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Recycling an Android Phone As a Handheld GPS?
imblum writes "So my dad's antique handheld GPS unit just went toes up and I was considering replacing it for him with an old Android Smartphone. All he really needs it for is hunting and camping (no navigation), so I don't want to pay for cell or data service. I found the program Mobile Atlas Creator to download map files onto the SD card, and an app called Maverick Lite to view them. Now all I need is to decide on an Android phone. I was considering a Samsung Behold II ($100-200 on Craigslist), but thought it would be nice to get some input from the Slashdot community. It seems like I can get a lot more functionality for the money out of an old Android than I could from a big name handheld GPS. Does this plan sound reasonable? Is there anything I'm overlooking?"
You're talking about spending $100-200 on an Android phone, and you can get a real dedicated GPS receiver for $90 that requires no effort to set up, no purchase of an additional flash card, has a warranty, etc.
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I just bought a used Magellan explorist 500 ion Amazon for $7. Why bother with hacking an android phone?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
There's a reason why 'real' GPS units cost more, despite not necessarily having as many fancy 'features' that often end up being unnecessary.
Cell phones rarely have WAAS. Cell phones usually also use the cellular system to receive the phase of the GPS satellite transmission to aid in reception--but--if you don't have any service, the accuracy can get pretty deplorable (well, compared to say my GPSmap 60CSx that usually locks within fourteen to sixteen feet)...the battery life isn't as good, cell phones are horribly made, and the chipsets and antennae are simply much, much, much better in a dedicated unit. Pick up a used GPS--that's a real GPS--and it will be much better suited to hunting and camping rather than looking for the closest Starbucks. Real GPS units have rubber gaskets for a reason.
A GPS device in my experience is much more durable than a smartphone. Smartphones are delicate devices. My GPS has been dropped tons of times, been left in the car in hot weather and cold winter, even sprayed with water on a couple of occasions. It still works. I doubt a smartphone would do that. On the other hand you could use the android for more than just navigation. You could have apps installed that don't need an internet connection, music, videos and what not. Although most new GPS devices do play mp3s.
Depends on how your dad uses his GPS and what he needs to do with it, but Android smart phones aren't generally designed for rough conditions.
I've got a Garmin eTrex and an Android phone. The Garmin is way more ruggedised than the touch screen smart phone (Motorola Milestone). I don't think the Milestone would cope with pouring rain, snow, getting knocked about in rucsacs, dropped in puddles, sat on, etc, and still function in bad weather at night when I really need to know where I am: it might be life or death. "Smart phones" with a few exceptions are much too flimsy for outdoor use in severe conditions.
I took my Moto Droid to France and Spain this spring for just that purpose. By definition there was no phone network in Europe, it only works with Verizon. I downloaded maps using MapDroid and planned to use it for GPS and email in wi-fi zones. The wi-fi email tool worked ok except the phone has a hard time hanging onto a wi-fi connection. As a GPS it was worthless. I find that if the phone network is disabled, the GPS takes forever to find it's location (sometimes it failed completely). If you are planning to not have a phone network connection, don't bother with this one.
I did a reasonably extensive amount of research into how to do this, and I'm pretty confident I know the answer.
1. Get OruxMaps - it allows you to use maps without an active internet connection.
2. While connected to wifi, download the tiles from google terrain (or one of the other map sources available). If you know exactly where you're hiking, you can get zoomed in maps for say a 20 mile square around the center of your hike with amazing resolution.
3. Put your phone in a plastic bag, and only take it out if you actually don't know where you are (I find that I almost always do).
In terms of battery life, I was using my android phone as a camera too, and checking GPS every few hours to verify I was in the right place, and it lasted for three days taking down the battery by 40%. Make sure to turn off the cell tower seeking and such or else you will drain the battery really fast. Airplane mode probably won't allow you to receive GPS, unfortunately, but you can at least turn off wireless, data connections, etc.
If you aren't going to be gone very long, and you want a cool log of your trip, you can have OruxMaps poll the GPS in "power saving" mode, which as far as I can determine seems to mean connecting, and then dropping to low power (non-receiving) mode for 10-20 seconds before polling the satellites again. Then you can tell it to make a "track", and it will record your hike -- average speed, immediate speed at each point, speed distribution, altitude map, total distance, and other cute information.
Hopefully someone will mod this up high enough that the submitter can see it... this is the part of ask slashdot that always confuses me. Hopefully a few hundred other people came up with the same solution, so at least one of us is actually noticed =)