an immediate solution you can try these off the top of my head:
- go to task manager > maps > wipe data
- reflash gapps (20110828 gb version)
- clear cache/dalvik in cwm
I'm probably dumb and maybe that has nothing to do with fixing it but hey, if you haven't tried it already....
Try waving the device around in a figure 8 (Only using your wrist to do the motion) . I know... weird but it helps with the spinning compass issue.
Sent from my YP-G70 using Tapatalk 2
Compass or Gyro?
I think that somewhere in the programming that the compass got mixed up with the gyro because even when left untouched mine still spins rapidly. When it does stop it almost always points the wrong way. Try an app that is supposed to find metal, when device is placed on metal the metal readings fade to zero, but if you stand in the middle of a field and shake the device the sensor will go to maximum.
I have this problem that has been described and haven't had any luck finding a solution. I bought mine in February with gingerbread. Why would Samsung sell these galaxy players without fixing the gps?
Hi everyone, don't know if this is the right place to post.
I bought a car android system from china that replaces my stock car radio. All works great, except the GPS seems to be weird.
It only connects to satellites 3,7,9,11 and none others - even though it sees a bunch of other satellites. Problem rises in that those sats are not always visible so I get a lot of navigation problems since it does not want to connect to the other 5 or so satellites that are visible and have good reception.
I was wondering if this could be something in the android system limiting it to which satellites it can connect to?
Imgur album: imgur.com/a/qFUvh
My regular old garmin GPS gets great reception and has no problem. While this thing is weird.
Bought a second hand TS a few days ago and overall I'm very pleased with it. My main aim was to use it for tracking my runs whilst listening to music over bluetooth. The music works well but GPS is very intermittent.
I use the GPS test app to monitor what's going on and while the watch is off my wrist I get a good GPS fix. However, as soon as I put it on my wrist it loses all reception. I've tried bending the strap to see if that's why it fails but it's not that.
Has anyone else had similar issues?
I know I'm lucky to have GPS working at all but it's next to useless if it won't work on my wrist!