BLuetooth GPS Receiver ? ?

AIR-AUSSIE

Hi

I'm looking into purchasing a Bluetooth GPS Receiver to link with a jailbroken Itouch. This will be done using this software (RoqyBluetooth).

Has anybody had any experience in using such hardware and would there be any you would recommend?

I've been looking at this one on amazon - Bluetooth Next 65

There is a list here of receivers compatible with the Roqyblue software. Would there be any here you would recommend as better over any other?

coylemj

That solution will only work by messing around with the official Apple Bluetooth stack because neither OS3 or iOS4 will pair with a regular Bluetooth GPS receiver so as they say 'results are unpredictable'.

I have both of these models and my iTouch (2nd Gen, 32GB) will not pair with either of them, I use them with a Nokia E55 whose builtin GPS is woefully slow.

http://www.holux.com/JCore/en/products/products_content.jsp?pno=223
http://www.usglobalsat.com/p-537-bt-368i.aspx

The Holux by the way uses a removable Nokia BL-5C battery so you can replace the battery when it eventually gives up and it has superb battery life, it's slightly smaller than a matchbox. Both of them are charged by a USB cable from a PC.

AIR-AUSSIE

coylemj wrote: »

That solution will only work by messing around with the official Apple Bluetooth stack because neither OS3 or iOS4 will pair with a regular Bluetooth GPS receiver so as they say 'results are unpredictable'.

I have both of these models and my iTouch (2nd Gen, 32GB) will not pair with either of them, I use them with a Nokia E55 whose builtin GPS is woefully slow.

http://www.holux.com/JCore/en/products/products_content.jsp?pno=223
http://www.usglobalsat.com/p-537-bt-368i.aspx

The Holux by the way uses a removable Nokia BL-5C battery so you can replace the battery when it eventually gives up and it has superb battery life, it's slightly smaller than a matchbox. Both of them are charged by a USB cable from a PC.

Yes I will have to either use RoqyBt or BTstack GPS which are software that are available in the Cydia store.

Here's info on both:

Btstack

RoqyBT

This is the Bluetooth GPS Receiver I'm going to use. In the reviews someone says he has used it with the itouch and Ipad using the above software.

Proporta GPS

Hopefully it will work reliably for what I want. If all comes to all I can still use it with my phone.. I will let you know how i get on....

coylemj

In fact they (Bluetooth GPS receivers) all do the same thing, they send a data stream conforming to the NMEA standard to the paired device, in your case the iTouch. You can read about this data format here..

http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/nmea.htm

The only real issues you need to consider are (1) price (2) time to get a fix and (3) battery life. On all three I'd recommend the Holux as it has massive (22 hours) battery life and can do a warm start within seconds plus the ability to replace the battery is a bonus. If looks alone were the only criteria the Globalsat would win hands down, it's very slim and sexy looking but has a sealed battery and shorter (10 hrs) battery life.

Dealextreme are selling the Holux for USD 44.20 (EUR 33.55) with free delivery, that's where I bought mine.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.8840

AIR-AUSSIE

coylemj wrote: »

In fact they (Bluetooth GPS receivers) all do the same thing, they send a data stream conforming to the NMEA standard to the paired device, in your case the iTouch. You can read about this data format here..

http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/nmea.htm

The only real issues you need to consider are (1) price (2) time to get a fix and (3) battery life. On all three I'd recommend the Holux as it has massive (22 hours) battery life and can do a warm start within seconds plus the ability to replace the battery is a bonus. If looks alone were the only criteria the Globalsat would win hands down, it's very slim and sexy looking but has a sealed battery and shorter (10 hrs) battery life.

Dealextreme are selling the Holux for USD 44.20 (EUR 33.55) with free delivery, that's where I bought mine.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.8840

Thanks for the insight seems like a great piece of kit. But I've already ordered the Proporta, although for nearly twice the price of the Holux. I might cancel the order.

Do you have any knowledge on the Proporta? Crap just read the Proporta only has 10 hours battery life. Is there any difference in the GPS chips the Proporta and Holux use? Dam I'm usually good at finding the best price online, not this time.

How long was delivery from dealextreme?

coylemj

As there's only the two of us on this thread it's not really necessary to 'quote' my last contribution each time you reply, press the 'Post Reply' button in the lower-left instead.

The Globalsat BT-368 uses the SiRF STARIII, Holux uses the MTK MT3318. The Proporta uses MTK but their website doesn't say which model. The spec. sheet for the Holux 1000B says 32 channels, the Proporta says 51 channels so it's a different chip but as there would typically be a max. of 12 active GPS satellites above the horizon at a given point I can't see why you'd need 51 channels.

SIRF and MTK both attempt to play up their respective brands - in the same way that Intel does with PCs but I couldn't give a toss which chip is in the device, all I can say is that the Holux gets a fix faster than the Gobalsat but this could be down to the bigger battery (picks up weak signals better) rather than the chip.

DealXtreme ships from Hong Kong which can attract unwanted attention from the customs lads, expect delivery to take 1-2 weeks.

AIR-AUSSIE

Twas more habit than anything else. I'll see how I get on.

Cheers!