How to use BT GPS instead of Build-in GPS? - XPERIA X1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I am wondering how to use the Bluetooth GPS for my X1.
I find that I can't use my BT GPS in my X1. Even Mapking or Google Map, I can only use my build-in GPS.
When I want to change my "GPS Hardware Port", I can't do it. It reset to "none". I already set a port for the BT GPS.
Maybe someone would say I should use the build-in one, but it use much battery.
And I can't connect the GPS for long time while I am hiking or cycling, I don't want to take the X1 out > connect GPS > see where I am.
By using BT GPS, I could log the track and find out where I am easily.
Sorry for my poor English. Could anyone help me? Thanks.

Which program do you use and which external gps?
I use TomTom 7. I just pair the external with the X1 and then open tomtom select external gps and voila... it is working automatically. I don't have to select any port or baud rate or anything else.

The bluetooth will also eat up your battery.
But in in any case, in your control panel/settings there is an icon for "external GPS", which you need to set.

a gps is only a receiver where bluetooth is a transceiver
and transceivers use more power and they have to transmit too
so i'd say that it would cause faster batt being empty

Related

How to set up wired GPS /Tom tom connection

Guys / Gals
I have just picked up a WIRED GPS reciever and want to get it to talk to my XDA11i.
I also have tom tom that I want to use .
Tom tom expects to see the GPS unit on Com 1 ?
How do I set up the XDA to recieve GPS on com 1 (Tried all sorts of things but no joy , didnt believe I was an amateur but seesm I am . I haVE TURNED off " recieve all beams " but still no joy .
Any help greatfully appreciated.
Astro
I do use Pugs rom but have read that it is still possible to link to a wired device ? if not I will have to splash out on a Tom Tom Bluetooth Gps ? or will others do ?
Firstly, I am assuming you have got some way for the wired GPS to connect to your PDA (via car cradle or similar cable).
Ensure GPS unit is switched on & running, and connected to the PDA.
Start TomTom, which will ofc bleat "No GPS device!"
Tap screen, Change Preferences, tap next twice to take you to prefs screen 3, tap Show GPS status, then tap Configure
Tap the left/right arrows until Other NMEA GPS receiver is showing, then tap Select
Accept the default BAUD rate of 4800 for now, and tap Done
Now, you will be presented with a list of the available ports that TomTom can 'see'
You will probably have several COM ports available. (mine showed up with COM2, 4, 5, 6, and 9 available for example, but ymmv)
Checking that your GPS unit is still on, select the first suitable COM port in the list, whatever it is. This will take you to the GPS status screen.
IF you are lucky enough to have selected the correct port for your wired GPS unit first time, you will now see the yellow/black wheel at the top right rotating, which indicates it is receiving data from the GPS unit. (a non-rotating wheel means TomTom can't 'see' any GPS data coming in)
If the wheel is NOT rotating, don't panic, but once again tap the Configure button and repeat the steps, this time slecting the next COM port in it's list.
Repeat this process, moving down through the available list of COM ports until you hit the one where the wheel is rotating: this indicates that TomTom has successfully 'found' the GPS unit and is receiving data from it.
Assuming you DO get a rotating wheel, click done on the GPS Status screen and you will go back to TomTom's main screen, hopefully now with the correct location showing!
Hope this is of some help.
Joe Pinball
P.S. if you have had no joy with this, or dont have/cant find a cable to connect the GPS unit to the PDA/cradle, you may well find a Bluetooth GPS unit is a better way to go (try and get one with the SIRFSTar III chipset, as it's way better performance in marginal conditions): I navigate and leave my BT GPS (GlobalSat BT338) in the car glovebox and STILL get a good signal! - Joe
Wired GPS connection to XDA11i
Joe
Thanks for the info I will try that one out tonight .
To try out the system I have picked up an early Rikaline wired unit which connects directly to the XDA11i socket as well as the car lighter socket to rum them both.
My question was did i need to do any thing to the XDA to tell it to accept the plugged in device ? as you would if you set up a bluetooth system ?
Does the XDA11i automatically SEE the device you have plugged in ?
Duncan
The XDAIIi's socket contains both a USB interface (for the cradle) audio (for in-car sounds/wired handsfree) and a serial port, so as far as I know, once the GPS unit is plugged in (and assuming it outputs the NMEA standard for GPS data, which they all seem to do) all you would need to do would be to configure TomTom with the unit plugged in & working.
Once set up correctly, and you have a decent positional fix, quit TomTom in the normal way, leave it a minute or 2 and then re-start TomTom to check it saved the settings correctly.
If the settings were stored correctly, TomTom should start (can take a while with version 5.XXX, now down to a couple of seconds with V6.XXX) and then a short while later TomTom will announce on-screen "No GPS Device!"
(note: I have a bluteooth GPS and find although TomTom is capable of switching on BT for me, it will never 'see' the GPS this way: I have to switch BT on first, THEN run TT for it to see the GPS. It is entirely possible, that with a wired serial connection, TomTom may well see the GPS data immediately and NOT flash up the "no GPS device!" message, in which case it's win-win for you!)
Be patient at this point and it should soon 'see' the GPS data coming in and get a position up on the map.
Hope this helps
Joe Pinball, now with a fixed screen! yay!
Still not working !! Doooh
Joe
After a frustrating day with the wired device I gave in and picked up a Bluenext BN-806F bluetooth gps unit .
But I am still having problems. I am not sure that the uinit is not faulty as even when paired the status shows NO data going either way . PS when I go to Blue tooth manager and then active connections there is only an outgoing connection set ???
Any chance yo can run through the set up for blue tooth gps and tom tom for me ( I have a copy of tt5.21).
Do I need to set any thing ref the Com ports / beam / baud rate ?
How do I set the time that the XDA11i holds an active connection before it times out ( if no data recieved ) as the XDA breaks the connection after a while of no activity ?
Best regards
Astro1

problem with gps receiver

I connect my alpine to the gps receiver, but after few minutes, the conenction drops. I have not figured any problems with my bt hansfree.
Can anyone help??
turn off bluetooth
dropped connection
I have a similar problem . Alpine and BN806F , It pairs , wont talk then drops out ? I wonder if there is a time out after no activity ?
As my post says I am having a problem getting tom tom to see my gps reciever , do you have the some problem ? what am I doing wrong ?
Astro1
I downloaded a bt patch but the problem remains. I wonder whether it's a software or hardware problem..
Yes, I can't make my navigation program to see the gps receiver and after a while it gets disconnected...
To the OP - you said you cant get your navigation software 'see' the GPS - this is the root of the problem.
If your BT GPS unit doesnt see any requests to send data to the PDA, it will auto-switch off after a set period of time.
Once you can successfully configure your nav software to receive the GPS data, your bluetooth GPS unit will remain powered on.
You should have a software CD that came with the GPS unit (if not there are a number of freely downloadable GPS utilites for PDAs, some of which can scan for the unit to find it)- there's usually some very low-quality GPS checking utility that displays what satellites the unit can see, signal strength and so on: try using these programs to see if you can connect to your GPS, and if the unit than keeps the BT link open.
Maybe finding out which COM port the GPS unit appears on, will allow you to configure your nav software correctly to see the GPS.
Joe Pinball
I managed to connect it succesfully some times. Usually, it connects via bluetooth but it drops until I load navigator ( my navigation program). When I close the program, the bluetooth is off. I tried to search windows for power save settings but I didn't find something that would help.
GPS problems
Joe
Thanks for your advice I am still haviong big problems .
I have managed to get Tom tom to recognise a wired reciever ( but only once , and then when the cigarete lighter plug moved the unit powered down all was lost.
Do you know of any utilities that will show what is connected to what port as I believe this is the real problem . Aparently tom tom has a bad history of hijacking ports ?
It would be good to see what was actually going on .
Astro1

Bluetooth GPS setup for IG0 8

Due to lag problems with the internal GPS i would like to use an esternal bluetooth GPS reciever with with IGO8. I have got this to work with TT& but only have the local map for this. When I try to set up in IGO8 I can't find a settings page. Is it possible to do this or am I missing something obvious.
You have to make connection to your bluetooth GPS receiver, assign COM port and then in iGO select that COM port and speed. And it'll work ;-)
angus99 said:
Due to lag problems with the internal GPS i would like to use an esternal bluetooth GPS reciever with with IGO8. I have got this to work with TT& but only have the local map for this. When I try to set up in IGO8 I can't find a settings page. Is it possible to do this or am I missing something obvious.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
check also settings/external GPS.

Internal GPS Radio problem, help me to configure external Antenna

Good evening,
after many try for control the real efficency of internal GPS Antenna I decide to use external BT Gps antenna.
Help me to use external antenna whit Tomtom7
I connect the Bluetooth antenna to Diamond but I don't know what else I need to do for use it whit TOMTOM
Please help me
Thank you
You need to select the external GPS device from the TOMTOM menu:
1. Change Preferences
2. Show GPS Status
3. Configure
4. Select Other Bluetooth Receiver.

[Q] External GPS+Bluetooth vs Internal GPS-Bluetooth

Hi
I'm interested in this question from primarily a battery life perspective. I did some searches, but couldn't find any info on this.
I have an external bluetooth GPS module I could use. If I were to use a Galaxy Ace with bluetooth enabled, but GPS off, would this be more power efficient than using the GPS of the Ace with bluetooth off?
(Assuming all other power factors to be the same).
I guess it boils down to: Which is more efficient on the Ace; using GPS only or bluetooth only? And is it actually significant?
If there are any other aspects that should be considered, please edumacate me!
Thanks
ws
Personal experience and logic says Bluetooth consumes lesser battery juice than using GPS
Yes you are right wit an expternal GPS you will save battery, I use ana pplication called BlueGPS for pair the GPS and connect with Copilot
Thanks for the replies.
Now I've bought an Ace and had a chance to play a little bit, there's one thing that confuses me.
Once I connect the external GPS via bluetooth, and select it as the GPS source, I still have to enable the internal GPS for GPS to function.
(I can test that GPS is working via the external GPS by putting the bluetooth GPS unit on my window sill, and have my Ace inside where it can't get a GPS lock from inside via internal GPS).
So, doesn't this mean that the Ace is using battery for the internal GPS as well as bluetooth??
wiresquire said:
Thanks for the replies.
Now I've bought an Ace and had a chance to play a little bit, there's one thing that confuses me.
Once I connect the external GPS via bluetooth, and select it as the GPS source, I still have to enable the internal GPS for GPS to function.
(I can test that GPS is working via the external GPS by putting the bluetooth GPS unit on my window sill, and have my Ace inside where it can't get a GPS lock from inside via internal GPS).
So, doesn't this mean that the Ace is using battery for the internal GPS as well as bluetooth??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess what's actually happening is that when u "enable the internal GPS", you're basically enabling the phone to use the GPS source you initially selected in the location settings, i.e. the external one.
So all in all, when you have the bluetooth on without switching on GPS, bluetooth is idling, and when you enable GPS, it starts interacting with the bluetooth GPS.
cheers
you vowebt
hi
I am using external bluetooth GPS too.
I did flash my phone two days ago and find out that I don't need another app to use external GPS.
My phone is flashed with CM10-nightly.
Problem is that after each time when I want to used external GPS I need to unpari and then pair that bluetooth device.
example:
a) switch on bluetooth, and pair external GPS device
b) choose that new device in GPS source
c) switch on GPS
perfekt I can use maps ...
after while I switch off GPS and bluetooth and device
then
d) switch on bluetooth, device is already paired
e) switch GPS, external source is already choose
BUT phone is not getting any data from external GPS device
f) I have to go to bluetooth devices and unpair and then pair external GPS device
I think it is a bug, what do you think?

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