GPS - accuracy, performance, availability ?

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Originally Posted by eliwellis

Hi everybody,

A friend and I are putting together an app that uses the GPS. We've noticed, more often than we would like, that our Droids (motorolas) don't have a current fix on our location. So I thought I would put out a question to you all, a survey if you will.

The questions are these:

- How well do you rate the phones gps? In a rural area? In the city? How accurate is the position shown on the map? How often is your "location temporarily unavailable"? Which Android phone do you have? I have a Motorola Droid. I'd rate the GPS a 9/10. It usually shows me exactly where I am in my house when I look at the satellite view in maps. I live in the greater Los Angeles/South Bay area and my coverage is excellent. I've had the GPS signal drop out a few times in Downtown Los Angeles (I assume cause of the building?) and in rural Washington state. The only time I seem to get the "location temporarily unavailable" is when I haven't used any GPS features in a while. Rotating the phone to 'calibrate' seems to make it find my location faster when this happens.

-For those of you with experience with other hand held GPS devices (Garmin,Magellan,Delorme) , how does the androids gps hardware compare? I've used a Magellan and compared them side by side and my Droid lost the signal less than the Magellan in rural Washington...the only bad thing is that the Droid would sometimes lose the map since they aren't stored onboard. Even my old LG Voyager had better GPS navigation than the Magellan, imo.

-For those of you with both android and iphone experience, do you notice a difference? My Droid GPS has always been more accurate when comparing it to friends iphones.

Thanks in advance for the responses and the help.

-Eli

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My comments in red. Good luck on the app.

Edit: Also there is a really good app that shows GPS status and fix information. It's called GPS Status. Right now it shows I'm fixed to 8 satellites with an error margin of about 12 feet.

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Originally Posted by zakany

Droid, iPhone, Garmin, etc. probably all use the same GPS chipset.

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No, the iPhone 3G/S uses an Infineon PMB 2525 Hammerhead II chipset. The Droid uses a multi-function Qualcomm chip. Garmin uses neither of these.

Thanks for all of the responses.

Do any of you notice that the droids gps seems to have good days and bad days? Sometimes it has me perfectly throughout the day , other times it doesn't have my location at all. ( or thinks I am in Quebec , which I am not )

what's the weather like on the bad days? Anything that uses satellite will have bad days.

I am curious also about how well the phone finds your location using wireless networks. Either with the gps on or off. Is there an app similar to GPS Status that monitors connections to wireless networks?

Any links to other threads related to this would be appreciated.

Thanks

Sorry to get off topic, but I don't understand the FAQ on calibrating the GPS.

Do YOU spin around 3 times, or you just set the phone in your hand and spin it 3 times?

I have never lost GPS while using navigation. It is so accurate that it tells me when to turn in large parking lots! It has out performed my fathers Garmin and my friends TomTom in accuracy.

I think the GPS is very accurate. The problem with the Google Navigation is the map data.

Google maps are no where near the Navteq used on the Garmins.

On many occasions the Google Maps showed an address in the wrong spot, while the Garmin pointed to the right place.

I think once Google gets there map data more accurate the navigation will improve.

I have to say nothing beats the traffic on the Google maps. It is pretty amazing and even works on main streets.

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Originally Posted by tommyz

I think the GPS is very accurate. The problem with the Google Navigation is the map data.

Google maps are no where near the Navteq used on the Garmins.

On many occasions the Google Maps showed an address in the wrong spot, while the Garmin pointed to the right place.

I think once Google gets there map data more accurate the navigation will improve.

I have to say nothing beats the traffic on the Google maps. It is pretty amazing and even works on main streets.

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I had the opposite experience. Google told me the correct location while Garmin was off several times.

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Originally Posted by eliwellis

Thanks for all of the responses.

Do any of you notice that the droids gps seems to have good days and bad days? Sometimes it has me perfectly throughout the day , other times it doesn't have my location at all. ( or thinks I am in Quebec , which I am not )

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Yes, soon after I posted my response to your survey, I went to my maps and it took a few minutes to connect to any satellites. It had my location within a few blocks based on the cell towers, but no gps. It has also placed me in San Diego and Pebble Beach, CA which are nowhere close to Los Angeles...usually that fixes itself within a couple seconds and I usually notice it with my WeatherBug app. I have no clue why it would think I was in either of those places.