Using the GPS Features of Your Cell Phone?

travik asks: "I use a Nokia 3650. The cell phone already knows my co-ordinates (E911 service). It has Bluetooth. Why can't I send the coordinates using Bluetooth to my laptop, and use a mapping application to give me my location and directions to where i want to go. I've searched Google and also read up on old posts, no one seems to be doing it. Why?"

Comments

GPS receiver

[Grand]

If you have your laptop with you, why dont you just get a GPS reciever for your laptop. There are even bluetooth (teletype, navman, pharos) gps recievers for laptops if you dont like cords all over your car. You will get a much more accurate position. Im willing to bet the GPS in the phones dont update as often either. They are only just over 100.00 US.

Re:It's.... kinda possible

[bjpirt]

That's a very good idea, care to share the results as I have no idea how I would go about this and it would be interesting to see what you did.

I imagine that if cell information from your sevice was not forthcoming, some kind of distributed mapping project could be performed and the data shared.

Re:E911 isn't really GPS

[gl4ss]

you don't really need e911 for that.

it's possible to do it with regular old phones as well, the service provider can pull out the signal strengths to the nearest towers from the network and it has cordinates for them. this has been demonstrated to work fairly well.

as to the original askers question, the phone doesn't really know where it is(as in any map cordinates or similar), however it's possible to pull out information on which gsm cell the phone is in. there's even a program that automates actions based on which cell you're in so that you can have your phone go silent when you go to the university and then have it automatically go out of silent when you go back home & etc(the progams name is 'minigps').

E911 with Cingular & T-Mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

If your cell phone provider is Cingular or T-Mobile, then your location services are being provided by TruePosition. Since Cingular is now going to gobble up AT&T Wireless, there will probably be a huge growth in TruePosition services in the US as a result. There is some information available online but the location system is quite proprietary and not simply GPS. Since the location is actually determined from equipment in a telecom rack somewhere, don't expect to be able to hack your phone much to make use of this.

Positioning Techniques

[neglige]

The cell phone already knows my co-ordinates (E911 service).

Careful not to mix up different positioning techniques :) Your cell phones does _not_ know its position. The _base station_ of the network does. This is assuming that you are _not_ using GPS, but let the network find out the position of the device by

• using the cell ID of your current radio cell - precision varies with cell size (100m to several km)
• using the 'angle of arrival' (AoA) of the radio waves to and from your mobile device
• triangulate the device with 'Enhanced Observed Time Difference' (E-OTD), requires additional base stations in rage

These are just a few, there are several more.

GPS, on the other hand, requires you to have a GPS receiver. If you have one, your device can determine its position. You do not require a mobile phone network for this, but you need at least 3 GPS satellites "in view" (meaning: you must see the sky, GPS won't work within buildings; there is "indoor GPS", but this is about creating 'artificial satellites' within a building).

GPS gives YOU your position, and YOU alone, unless you transmit the information (e.g. to a map service). The techniques described above give your position to the network operator, not you. The operator then has to give the information to you or some mobile service. With E911, in case of an emergency the network operator reports your position to the emergency units.

Why can't I send the coordinates using Bluetooth to my laptop, and use a mapping application to give me my location and directions to where i want to go.

As said above, if you do not have a GPS receiver, YOU do not have your position. You have to use whatever service your provider offers (if any). To use the laptop you need a GPS receiver. Connect that to the laptop, install the right software... and voila :)

Hope that helps ;) There are tons of information on this subject. If you'd like to have more details, I'll point you to some papers on that matter.

Solution right there:

[AdamInParadise]

WayFinder.

Basically, it provides you with a simple GPS module that communicates with your mobile through Bluetooth. Map and directions are provided by an online service and appear on the screen of your mobile. Neat!

Possible only on Nextel phones in the US

[asmithmd1]

Nextel phones have complete GPS chip sets in them that are capable of getting a GPS fix even when no network is available. With a serial cable you can connect your Motorola i58/i88 or i730 to PC mapping software running on a laptop.
You can also sign-up for a free service like www.uLocate.com that can send maps and text descriptions of your location to your phone
Every other carrier that claims to have GPS phones has the data locked-up in some way. They are trying to figure out a way to charge you per fix and have not worked out how to do that yet. Until then only the 3 or 4 911 centers in the US that have installed E-911 equipment can tell where your phone is. I suspect they will open it up after some bad PR. Imagine a situation like the recent abduction and murder in Florida where the girl has a GPS cell phone but the authorities can't get any info because the local 911 call center is not set-up yet.