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Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 08 July 12 2:40 pm
by mtrax
Anyone out there us a OTG cable to talk to there Garmin GPS device?

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 09 July 12 10:17 am
by Dik:
mtrax wrote:Anyone out there us a OTG cable to talk to there Garmin GPS device?
OK, I'll bite. I Googled OTG cable and found it's just a fancy name for USB.

So, the answer is, not with android, but I have collected NEMA data into OziExplorer from the Garmin.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 09 July 12 10:30 am
by mtrax
Dik: wrote:
mtrax wrote:Anyone out there us a OTG cable to talk to there Garmin GPS device?
OK, I'll bite. I Googled OTG cable and found it's just a fancy name for USB.

So, the answer is, not with android, but I have collected NEMA data into OziExplorer from the Garmin.
the OTG cable is not quiet a USB but it converts a micro to stand USB-A.
I have just upgraded my Galaxy S2 to ICS and now my GPS doesn't mount on my phone. ie I used this to copy PQ from GC to my GPS without a PC ie when I was traveling.. very useful, but with the upgrade it doesn't work now :(.
So interested if his was a ICS problem or something else

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 09 July 12 9:22 pm
by Alansee
pprass wrote:I avoid typing into my smart phone as it is way too slow and fiddley for me.
I agree. I am only looking at trying it as an alternative to a laptop, which I currently don't have, at the end of the day.

pprass wrote:I just make a voice recording and replay it while I am writing the logs with that marvelous GSAK "Geocaching.com access" function.
I still feel that using the phones to log a cache in the field encourages brevity.
I well remember caching a couple of years ago with pprass, Rabbitto and one other that I don't recall. :oops: After every cache they would ALL talk into their little devices for several minutes describing the cache. I felt so left out that I started talking into my GPS! It did make me feel better! I do find pen and paper quicker though.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 10 July 12 9:40 am
by pprass
Alansee wrote:.. I felt so left out that I started talking into my GPS! It did make me feel better!...
Ha! Voice recorder envy :lol:

Those were some great days weren't they?

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 10 July 12 11:36 am
by gmj3191
mtrax wrote: I have just upgraded my Galaxy S2 to ICS and now my GPS doesn't mount on my phone.
So interested if his was a ICS problem or something else
My GS2 has downloaded the update to ICS and keeps prompting me to install.

All I hear about however are issues relating to battery life, and other things so I keep deferring by 7 days.
If I could I'd just delete the upgrade file but haven't figured out how to yet.
My GS2 is perfect as it is.

One thing about smart phones however.
I competed in a Ski/Golf event on Friday at Buller/Mansfield and they are very awkward to use in the snow.
Screen is hard to see and touch screen a bit fiddly when you're on the snow.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 10 July 12 11:45 am
by caughtatwork
gmj3191 wrote:
mtrax wrote: I have just upgraded my Galaxy S2 to ICS and now my GPS doesn't mount on my phone.
So interested if his was a ICS problem or something else
My GS2 has downloaded the update to ICS and keeps prompting me to install.

All I hear about however are issues relating to battery life, and other things so I keep deferring by 7 days.
If I could I'd just delete the upgrade file but haven't figured out how to yet.
My GS2 is perfect as it is.

One thing about smart phones however.
I competed in a Ski/Golf event on Friday at Buller/Mansfield and they are very awkward to use in the snow.
Screen is hard to see and touch screen a bit fiddly when you're on the snow.
I did the update on Sunday night.
Have seen no problems with battery life. Seems to be the same as ever. Ringtone went missing. had to sign into everything again. had to get rid of the stupid Telstra backgrounds and stuff. It removed all the apps from my screen, so I just moved the back. No apparent issues so far.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 10 July 12 2:43 pm
by gmj3191
Great work C@W (pardon the alliteration), I'll wait a week and check back with you.
Although I use Telstra, mine was a free spirit so none of their stuff to worry about.
I'll do screen shots of everything to enable me to reconstruct my pages and folders.

The Whirlpool Forums are full of issues but I guess you just don't hear about the success stories.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 10 July 12 2:50 pm
by mtrax
SG2 Update I flashed my phone with another ROM with Android 4.0.4 and after doing a chkdsk on the Garmin the phone now mounts the Garmin memory, so back in business, albeit with a non-stock ROM.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 19 July 12 1:42 am
by landau351
CraigRat wrote:Most phones of thelast one or two generations have a perfectly ok GPS in them

a-gps is only used to get a quick, coarse fix for the purposes of getting a near-enough position fix, nearly all ohones out there nowadays have full gps on board

The general rule is you get what you pay for.... buy a $100 phone and it'll come with pretty ordinary components.
Rule broken (at least for a phone GPS)

I have a Nokia N97 mini, Garmin A50 nuvifone and now a Samsung Galaxy S3.
Of all of them, the cheapest Garmin nuvifone had the BEST GPS bar none.
The Nokia was less than ordinary.
As you would expect, with Garmin involved, the A50 had to have a top notch accurate internal GPS, and it does.
As said earlier the rest of the A50 hardware is too old and slow now (256MB RAM and 600MHz processor)
Also the A50 is stuck forever on Android 2.1

I have performed side-by-side tests of the Garmin A50 against a Samsung Nexus, Galaxy S2 and S3 using the 'GPS Status' app and found that the A50 won hands down. The A50 was much faster to get a lock, always more accurate and locked onto more satellites.

In the field I had the S3 and A50, one in each hand, at a cache near Yan Yean.
At GZ ;
  • the Nuvi showed 0m (exact).
    The S3 (using its internal GPS) still showed 8m away.
All is not lost as you can pickup a bluetooth GPS unit fairly cheap and use that with the S2/S3 or other Android unit.
I use the app suggested by 'c:geo' in its 'utility' menu.

When I used the Nokia N97 mini I bought a Nokia LD-3W bluetooth GPS (from memory about $36 and claims the battery lasts 22 hours!) but put it away when I got the A50.
I brought it out again when I got the S3 and carry it in a top pocket whilst running bluetooth. It works quite well and does improve the accuracy significantly.

I found that the S3 internal GPS would never better than an 8m error.
Now, with the LD-3W I can get down to 2m.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 14 August 12 12:19 am
by gmj3191
caughtatwork wrote: I did the update on Sunday night.
Have seen no problems with battery life. Seems to be the same as ever. Ringtone went missing. had to sign into everything again. had to get rid of the stupid Telstra backgrounds and stuff. It removed all the apps from my screen, so I just moved the back. No apparent issues so far.
I bit the bullet and upgraded my GS2 to ICS last week.
I took screen shots of everything so was able to quickly restore my own look and feel.
No battery issues noted.
I did have a minor issue - turning on the display caused the phone to speak the time and weather if I had a lock screen, ok otherwise. Found a setting ...eventually...., which cured that.
Under GB it would just reboot arbitrarily a couple of times a day, now seems fixed.
All good from my perspective.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 20 August 12 3:50 am
by amryall
i'm using groundspeak's android app on my HTC and in the last few days when i have logged a find in the field it has recorded it for the day before?????
so subsequently have not qualified for the geocache day souvenir !?!

anyone have any similar issues or possible fixes??

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 20 August 12 6:47 am
by Kiwi_Explorer
amryall wrote:i'm using groundspeak's android app on my HTC and in the last few days when i have logged a find in the field it has recorded it for the day before?????
so subsequently have not qualified for the geocache day souvenir !?!

anyone have any similar issues or possible fixes??
That's a known bug with the GS app which they have never fixed despite it being logged as an issue from early on. NeonGeo may also have the same issue. Try CacheSense its way better than the GS app and gets the dates right.

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 20 August 12 8:14 am
by CraigRat
With the GC app when you log it it seems to log it as the server time, which in this case is the GC HQ (Washington) time, which for a large chunk of the day will be yesterday.

You need to change the date manually online

Re: Android Geocaching Apps

Posted: 20 August 12 8:56 pm
by Cheesy pigs
I'm looking at setting up a friends android to cache with. What I'm after is a single program with the functionality of Iphones geosphere, that will manage GC and GCA caches, hold a ton of entries and allow for changing coords or logging caches on the fly.

Looking through these pages I don't see a single program that will do all that. Does it exist?