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All Things GPS
- Thread starter Robinelli
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- samsung vibrant
Does not work. I was able to create a shortcut to LBSTestMode using the Shortcuts/Activities suggestion, though. Doesn't solve the problem that the string doesn't work but it is a good solution for accessing LBSTestMode. I was curious whether the rom update changed the settings I had previously made in LBSTestMode and the answer is no, the rom update did not change my settings.
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Sorry I was making dinner and feeding my wife and kids
I'm lazy and mistype alot so I never messed with the dialer key code. Here is how I get to it.
Download LauncherPro, you can uninstall it as soon as you are done testing (I do). Then when you hit the home key, choose launcher pro. When you see the new home screen, long press anywhere on a empty spot on the screen. When the menu comes up, choose shortcuts, then activities, then scroll through the list till you get to LbsTestMode. Click the arrow, then select the first entry. It should read, com.sec.android.app.lbstestmode.LbsTestMode
Label it whatever you like, I'm lazy and just keep the default. Now you have a shortcut on the screen to LbsTestMode. Fast and convienent. When you are done simply uninstall Launcher Pro and that's it.
Well Hell's bells...I had no idea you could make shortcuts like that. Makes things easier indeed.
And I gotta say, all this talk about the GPS is quite interesting. Thanks to boomerbubba and you as well, krichek.
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No, that is the code that works on the stock Vibrant. It apparently does not work on the new ROM. The minor variation that SamsungVibrant was posting is what works on the Sprint Epic to invoke not LbsTestMode but a similar utility there called GpsSetup.
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We sort of got sidetracked on this thread. But we should not lose sight of the fact that krichek's test of the new ROM showed that after waiting overnight, he did have to reboot to get a satellite lock.
That much is consistent with the behavior on the new Epic and Fascinate miodels, which presumably had Samsung's purported GPS fixes installed before they launched this month.
That much is consistent with the behavior on the new Epic and Fascinate miodels, which presumably had Samsung's purported GPS fixes installed before they launched this month.
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I just browsed his posts on the new ROM again and I don't see where he was forced to reboot to get a lock. Far as I see he just says he had to wait several minutes, which is consistent with a GPS in standalone mode. Did I just miss the reboot requirement?
Here's his post about trying it first thing in the morning:
"I actually sorta saw this this morning when I woke up and wanted to do some more testing while taking my kids to school.
It doesn't not work, it just takes a bit. Here is how it looks to me.
When I first turned GPS Test back on it showed 0 sats in view, then over the course of about 2 minutes it slowly found 1 after another, after it finally had all sats in view it then jumped to 8 in use instantly and has been very quick since."
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For whats its worth. I installed the new ROM and it works flawlessly on my Vibrant. before I would get 9-12 in view and struggle to get 1 in use. Now I get 9-12 in view and at least 6 in use and that's on the low end. So as it stands at least for me I am very happy needless to say it works great for navigation now and locks on within 5-15 sec.
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Upon rereading his post, I think you are right. He did not say he rebooted.
Sorry for the confusion.
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NP. I'm often easily confused myself.
In perusing some forums on the Epic it does look like there may be some lingering, intermittent GPS problems that do require a reboot to resolve. According to some posters Sprint has said they are aware of the problem and working with Samsung to get a fix. Whether that will show up in the Vibrant official release, of course, remains to be seen, but I wouldn't be shocked if things get much better, but a subsequent patch is also needed.
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Actually, Sprint does not publicly acknowledge it is as a known issue, but one tenacious user here got through to 3rd-level tech support and someone there acknowledged it to him over the phone. No word about Samsung's response.
I follow that very closely. I am a current Epic owner who was a Vibrant owner. I left T-Mobile in part because it would not commit to a GPS fix before I was expected to commit to a new contract. So I have been trying the Epic, whose GPS was supposed to be fixed. I think the Epic does incorporate the underlying GPS fix from Samsung and Broadcom, and its actual lat/lon accuracy is pretty good. But it introduced some distinct bugs of its own. The worst of those is the failure to achieve a satellite lock after a long period of inactivity, requiring a reboot. (There are andecdotal signs of a similar problem with the new Verizon Fascinate.)
If a real GPS fix materializes on the Vibrant soon, I might switch back. GPS is not the only issue. I also have been disappointed with Sprint's network performance, and there are other pros and cons.
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Morning folks, Sorry I wasn't able to respond earlier but it looks like what I had stated previously was sorted out. 
Anyway I thought I would post an update.
I loaded the new rom on my wife's phone yesterday afternoon, opened GPS Test once and then closed it and told her not to do anything that involved the GPS. With my phone I stopped using the GPS around 7pm last night.
This morning after about 13 hours for my phone and probably close to 17 hours for my wife's I turned GPS Test on again and timed how long it took to receive a lock on each.
Mine took :47 seconds to have a lock on 5 sats. I do have it changed from standalone to MS Based on mine.
My wife's is completely stock, it took hers 1:23 seconds to receive a lock (3 initially), she had a lock on the same 5 that I did at 1:41 after startup.
I can see how an impatient person might think it is broken, because for a period of time it does nothing. It shows 0 sats in view, 0 sats in use and there really is no indication that it is actually doing anything. I'm not sure if perhaps the makers of GPS Test could add something in that indicates sat data is being obtained or whatever but a little something would certainly help.
Anyway I thought I would post an update.
I loaded the new rom on my wife's phone yesterday afternoon, opened GPS Test once and then closed it and told her not to do anything that involved the GPS. With my phone I stopped using the GPS around 7pm last night.
This morning after about 13 hours for my phone and probably close to 17 hours for my wife's I turned GPS Test on again and timed how long it took to receive a lock on each.
Mine took :47 seconds to have a lock on 5 sats. I do have it changed from standalone to MS Based on mine.
My wife's is completely stock, it took hers 1:23 seconds to receive a lock (3 initially), she had a lock on the same 5 that I did at 1:41 after startup.
I can see how an impatient person might think it is broken, because for a period of time it does nothing. It shows 0 sats in view, 0 sats in use and there really is no indication that it is actually doing anything. I'm not sure if perhaps the makers of GPS Test could add something in that indicates sat data is being obtained or whatever but a little something would certainly help.
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@krichek,
Thanks for the update. That test does bode well for locking performance on the leaked Vibrant ROM. And I am especially glad to see your results using MS Based mode.
Now I have another testing task to propose:
So far you have tested satellite-locking performance, which has been half the GPS problem on Galaxy S phones. The other half is accuracy -- not the estimated accuracy that is reported by GPS Test and GPS Status, but the actual accuracy relative to your real position.
The best, or at least the most common, tool to use for testing accuracy is Google's My Tracks app. One user has reported a track test of this ROM with not-so-good results.
It is good to record both driving and walking tracks, the latter being the more demanding test. For driving tests, best to include lots of turns and curves, not just freeway routes or straight streets, and see how closely they hew to the road. It is helpful to change the granularity settings within My Tracks (Settings -> More -> Min Distance between points) from the default value of 5 meters to 1 meter.
Then, after recording the tracks, they can be uploaded to Google and a link posted for everyone to zoom in and explore. (For privacy reasons, don't start at your home.) Since no GPS is perfect, and the pragmatioc question is how accurate is good enough, it can be useful to record simultaneous tracks on a known good device for comparison. I use my venerable G1, whose GPS performance is quite good.
Thanks for the update. That test does bode well for locking performance on the leaked Vibrant ROM. And I am especially glad to see your results using MS Based mode.
Now I have another testing task to propose:
So far you have tested satellite-locking performance, which has been half the GPS problem on Galaxy S phones. The other half is accuracy -- not the estimated accuracy that is reported by GPS Test and GPS Status, but the actual accuracy relative to your real position.
The best, or at least the most common, tool to use for testing accuracy is Google's My Tracks app. One user has reported a track test of this ROM with not-so-good results.
It is good to record both driving and walking tracks, the latter being the more demanding test. For driving tests, best to include lots of turns and curves, not just freeway routes or straight streets, and see how closely they hew to the road. It is helpful to change the granularity settings within My Tracks (Settings -> More -> Min Distance between points) from the default value of 5 meters to 1 meter.
Then, after recording the tracks, they can be uploaded to Google and a link posted for everyone to zoom in and explore. (For privacy reasons, don't start at your home.) Since no GPS is perfect, and the pragmatioc question is how accurate is good enough, it can be useful to record simultaneous tracks on a known good device for comparison. I use my venerable G1, whose GPS performance is quite good.
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So hers is in "standalone" mode? If so, 1:41 is quite good. It will be interesting to see if you continue to get relatively quick locks after not using GPS for more than 4 hours without rebooting over several days. Based on what I've read that is where the Epic problems show up.
Thanks for the update.
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Yes hers is still in "Standalone" mode. I do not plan to change it as it makes for a good comparison. I will check again tomorrow as that will be a period of at least 24 hours for her phone.
I just finished recording a 29.7km track on both my Vibrant as well as my old Droid.
Ok, I think I've figured most of this out.. 2 questions how do I combine 2 tracks into 1? or should I levae them as seperate tracks?
How do I create a link that just shows the dang map and not all my info at the same time(email address etc)?
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Log onto Google using your ordinary Gmail credentials. Go to Maps -> My Maps. That is where your Android My Tracks app uploaded its file to.
Within My Maps, you also can edit that map further, for example change the colors of the icons and tracks or edit the descriptions. To publish a link to that map from withing My Maps, open the map and click "Link" in the upper right of the map window. From the top text box of that drop-down ("Paste link in email or IM") you can copy the URL that Google created for your map.
To upload your wife's track, you can first save the map as a KML file on the phone. Then copy that file from the KML folder on your SD card to a PC. (Of course, you also can do that step on your phone as well.) That KML file can then be uploaded to the My Maps site. Open a map, go to Edit mode, and Import the KML file from your PC.
[For example, here is a comparative map I created once on my stock Vibrant.)
Yet another way to view and edit KML files is to install the free Google Earth application on your PC. (There is a cut-down version of Google Earth for the Android, but it lacks the ability to view user-created files.)
As yet another tool to view and edit maps stored on your My Maps site, you can install the Google My Maps Editor app on your Android. This is a more robust interface than just viewing the maps in a web browser. I have some personal maps that I created in My Maps in the cloud, which I then can view handily on my Android.
All in all, Google has a pretty decent set of online and offline map tools that can work together to a large degree.
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Ok, hopefully second time is the charm. I can't seem to figure out how to overlay the two maps onto each other and save it as a new map. I can overlay them when I'm logged in, I just can't seem to save them together. If someone else wants to create a map that has both overlayed over each other please feel free.
Here is the link to the Vibrant track:http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...937463234440126188.0004903d988a6db6d8e80&z=12
Here is the link to the Droid comparison track:http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=217713586391012693858.0004903c328e28e02360b
Both phones were sitting on my dash (on either side of the center channel) so they were about 12" apart.
There is one place where the car should be on the wrong side of the road, on Garden Highway just past the apple farm I had to pass several farm vehicles. There is also one place where the car should be showing off the road. In the lower left corner of the map, that part of Highway 99 is under some major construction. There is a detour in place that kind of cuts that whole corner off.
Here is the link to the Vibrant track:http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...937463234440126188.0004903d988a6db6d8e80&z=12
Here is the link to the Droid comparison track:http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=217713586391012693858.0004903c328e28e02360b
Both phones were sitting on my dash (on either side of the center channel) so they were about 12" apart.
There is one place where the car should be on the wrong side of the road, on Garden Highway just past the apple farm I had to pass several farm vehicles. There is also one place where the car should be showing off the road. In the lower left corner of the map, that part of Highway 99 is under some major construction. There is a detour in place that kind of cuts that whole corner off.
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Thanks for the test. I could view each map online, and did try to edit them into a single overlaid map. But couldn't download the Droid as KML because you had not flagged the map as "public."
However, I did browse them side-by-side while zoomed in, and I think the accuracy of the Vibrant was quite good, if anything a little better than the Droid.
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Thanks, I think that was my problem as well. I forgot that the droid was setup under my wife's google account now so I can't login to do anything to it (she had school after work and won't be home for awhile yet).
I also forgot to mention that I did as suggested and changed the setting to 1 meter for both devices. I chose the route I did because the majority of it is very narrow "Country" roads, one of which still has a speed limit of 55mph and it seems pretty challenging for GPS units to maintain accuracy while on it.
I also thought the Vibrant was at least "as good" as the Droid if not slightly better as it didn't venture off the road as much or as far in my opinion.
For what it's worth I used the GPS on the Droid tons in my wife's van on several trips this year and it always worked like a champ. If the Vibrant's can be as good I'm more than satisfied!
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I also thought the Vibrant was at least "as good" as the Droid if not slightly better as it didn't venture off the road as much or as far in my opinion.
While your test track looks good, this fellow's doesn't. I don't know what would explain the difference.
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Maybe he was drunk.
Krichek says he changed the setting to 1 meter accuracy, perhaps that's part of the difference.
Also, most GPS devices have a "snap-to-road" option that puts your position on the nearest road, rather than the actual computed location. Were both users configured the same way on that setting?
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Maybe he was drunk.
Krichek says he changed the setting to 1 meter accuracy, perhaps that's part of the difference.
Also, most GPS devices have a "snap-to-road" option that puts your position on the nearest road, rather than the actual computed location. Were both users configured the same way on that setting?
The only change I had made to Mytracks was to change the one default setting from 5 meters to 1 on both devices. So while the other guy may have done something differently, my test is directly comparable to the Droid I tested with/against.
I just went through all the settings in MyTracks and there is no "snap to road" or anything similar listed.
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Ok. I haven't used MyTracks. The snap to road option is typically on GPS devices used for driving, but optionally for walking, so you can enable/disable it. Doesn't sound like it's a factor here.
Part of the problem in comparing track accuracy by different users is there are so many potential differences between the specific installations and internal GPS parameter settings it's hard to be sure it's apples-to-apples. It seems highly unlikely that the exact same firmware would produce very different accuracy, so I'd guess it's a setup difference. Without knowing all the details on each one it's all speculation.
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