Hi everyone,

a friend of mine demonstrated his Samsung Galaxy S Android phone to me today. One of the applications is a GPS app which appears to record GPX files. The phone has an SD card slot and he said when you plug the phone into a computer via USB it appears as a USB drive.

My GT-11 is becoming more unreliable and instead of buying a GT-31 I am considering getting one of these phones instead. It would cut down on one gadget in the house.

Has anyone used an Android phone to record their windsurfing sessions? Can anyone see the negatives of using one or whether its not possible to record tracks? From my limited knowledge the application shown recorded GPX files which are not as accurate as the SBN doppler data. Another negative is using a fairly expensive gadget in a reasonably hostile environment with possible longer term reliability issues.

Its a sweet phone and you don't have to use iTunes

The big negative would be smashing or drowning $600 worth of hardware vs $200. I'd be nervous having something that big strepped to my arm, particularly when most of it is a screen!

buy the GT31 and get out there and do some PBs! The team is counting on you!

Why would anyone want to use a smart phone as a windsurfing GPS? I break phones easily enough and they are just in my pocket

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FormulaNova said...

buy the GT31 and get out there and do some PBs! The team is counting on you!

Why would anyone want to use a smart phone as a windsurfing GPS? I break phones easily enough and they are just in my pocket

LOL. Yeah I bought a Nokia semi smart phone (suited me fine) earlier this year and about 3 months later I pulled it out of my pocket and the screen was smashed. So I'm back using an old Nokia. This old Nokia has an amazing feature thats one of the big iPhone 4 selling points, a forward facing camera for video calls!

I'll see how the GT-11 goes. It buggered up on Saturday then worked on Sunday. I'll keep using the GT-11 and hopefully it will last a while longer.

It is interesting how the smart phone concept is converging a whole bunch of functionality that could potentially reduce the need for other gadgets. He showed me a spirit level application on his phone which was very inventive.

For what it's worth, I've had a number of files loaded onto the KA72.com website recorded from Nokia SportsTracker. So I decided to try using it myself for some cycling and walking tracks (no way am I putting my phone on Kellie's arm at GB!)

Looking at the files, they are not accurate enough for the online competitions. The Nokia GPS file (exported as a non-compliant gpx format file) contains trackpoint data, at 1s intervals, but not with sufficient accuracy for the competition.

The GPS in these phones is meant to be accurate enough for mapping applications, car-based navigation, and finding your rellies in Google Maps (or letting them find you!) It is also fine for exercise-based personal tracking, like SportsTracker does, where it will tell you if you've improved your lap time, how long you took to walk a route, or give you a nice little google earth overlay. It just isn't accurate enough for reliable speed calculations.

I suspect the Android gps would be the same, but that will be dependant on the actual hardware installed in each individual phone, so different phones will have different accuracies.

Cheers,

Dylan.

Thanks Dylan,

thats what I want to hear. So the two negatives for using a smart phone is the lack of accuracy and durability. I don't know the accuracy of the Galaxy S but its probable its no more accurate than other smart phones.

What i'd like is a Waterproof GPS and camera in one. So i can take snaps while speeding.

They actualy make one but not rugged and more designed to let you know where you have taken your snaps.

But having a phone for emergencies, a camera for the action and GPS for the speed would be a nice combo on the board!

I recently used mine on a drive home using mph. My average over 11 miles was 36.8mph with a peak of 255.7mph. So no they are very accurate.

When you can buy a phone with camera for $30 or $40, they become disposable, so might be a better idea. Not water proof but then again, hardly any phones are.

An update.

My old Nokia phone died on Monday. I had to get a new phone. A bit of interweb research brought up a cheap Android phone that people seemed to like, a Huawei Ideos. Crazy Johns was selling them for $159 and apparently unlocked although Crazy John staff said it was locked to the Crazy Johns network.

So I purchased one and tried it with my 3 sim card. It worked so that was the first win.

I'm not that familiar with Google/Android phones but apparently this one is a vanilla phone that doesn't have a 3rd party skin or wrapper over it, so its pure Google. It runs the latest Android OS 2.2 and will be updated when Google releases updates.

Online reviews rated the IDEOS GPS reasonably highly. So the next step was to find a GPS app. A few were downloaded from the Market Place which is a sort of wild west version of the Apple app store.

The gps app showing the most potential so far is Offline Logger. I've just tested it out by walking around at work. It created a GPX file which I uploaded to KA72.com
The results seemed pretty in line with reality.

So the next step is to take it windsurfing and compare the results with my GT-11. This weekend is looking pretty good for some testing.

Where/When are you sailing on the weekend Karl?

Sunday definately down at Kyeemagh for the JP/NP event.

Saturday not sure as we are going to a function in the evening.

The IDEOS was tested yesterday with a quick after work windsurf with Offline Logger with the GT-11. The GT-11 worked fine which is pleasing. Offline Logger did not.

Offline logger hung when I tried to save the trackpoints. It then had to be force closed. There was no GPS data on the phone when I checked it. Offline logger also received an update which apparently improves stability and accuracy.

The phone was placed in a zip lock bag in the Paqaqua and kept dry. Despite this I don't think its a great idea to take it on the water in a very windy and rough day. However at $160 its reasonably cheap and its inevitable these sorts of phones will keep coming down in price.

A bonus is the possibility of listening to music out on the water. The phone rang while sailing and it was very clear. So listening to a playlist or album when out on the water could be possible. The other possible use is the audible speedo written and mentioned in that other thread. I had a search for it in the market place but could not find it.

Second attempt to use Offline Logger and again it hung when closing down and saving the file.

Give it another shot tomorrow but it appears I may have to search for another application in my quest for a decent GPS tracker on for the IDEOS.

Continuing the search for a GPS tracking app for the Android phone Open GPS Tracker was tested today in the car. It worked very well, did not hang or quit unexpectedly and saved the data as a GPS file.

The data appeared to be accurate when loaded to KA72 but I didn't take the GT-11 so its accuracy can't be compared.

It chews the power though. So its unlikely to keep running for much more than a few hours. The phone was down to about 20% of power after four hours.

Looking forward to testing this app out on the water and comparing it to the GT-11. Fortunately I've sort of worked out the foibles of my GT-11. Sometimes it will not save data to the card after a session. If it does not save the data to the card automatically the data can obtained from the GT-11 by going to the DATA LOGGER menu and then selecting SAVE TO CARD. I can the get the data onto the card.

Open GPS Tracker is a free app so it will interesting to see how it goes.

Alright,

the dodgy GT-11 went up against the IDEOS running Open GPS Tracker on and in the waters of Narrabeen Lake today.

Here are the results from the GT-11


2 Second Peak (Kts) 21.33 (D)
5 x 10 Second Average (Kts) 20.01 (D)
1 Hour (Kts) 6.47 (D)
Alpha Racing 500m (Kts) 13.63(D)
Nautical Mile (Kts) 9.31 (D)
Distance Travelled (km) 14.46 (D)

Here are the results from the IDEOS
2 Second Peak (kts): 22.62
5x10 Average (kts): 20.51
1 Hr (kts): 6.36
Alpha 500 (kts): 13.59
Nautical Mile (kts): 8.97
Total Distance (km): 14.67

So the results are reasonably similar but there are differences in each category. One area the IDEOS fell down was durability. Foolishly I failed to place the IDEOS in a plastic bag inside my Pacaqua. I spent a bit of time in the drink trying to waterstart in very little wind and a bit of water got into the Pacaqua. Sailing back the IDEOS gave a sound I've never heard it make before and back on shore it was off and would not turn on. I took the battery out and found some water inside

Back home I dried it out with a hairdryer and it came good

So in all what do people think of using something like this in the Challenge? Is it legit or not? All results are from KA72.com. The results posted today come from the GT-11.

Here is a bad camera photo of how funky my GT-11 is becoming.

Bit hard to read but the counter says 10 sec maximum speed is 540.38 knot. The GT-11 was tested in my van the other day but its never driven that fast.

Here is a shot of how the Oregon Scientific ATC9K GPS and G-Force Sensor works in conjunction with video.



It also features a 1.5 inch screen, a water resistant remote control, a 5MP camera, and a built in laser pointer to line up your shot.