can I use the GPS of the smartphone as a GPS dongle for mapping software or GRLevel3

[Olivier Staiger]

hey I wonder,

most people use a dedicated GPS antenna ( a.k.a. dongle, receiver, whatever) , connected to laptop via USB, to show their position in a map on the laptop, e.g. on Microsoft Streets and Trips, and GRlevel3 ?

questions :

can I use the GPS of a smartphone for that ? not reading on the smartphone screen, but connect the smartphone to the laptop and use the smartphone for its GPS receiver, to show my position in Streets and Maps on the laptop. Or with another mapping software / app ?

also, is it possible to show my GPS position in Google maps ? how ?

 

[Matt Tottle]

There's an Android app called Bluetooth GPS that outputs the phone's GPS data to a computer via bluetooth.. It only runs for 10 minutes at a time in free mode, but if it works for you it's only $1.49 for the unlock key. I don't think there is such an animal that does it via USB, but bluetooth dongles are uber cheap now. If you don't want the dongle taking up a USB port or worry about it getting lost/broken, there are also wifi/bluetooth combo cards that will replace the Mini-PCIe internal wifi card in your laptop and utilize the existing antennae. I picked one up for I think $25 shipped.

If you need to use the GPS with two or more different programs you will also need a program called GPSGate on the computer to split the data port.

As for Google Maps I want to say no. I know it works on the phone, but I don't think GPS connectivity has been developed yet for the regular 'online' version. The reason it works with Spotter Network is they use a dynamic KML file (similar to the dynamic placefiles that the radar programs use to show beacons) to populate the map on their site each time it is loaded. But I don't think there's a way to directly feed GPS data into google.com/maps on your computer..

Google Earth is GPS enabled though, but that program is pretty awful from a stability/reliability standpoint last I played with it.

 

[Brandon Jenkins]

There's an Android app called Bluetooth GPS that outputs the phone's GPS data to a computer via bluetooth.. It only runs for 10 minutes at a time in free mode, but if it works for you it's only $1.49 for the unlock key.

There are a couple of free apps out there as well. I have used ShareGPS and GPS over BT to connect my phones GPS to my tablet, both work great. I have found, however, that using a bluetooth gps puck seems to be much more consistent. But that could be more of an issue directly related to my phones ROM than anything.

 

[Walt VanRheen]

There is a big reason why you do not want to do this. GPS in phones gets its signals from cell towers. You know there are issues with cell towers getting overwelmed with chasers. The more trianglations you can get, the better the GPS position you can get. Thus, the less trianglations you can get, the worse the location positioning you will get. GPS unit are cheap, more reliable and will work even when cell service does not. Small investment will give you many times over more accuracy. Just a thought.

 

[Brett Nickeson]

There is a big reason why you do not want to do this. GPS in phones gets its signals from cell towers. You know there are issues with cell towers getting overwelmed with chasers. The more trianglations you can get, the better the GPS position you can get. Thus, the less trianglations you can get, the worse the location positioning you will get. GPS unit are cheap, more reliable and will work even when cell service does not. Small investment will give you many times over more accuracy. Just a thought.

Unless I'm missing something, don't smartphones' GPS's get their signal from GPS satellites?

 

[Brandon Jenkins]

There is a big reason why you do not want to do this. GPS in phones gets its signals from cell towers. You know there are issues with cell towers getting overwelmed with chasers. The more trianglations you can get, the better the GPS position you can get. Thus, the less trianglations you can get, the worse the location positioning you will get. GPS unit are cheap, more reliable and will work even when cell service does not. Small investment will give you many times over more accuracy. Just a thought.

Believe it or not we have moved beyond cell tower triangulation and into the realm of real time GPS' with satellite locking technology, lol. As a matter of fact, my phone can lock up to 4 more satellites than my TomTom bluetooth puck. Both still maintain accuracy to within meters of each other, but you get the idea.

 

[Tony Perkins]

Being able to use your phone as a GPS device may also depend on your hardware and Android version. I tried quite a few for my 2.2 Droid Incredible and all of them crashed within 5-10 mins of running. That was with both cheap paid and free versions from different authors. I gave up fairly quickly as my external GPS puck has been rock solid for years.

 

[Olivier Staiger]

........ GPS in phones gets its signals from cell towers. .....

I guess that may depend on what phone model you have. My old Nokia N85 has a dedicated GPS receiver that works even when there is no SIM card or no signal. I was at the North Pole in summer 2008 and certainly there was no network signal up there but the GPS worked fine and showed the position as latitude N 90.0000 .
indeed on my old Nokia, google maps needs a signal to work, but the Nokia maps work fine even offline if you download them first, and it does show your position - without signal.

 

[Matt Tottle]

It depends on the age of the phone. All phones built within at least the past 5-6 years have a true satellite-fed GPS receiver. It was a requirement for the E-911 system mandate that the phone have them, and the navigation was just an afterthought: "Since we have to put this GPS receiver in there anyway".. They might use cell-tower triangulation for augmentation/dead-reckoning (in cities with tall buildings, or driving through a tunnel for example - similar to WAAS), but they do not rely solely on the cell towers.

 

[ELY M.]

My samsung S3 phone seem to use gps on google maps without data service or wifi. I tested it few times.
I think that S3 GPS uses satellite or something.

I just tested it with disabling wifi and pull out my sim card before I started up google maps. my GPS and google maps works!

 

[Bill Tabor]

As I recall, I saw Verne Carlson posted about an app on Facebook, that assists in that function.

 

[Alex Tarsha]

Here's an example for the iPhone where you can create a virtual Com Port on your PC that points to the phone's app that spills its GPS data in NMEA format while connected via WiFi. Then you would just point your application of choice to the virtual Com Port, and it is none the wiser:

http://off-the-clock.timothy-nicole-marks.com/computers-and-electronics/iphone-gps-to-pc