More on mobiles
It has occurred to me that part of the cause of my worry about going to new places by public transport is that with my lousy vision it’s fairly easy to get lost in an unfamiliar area, and it’s difficult to tell when the appropriate stop has been reached.
I then recalled reading on VIP-L about people using GPS-enabled phones with some software to tell them when they’re approaching their destination. So I’ve done some digging and some reading and have some ideas forming…
The first thing is that I need a Series 60 phone to try anything at all. Preferably one with a built-in GPS. As it happens, Nokia has recently released the N95 8GB, a revision of the original N95 with a better battery, more memory, more storage, and tweaked software. And of course the original N95 has GPS, as does the new one…
That plus Loadstone GPS may well be enough. I’d have to figure out the co-ordinates for places I wanted to go well in advance — it looks like Loadstone doesn’t have mapping data for Australia at the moment — but that’d do for warning me when I’m approaching a particular tram stop, for example.
The other thing I think may be worth my while to poke at is Talks. I can barely read the average mobile display but it’s a strain and I can’t do it very much. Talks (again requires Series 60) may well make things simpler, though at ~AU$300 for a license it’s not cheap. At least there’s a trial version.
Unfortunately one can’t simply borrow an N95 and see how these things go before investing the considerable amount of money involved — I am not interested in being tied to another contract if I can help it. They sell for around AU$900. I could probably do the salary-sacrifice dance though to reduce the cost.
Hm. Maybe. Clearly needs more thought.
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You can also get bluetooth gps receivers and use them with other S60 phones. (like the holux gpsslim) It’s not as convenient, but it might be easier to find the parts.
not sure what to say that you haven’t already read on vip-l.
the phone thing is definately worth doing if you’re having trouble reading your phone. speech performs alot better than the magnification software.
e the cost: at least it’s not the price of a windows screenreader.
we have used nokia maps (smart2go) on our n70’s. a gruntier phone would definately do it some good. very usable with talks.
we are using loadstone: however you have to be pretty dedicated to the task in order to make it useful. I have a setup here where I can click on points on a map and export them to a textfile and evetually import them into the loadstone format.
loads
(don’t know how i activated the submit button by accident).
loadstone is excellent for the every day, find your stop stuff. Kerry has successfully rung the bell at the correct time to get off the bus many a day.
oh, and another thing you should be aware of; loadstone doesn’t work on the n95’s gps unit because they talk to the gps over a com port through the bluetooth. http://www.sedio.com.au is where we got ours. or jaycar has a nice funky slim looking one which works with loadstone, but goes to sleep too quickly with nokia maps.
enjoy
Thanks for that Gemma, really appreciate the info. Bit disappointing about Loadstone, it seemed like it might be the way to go for “when am I at my stop” type things. Can Nokia Maps be told to forget about route-planning and just alert on proximity?
Hey, S60 phones I know. I used a bluetooth GPS with my 6600 and N70 combined with TomTom. Actually having TomTom installed was handy even without GPS for those “I know where I am, how do I get to stupidname alley?” type moments.
The N95, as I remember, actually ships with some sort of navigation software, including .au maps. I’ve seen the N95 in action and it’s a sweet phone. I couldn’t bring myself to pay that much for a phone though, and settled on the N73.
Warning Of Doom: Newer Symbian phones (S60 3rd edition or whatever) have new fancy highres screens and differences in the OS. They won’t even let you try to install older applications. This is a major shit.
Good news is the N70 runs all the older stuff if you need it and they’re piss-cheap, while being a perfectly nice phone. I still have a memory card loaded up with all the apps like TomTom for S60 (series 2, I think).
Bonus of the bluetooth GPS option: If you change your mind and decide the idea sucks, you can still use it to time sync your machines.
As a side point, the newer phones take nice chunky big memory cards and are suitable for general MP3 player use. That gives you another functional reason for upgrading, and the S60 stuff is a lot nicer than the Sony or similar phones. The bluetooth stack will talk OBEX properly, you get a pleasant interface that is easily customizable (high contrast!).
Now, downsides: GPS is not good in trams. It is a complete write-off in trains. Newer GPS units are much more sensitive, but they’re still not perfection.
Another option might be to grab a Nokia N770, and install some mapping software on that. Much bigger screen, and high enough res to put a decent terminal on it. Oh, and highly hackable.
Nokia maps can do proximity stuff with waypoints; but it’s not really designed for that and you end up squinting at the screen inbuilt gps receivers in the n95 and other phones are sirf2 and shit in a box; accuracy isn’t that great; they take an eternity to fix and probably won’t do well in buses and trams. External gps units such as the sedio 2110 or the globalsat 338 http://www.expansys.com.au flog the inbuilt stuff sideways. If you fix outside the tram/bus/train or sit near a glass window you’ll get 5-7 satelites. Don’t go buy the cheapest gps unit you can find; the units based on the MTK chipset seem to find lots of satelites however the math is crap and they don’t hold a fix well or interpolate possition in iffy sat conditions. qstars 818 isn’t bad; neither is the holux m1200 sensible units based on the mtk chipset. We tried a garman Muve250w however it wants to use the lighter cable as an antenna and is not cool. Warning; synchronizing your systems to a gps receiver will introduce latency due to the bluetooth stack so correct for it with gpsd. If you are in a multi-story place or not near a window you’ll either get no fix inside or one horribly distorted by multipath echo.
Thanks for the info Kerry, much appreciated.
Do you know what chipset the N95 8GB is using? The specs on the Nokia site just say “A-GPS”, which as I understand it is a new feature in the SirfstartIII chipset and is supposed to make it easier to get a fix in difficult circumstances.
My main interest is in being able to get an alert when approaching the desired train/bus/tram stop. GSM phone service is fine on public transport around here so I’m guessing that A-GPS (which seems to use mobile data services as much as GPS itself) would do better than straight GPS?