Turning old phone to gps device
 

Ok so I have a old Sprint Mogul and I was gonna turn it into a stand alone GPS navigation device. My question is what would be a good base rom to start with as I dont need any messaging or phone related features? Much less any online app that may be installed. I have tom tom navigator 7 installed on my Touch Pro and im looking to set this up for my girl to use in her car.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

Something like dcd 3.3.4. It has about no additional software attached. Remember to put the phone in airplane mode to conserve battery.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

I cant put the phone into airplane mode with out disabling the gps as well any sugestions? Tom Tom and Garmin both report no GPS phone is in flight mode

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

Well I have a mogul and use gps in airplane mode. Or just try turning the radio off. I used gps on a plane many times before.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

whats a good gps to use? with airplane mode on, i keep forgetting this, you cant use data and the phone is not on a line anways so you actually need a good working fully loaded gps program.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

I have Tom Tom fully set up and its decent im gonna test garmin and iGo8. Everyone is saying garmin is the best. I will post me results later and any tweaks i may have had to do ... im gonna flash the phone in a little bit and start from fresh to see if i cant get it running faster. here is my plan....

1) Fully functioning GPS Navigation
2) Full Media player (Music, Movies, whatever)
3) Wireless Network Fingerprinting with GPS Support (WifiFoFum)
4) Remote Desktop to my computers while at home or within range of my network.
5) I have a Sling Box and the Sling Player software for TV. local use only as the phone isnt on a carrier plan
6) And any other piece of software that I may find useful or anyone else says may be good
7) Games .... any games we may like on the device.


And all this just for the girl to take this thing with her every where she goes lol maybe ill buy her a stand alone unit and take this. lol but I have a Touch Pro with tom tom installed after my tests here that may change. Wish me luck.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

I use garmin xt

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

i was liking all these ideas. i would love an excuse to carry around another phone. right now my other phone is an alarm clock and i still carry that around in my bag.

let us know on the gps programs test. this is really interesting.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

I'd go with one of Ryan Moguls carrier-less ROMs.. hes has a zero-g ROM with no extra features, but if you get the light ROM you at least will have GPSviewer and the led flashlight from first boot.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

I actually did this for a GPS device for my teenage son.. And I used Ryan Mogul's Carrierless 6.1 rom...... with 3.35 radio... I have TomTom installed and running... I also installed Skype on it for my teenageson to use as his own line in the house (any anywhere he has Wifi access) for only $60/yr total... It works very well for all of this...

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

Ok so I have tested both tom tom navigator 7 and Garmin XT with a north america map. Garmin wins my vote and will be the software I will use in my final version also with garmin I can only load the regions I need. The whole IL WI IA MO IN maps only took a few hundred meg on my card compared to the almost 2 gig for my tom tom install. Does anyone have a link to the Ryan Moguls carrier-less ROMs? I dont care about coming bare boned I have the quickgps cab file.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

Great idea. I have so many phones sitting around too...now wideawake and I will both have navigation in our cars. We never thought of this! Thanks. :)

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

Alright so I flashed DCD's newest rom and installed all my software but i cant get a gps lock I had gps viewer open all night with the phone sitting in a window (before i flashed was able to get many sats sitting on my couch.) and nothing. i looked through the thread about gps and still nothing. I dont have QuickGPS well at least the cab I got wouldnt work after install. Any thoughts into this??

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

might be a silly question but do you have location turned on? lol ive done that before.

Re: Turning old phone to gps device
 

Just in case you still want to try them, here's RyanMogul's Light ROMs:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=496982
He's been updating them pretty regularly lately, so keep an eye on that thread for changes.

The closest to DCD will be Zero G. If I recall correctly, by default it boots with over 28 MB free program memory. One thing to consider if you want max available memory is to disable the camera. I'm pretty sure all his roms include nueKernel which allows that, freeing up around another 5 MB. I've heard pressing & holding the camera button when it's disabled can crash/lockup/reboot the phone. I bet disabling or reassigning that button in system prefs should fix that issue.