GPS-Logit

I think this App needs it's own thread where we can share our experiences and give feedback.

I picked up a Sony Xperia E1 yesterday from Dick Smiths. It is a prepaid on special and cost only $48.

That is a good start because it makes it cheaper than a Canmore, possibly even after paying for the App, and it promises to do oh soooooo much more!

I am also trying to get one of the great looking waterproof arm bags that Roo recommended with the waterproof headphones.

Not being an Android user I has a few issues with basic things, like turning the GPS on!

James sorted me out (big thanks) and pointed me to a User manual which always helps!

I sat the GPS in the backyard for about 30 minutes. When I went back to check if it has a fix it shows 4 or 5 sats. But the moment I picked it up and started walking around with it it dropped it 1 or 2 sats and stopped giving speed readings (as it should).

I walked around getting worried about this for a few minutes, then decided to put it back down in the yard again to see what it got. It immediately jumped to 4 or 5 sats. Great, I thought. It may work when stationary but not while moving. Thats not going to much good for us.

While I was watching it the sats display suddenly lit up with 15 satellites!!!! Fifteen! I have NEVER seen a GPS lock in that many sats!! It didn't take long to realise that this GPS must be able to use the Glonass system as well. It must have just taken a long time to sort itself out and download the almanacs.

I went for a walk and it was working as I had expected it should. It displayed 15 to 16 sats locked as I walked up the street and back holding it out in front of me at chest level. The location accuracy said it was 4m most of the time and I saw 3 a few times.

Now that I am inside my Kitchen, it is still showing connection to 5 or 6 sats. There are a couple of windows right next to me, but that is quite amazing. Locational accuracy is now only 232 meters though. As I typed that, it jumped to 7 sats and said 13 meters.It must be quite a sensitive chip and not a bad antenna.

One problem I have with the phone is that the screen won't stay on for more than about 30 seconds without me touching it all the time. I may be able to find the setting to change this.

Another thing: When I walked really slowly it stopped showing speed. I suspect Manfred has set it to discard 1 kmh. If he has, it may not record distance below that either.

I recorded a loop around my street walking exactly in the gutter. It will be interesting to see how the location map looks (when I figure out how to get the file out. That is the next big challenge!)

So far this device and app seem to be doing what they should. More to follow.

Yep found it on the phones, "file comander" in "gpslogit storage". I'm going to have to read the manual, to see if I can move it to somewhere the windows software will see it.
%$#^% doesn't mount in linux, unlike the samsung! Hmm maybe it's not in MTP mode? yes definately have to download the manual.

Thanks James! I had it in "install software on PC" mode, I'll have another try next time I'm in windows.

But I've got a work around in Ubuntu, and it will probably also work in apple, if their apple software doesn't do it.
The manual wasn't much help even though it's over a 100 pages! Found most of what I needed on a utube file instruction video, and a blog via Duck Duck about connecting the SD card to ubuntu.

So you need a micro SD card and the unit in MSC connection mode (mass storage connection, I guess)

Firstly you need to copy and paste the .sbp file from the logit app into the SD card. (If this is in the manual I can't find it. Every thing is done by the icons at the bottom of the screen, be carefull of the one that looks like a rubbish bin!)

When the USB is connected, the SD card then shows up on the computer.
So this is my walk.



This looks very close to where I actually went. Not sure about the bit inside the house, that's going into the bathroom, don't remember doing that.
But the rest of the tracks are probably within a metre.

The speed graph is a little strange.



Satelites vary from 8 to 14. Most of the strange stuff is at low speed, so I guess it's not that important.
I may take it for a bike ride tomorrow and see what happens at higher speeds.
If not there's wind forecast for Monday and Tuesday, just hope it holds up!

Andrew, now you have "mac bridge installed" you've also got the mac drivers needed to talk to the phone. It's worth a try to reconect the phone with out mac bridge open.
If not I'm fairly certain my SD card work around will also work on the Mac.

There's a very simple way to transfer the sbp files....it's called email. Use the phones file utility to find the directory the file is in then just email it to yourself. Open up your desktop computer and download the email and file. If anyone needs the waterproof bag you can have it sent to my US address and I can forward it down to you if that helps. Best to order the bag and waterproof headphones together.

I use a simple widget that allows me to toggle the GPS on/off from the home page on the phone. Its called Power Control and is pre loaded on your phone.

Roo

I found a waterproof phone pouch (with headphone connector) in the cupboard that we bought from the local BCF a while ago.

Pouch:
http://www.bcf.com.au/online-store/products/Overboard-Pro-Sports-MP3-Case-Waterproof-White.aspx?pid=213182#Recommendations

Headphones:
www.bcf.com.au/online-store/products/Overboard-Headphones-Waterproof-White.aspx?pid=213183#Recommendations

Pouch is $40 and headphones are $30, so does add a bit to the cost of the setup. There are probably cheaper ones on ebay etc.

Here's a couple of shots. It fits (just) with a GT31 into a standard Pacqua case.

Took the Sony, GW52 and GT31 for a cycle today.
Booted into windows 7 and as James found, with the "install software" unticked and in "MTP" mode, the whole phone came up in windows explorer. (So yes Andrew you may have more luck with XP). Also down loaded the GW52 while I was at it. And proccesed both files with realspeed.

With these results.
Logit.

,"Total Distance 3.972km

1 "2 sec" 18.588
2 "2 sec" 17.859
3 "2 sec" 16.401
4 "2 sec" 16.037
5 "2 sec"15.429,0

,"10 sec (best of 5) 14.851

1 "10 sec" 16.377
2 "10 sec" 15.624
3 "10 sec" 14.579
4 "10 sec" 14.312
5 "10 sec" 13.364

,"500 meters 11.111

,"Nautical Mile" 9.897

,"alpha 500 dop" 12.299
,"alpha 500 dop" 11.98
,"alpha 500 dop" 11.96
,"alpha 500 dop" 11.323
,"alpha 500 dop" 10.622

Very impressed with the spoken spead!!!!!! Except it seemed a bit slow to come back on after I'd gone below the minimum speed.
And the resulting file is very messy, could be because my arm is sloping down on the bike, putting the phone almost edge on to the sky.

Also the phone was reluctant to give me alpha and NM results, maybe because of the above.

To follow are shots of the zoom displays.
here's the set up screen.


Notice you can select for, Max, 2s, 10s 1hr, 250m, 500m, 1NM, or Alpha.
The "minimum speed for last run" seems to work similar to the GT speed genie setting.
I'm not quite sure of "timerange speed" but I think it's giving the average speed over that time, you'll see on the screens to follow.

Also evident is the cut off at the bottom of the screen, the green bar is supposed to be a rectangle with "OK" written on it, I'm not sure what's written on the red bar. But the OK button does work if you're carefull where you touch.

So here's the Alpha screen alongside the GT31


Interesting that the zoomed font isn't much bigger than the GT31, not absolutely sure, what this is, but I assume 11.93 is max speed in the alpha, and 9.79 is the alpha score. Although it could be best and current, seeing as Real speed has given me a 12 and 3 11s
Unfortunately on this shot theres a strong reflection over what I think is the average speed for 9 minutes, wait for the next one I think that's better. You can see there's also real time, run time, distance and 5X10 displayed.

So real speed has given me a almost a 10kt NM but the display has 0



And here you can see the 4.2 knots, as I was taking these pics, that number slowly dropped.

And I don't think I should bore you with all of them so I'll just do the 2s


I guess reading the manual would be a good idea, it's still not obvious if thes two numbers are max and current, or max and average speeds for the run.
You can see here how the 4.2 has dropped to 3.93.

Just done the GT31 results and they are a bit lower.
2s ,
16.51, 16.41, 15.72, 15.03, 14.81

10s,
16.10, 15.75, 14.63, 14.51 with an average of 15.28

NM,
10.18

alpha,
11.89, 10.29, 1.82 typical gsarpro doesn't do short alphas, (the shortest of these are 495m), so these can't be compared to the previous realspeed alphas, some of which where under 300m.

OK this is my main worry at the moment,




You guessed it GT31 is red, logit yellow. I'll need to check if having the phone more horizontal gives a better track.
Any body know where the Sony's antenna is?


The only fault I can pick with the display, (apart from how hard it is to see in bright sunlight), is that everything is reset to 0 once you drop out of it.
In my opinion it would be better if there was a manual reset to hit at the start of a new session.
That's why I took all the pics, while it was still running, now I just have a whole pile of "NAs"

Hmm, sorry Manfred, I've just read the manual!!! Trust me to do things back to front.
My excuse is the "gps results" icon is cut off at the bottom of the screen.
So yes, the display resets, when dropping out of logit. BUT, press the gps results button and you can choose between previously saved files and analyse them.
you get to choose between max, 2s, 10s, 1h, 250m, 500m, nm, and alpha. but i don't see distance.

2s 18.71, 18.467, 16.523, 16.037, 15.308

10s 16.394, 15.639, 14.343, 14.309, 13.948
5x10 14.926

nm no run. and reading the manual, the whole run has to be above the minimum speed, so that's probably why realspeed comes up with a 9.89. But as min speed was set to 10kts logit didn't.

alpha 11.927, 11.771 , 9.677

I took the Sony phone and GPS-Logit for a ride in the car today. First look at the files seems to show a pretty smooth speed graph and everything else looks normal.

Somehow I turned the .GPX file on as well and it is interesting. It shoes a funny shaped speed graph with lots of repeated figures and steps in the graph. They are not evident in the .SBP file. At this stage I would say don't use .GPX files from this phone.

I might get a good speed session on Monday and have a chance to try it for real.

Another day on the water with the app and even better speeds. The audio feedback results in sailing a course I wouldn't normally take, i.e. closer to the wind. Normally I'd go deep on the gust but sometimes keeping everything loaded and hot results in higher speeds. The speed "chat" is an ideal coach and helps trim the board/rig in real time. I can now set targets speeds to meet before launching into a slingshot off a gust, 30 knots seems ideal hard on the wind before bearing away. I've set the threshold to 25 knots before it starts reading out so it doesn't get bothersome upwind. Monday may be a good day at the old Klickitat speed strip so will be interesting to see how it helps on a proper speed course.

Roo

Fantastic!!! He's fixed the cut off problem with the xperias, and included distance in the gpsresults light window.
That was very quick work Manfred, thanks a lot.

Now to go sailing with it.