Help Bluetooth GPS for HTC Magic?

[Susie]

Hi,

I just got a Magic, and need to set up an external GPS receiver for it. I tried the bluetooth BlueNEXT BN-901S, but the Magic will not connect to it via bluetooth - it will pair, but it refuses to connect. The instructions mention that I need to assign a COM port to the receiver for the phone to recognise it - but Android doesn't offer that option.

Is there any way to get Android to recognise a Bluetooth GPS without needing that option? And are there any receivers compatible with the Magic? Thanks!

 

[Carl C]

Android bluetooth is really buggy and has difficulties in connecting with most things. Future versions of Android are improved bluetooth wise so hopefully this will make it compatible.

Why would you need an external GPS anyway? The Magic has built in GPS

 

[spyke555]

Because as we speak the internal GPS on my android is seeing only 3 satellites, very weak strength, and 3072m error...

My external GPS (much more sensitive) is seeing 11 satellites at different signal strengths and is locing on within 3m...

So based on these numbers the external GPS is 1000x better! ;-) Really though you can generally get much more sensitive external GPS units than the ones built into the phones. They can also be located somewhere convenient where they will get a better view of the sky. Plus they have a seperate battery and therefore take less juice from the phone.

From what I've been able to gather Android's bluetooth stack does not support SPP (Serial Port Protocol) and therefore can't connect to a BT GPS on its own. I did find this project that provides this support, but you'll need a custom app to take advantage of it as it's not tied into the Android location system.

http://code.google.com/p/android-bluetooth/

Source post here:

[android-discuss] Re: Can Android use an external Bluetooth GPS unit?

Hope that helps!

 

[aphalos]

I agree completely. If you are hiking in the midlands between rocks and trees full of leaves, the internal gps receiver fails. Additionally an internal gps sensor drains way more battery than an external one that is connected via bluetooth. So while the internal one is quite ok for car navigation and searching for restaurants in google maps, it is not the right thing to do hiking tours, recording tracks and working on open street maps. So there is quite a lot of use for external gps devices.

I found an app that can do it quite well: 'bluetooth gps'. It connects to my bluemax 4013 within seconds. But it only works within the software (which is just a test, no tracking/mapping/logging/caching tool), not in the system. So is there a way to replace the internal gps by an external one directly in the system?

I allready requested a bt gps-compatibility for maverick, my favourite gps programm, but this can't be an overall solution...

- aph

 

[MikeMaurice]

Garmin 48, GPSMap 76S, GPS 10x and Motorola Droid.
All machines placed in same place in window of a house with limited view of sky. Tests repeated several times. In general...

The 48 and 76S appear to have the same chip set and each displayed one satellite with low signal strength.
The 10x had 11 sats visible and used 4-6 with moderate signal strength. The 10x was using the Android GPS Bluetooth application which uses the NEMA data stream.

The Droid showed 10 sats visible used 7-10, and had about 30% more signal strength than the 10x. The status info for the Droid was displayed using the GPSTest application.

There is some reason to believe that the Droid is using the Motorola chip set:GPS IC GSCi-5000, the documentation can be gotten at:

http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles...s/_staticFiles/SiRF Documents.zip?localeId=33

 

[mrmagmrmag]

As I cannot use the internal GPS in my car AT ALL (coated windscreen will not let my SGS find more than 3 satellites!) I use a Bluetooth GPS receiver and a very nice program called 'Bluetooth GPS Mouse'.

Now I am happy as my applications can now profit from the good GPS receiver which I have mounted below the hat rack of my car (no coated screen there

).

 

[carpboy]

The 10x had 11 sats visible and used 4-6 with moderate signal strength. The 10x was using the Android GPS Bluetooth application which uses the NEMA data stream.

No problems using the 10x on the phone? I have that app, just pair the phone and run the app and the mapping programs get it all? Any problems pairing? Are you running a stock ROM? Thanks.

 

[rrhobbs]

I have GPS Mouse (paid ver) working on a Droid w Transystem 821