Has anybody tested Nokia N95 with external bluetooth GPS?
How long does it take to get a fix?
Is it a hardware or rather software problem?
Is it helpful for battery life when bluetooth is activated instead of internal GPS?
Nokia N95 + external bluetooth GPS
slawmilcz wrote:Have anybody tested Nokia N95 with external bluetooth GPS?
Yes.
slawmilcz wrote:
How long does it take to get a fix?
Depend what unit you get. A Sirf Star III has more channels, better accuracy and much faster lock.
slawmilcz wrote:
Is it a hardware or rather software problem??
What problem exactly? Both are bellow average, but better software helps.
slawmilcz wrote:
Is it helpful for battery life when bluetooth is activated instead of internal GPS?
I dont think there is much in it.
As I understood you correctly, such long time to get a lock is a hardware problem of GPS receiver and it can't be corrected by a better software.
If I bought bluetooth GPS SIRF III receiver, I would have it improved.
Is there any better navigation software for built-in receiver?
You propose me both to add external GPS receiver and change software to have satisfying results?
The lock time is entirely down to the hardware. All the software does is read the data coming from the receiver so will show your position as soon as the data it is receiving allows it.
3Shirts wrote:The lock time is entirely down to the hardware. All the software does is read the data coming from the receiver so will show your position as soon as the data it is receiving allows it.
hmm, not strictly true. The satellite data is down to the hardware yes - but its the software that judges when you have a lock. I'm not 100% - but if you were writing a GPS app you would be able to define at what quality of signal you choose to start tracking. You could start tracking as soon as you have three / four signals regardless of quality but this will be horribly inaccurate. I had a utility for my PDA (can't remember the name, something undoubtedly japanese like "mr Gps or mega GPS..."😉 which would show me the gps co-ords after a few seconds but they'd be pretty erratic. Once it settled and got an accurate signal (or 'lock'😉 then it was much better.
Also, the release notes of the new N95 firmware (rumors most probably) say that the GPS locks faster with it. This could be speculation, or it could be that the API's were changed which starts the tracking faster, has updated the firmware of the GPS device also or any combination of these.