• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

GPS in smart phones (1 Viewer)

njlarsen

njlarsen

Gallery Moderator
Opus Editor
Supporter
Barbados
Another thread got me thinking about GPS: I sometimes miss and even more so expect to miss in some of the places I am dreaming of going, a GPS that can help me determine where I am and at which elevation at which time of the day. However, again with the dreaming, I could imagine that any device dependent on cell phone towers would not cut it. And finally, wanting to save space, the best would be to have a combination device, able to accommodate for example electronic field guides.

So is there any device at the moment that covers all of this? Until recently (and perhaps still?), I believe that all apple products have relied on cell phone towers for location.

Another thing: battery time. I would like to be able to set a program to save my location with shortish intervals the entire day, and still have battery for another day or two -- probably not going to be realistic :-O

thank you in advance
Niels
 
All cell phones use A-GPS, that is assisted GPS. They use the cell phone tower location to get a first fix and then use the GPS satellites to refine this. This enables them to get a fix much faster. If there is no cell phone signal they will merely use the GPS satellites, this is a lot slower but will still get your position.

The main thing that govern battery life in smart phones is screen usage and call time . An app running in the background fixing your position every 10 minutes isn't going to take much off your battery life. With most phones when you enable location services it basically keeps your position all the time anyway, for tagging photos, doing nearest petrol station searches etc.

The battery life of smartphones is very variable between devices and with different usage profiles, and like car fuel data the standard test used by the phone manufacturers is rarely a true reflection of actual usage. But if you don't make many calls and don't spend ages of screentime playing games or checking Facebook they should last a couple of days. Plus you can get any number of car chargers, solar chargers and battery boosters.
 
My iPhone does pretty much all the above. Its GPS can use cellphone towers to help narrow down the location, but it uses GPS directly for precise location (and I have used mine successfully in locations with no phone connection at all). A wide range of apps give altitude as well as location, and can track all day. Location is accurate to within a few metres, altitude (as usual) somewhat coarser, but plenty good enough for most purposes.

Battery life is an issue - a full day tracking GPS is optimistic. It can do it, just. Battery can be stretched by keeping the brightness low, turning off bluetooth and wireless. But a battery pack (or car charger) is needed if remote from mains power for more than a day.

Cheers,

Keith
 
Thank you both. Having had a couple of days to digest, I have another question that possibly is naive: would the location services work in a smart phone that did not have a working cell phone connection in that location: one with a sim card for where I live but not a workable sim card for the place I visit? I would have another phone for being contacted by my employers.

thanks
Niels
 
Yes, the smartphone GPS will work standalone without a phone signal. But what you need to be aware of, is that the apps utilising the GPS might not work very well!

Google maps is pretty cool, but relies on a data connection for refreshing maps, unless you have managed to download the maps to your device at the correct resolution, it is pretty useless without a fast data connection.

On Android at least: Navfree, is pretty good for a satnav app as it downloads the Country maps to your device for offline use; and Maverick is excellent for UK OS maps, and a whole range of other maps, (Not sure how it caches the maps for offline use though)
 
Try mapswithme. No navigation in the free version, but will show your position on maps you have downloaded. And there are maps for a lot of countries, so far very country I tried :)
 
Thank you again all of you. Sorry it took so long to get back to this thread. I will purchase within the next couple of weeks, and in that context have a question: iphone 4 vs 4s vs 5 (5s seems a bit more expensive), how does these compare regarding battery life, antenna strength (including the GPS antenna), etc? and which is the best app to fix the position say every few minutes but not necessarily needing to show it on a map right away?

thanks
Niels
 
Neil's,
Check out an app called Waypoints. It saves your coordinates only when requested, so is easy on the battery. Saved data can be viewed later or sent to email.
 
Niels, I think you'd be better off starting a new topic regarding user experience with different Iphone models. They're clearly very popular and I'm sure you'll get a lot of feedback there, but I suspect with this topic people who don't have an interest in using GPS will never read it.

Sorry, I've never had one (but am considering whether buying an older model would be a good idea), so I can't help.

Andrea
 
Warning! This thread is more than 10 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

delia todd
A couple of Scythebill problems
2
Replies
39
Views
3K
CarstenFog
C
J
Recording Gear Wish List
Replies
0
Views
574
Jon.Bryant
J
G
New Swarovski Smart Binoculars
Replies
5
Views
2K
Dyrlege
D
H
Review of birding apps I use on Android
Replies
7
Views
2K
THE_FERN
T
S
Cell Phone for Birding Recommendations
Replies
12
Views
3K
THE_FERN
T

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top