GPS technology is getting there. And by there I mean the proverbial cheap and simple.I've been telling people for a while I'm waiting for a GPS unit that costs $50 or less, has an on/off button, can record for 24+ hours, has a USB port and fits on a keychain. No screen, no maps, just a button an on/off button and a USB. Bonus points if it can run on a standard AAA or AA battery you can pick up anywhere.
Why? I don't need to know where I'm at. I don't need some complex device that I need to keep charged constantly.
What I need is something I can throw in my pocket or keep on my kechain that can passively record my bike rides and other various activity for fun things like route sharing, mapping, analyzing the proverbial fitness data like speed, distance, vertical footage and other data easily deriveable from GPS data, and finally syncing the GPS location/time data with other data such as photographs and videos for geo-tagging and mapping happiness.
So where are we at on this little dream?
Well, the Freedom Keychain GPS still retails for anywhere from $80 to $100 so it's a bit over my $50 price point but it's extremely overshot all my other expectations. It can run for 10 hours without a charge and it turns out there's no need for USB output. It has Bluetooth. All the better. With Bluetooth it can theoretically add GPS support for any bluetooth compatible device from your smart phone to your laptop.
There's only three questions that aren't clear.
1) I don't see anything about passive date/time recording. Can it actually record time/location in a standard format like GPX?
2) What kind of software is available for my Mac?
3) Apple has announced they're opening the iPhone up to developers in February. Soo... when am I going to be able to get software for my iphone that lets me tap into this GPS data in realtime and mash it up with things like google maps?
I've got to say. Other then the fact that it doesn't seem to passively record time and location (at least in so far as I can read) it seems like it's already well exceeded my expectations.
I'd also like to point out pretty much every new cell phone has GPS built in. The only reason we don't have more GPS aware apps that mashup google and gps data over wireless data is because cellular providers are morons. Not just any kind of morons, but evil morons.
1) I don't see anything about passive date/time recording. Can it actually record time/location in a standard format like GPX?
ReplyDeleteNot yet but it is coming in future models. In the short term depending on your phone/PPC there are lots of app's you can use on the phone to connect to the GPS unit every so often and log the location.
2) What kind of software is available for my Mac?
Can't help here I'm afraid.
3) Apple has announced they're opening the iPhone up to developers in February. Soo... when am I going to be able to get software for my iphone that lets me tap into this GPS data in realtime and mash it up with things like google maps?
Depends when Apple decide to release software or get paid another by a development company to let them develop the applications for it. I wouldn't hold your breath on it being opened up to any great extent in the near future though (ie you will maybe get 1 Apple approved piece of navigation software).
Working in the mobile industry developing applications and hardware for phomes, pda's, etc I can tell you that not many people would even want to develop for the iPhone now even if it was opened up.
Lots of phones are having GPS included but its still only a small % of the phones out tehre at the moment and is even a small % of the phones that are being built right now (for everyone 1 new phone you can name with built in GPS I can name 10 without).
That being said I agree that it sucks completely that carriers disable the features on the phones they sell and then in some cases try to charge you to use them later on down the line.
wow.. i never known this before, great product, thanks for the info :)
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