GPS Performance
 

So I've got the GPS working on my Touch. I have to start up Holux GPS Viewer before it'll work with any other programs, but it does indeed work. So I can ignore the requirement to use something like GPS Viewer to "prime the pump" as it were.

So now the griping begins :) It can take up to 15 minutes to get a lock, and once it does, it doesn't get a very good one (under a completely clear sky). Usually it gets a lock on 3 or 4 satellites, although GPS Viewer will at times show up to 10 satellites (but doesn't lock onto more than 4 of them). Tracking the Touch GPS with google maps results in a VERY jerky, and delayed, map.

What's interesting also is that I've read several posts that say it works great, very smooth, and obtains a lock within a minute. Are these phones from another carrier? (Sprint here) Or is there perhaps different versions of the phone's hardware?

Now, to compare I have a cheap bluetooth GPS receiver. During the same and location that I was testing the Touch GPS, I tested it, and it gets a lock in under 30 seconds, and gets an average of 6-8 satellites. It works flawlessly with google maps (very smooth tracking), although it may be a few yards delayed.

I would really like to just use the GPS on the touch, and I guess it works in a nutshell... but it works badly.

Does anyone know (or have any guesses) as to whether this is caused by bad drivers, bad settings, bad antenna, or perhaps just a bad GPS chip/hardware in the phone?

I'm desperately hoping that it's bad settings or bad drivers, cause at least then it can be fixed.

FYI, I have a Sprint Touch.

Re: GPS Performance
 

Yeah exactly on the same boat here and wondering the same questions...
It might take 10 min to get a lock, but even after I reset the device a few time it will get a lock within a minute. But then the next day it takes another 10 just to get a lock.

Kinda pointless since the only real times when I need the GPS is when I get lost or Im trying to find something. But then you gotta wait 10 min, what a waste! Almost makes it worth carrying the GPS puck on my keychain all the time...

Re: GPS Performance
 

thats waht i thought although i do not need a gps for me its a fun novelty but its so flakey its just more of a toy and less of an actual utility

Re: GPS Performance
 

thats odd....my touch takes less than 30 seconds to lock onto about 5 satellites using holux gps viewer v1.5, and the lock is very consistent.. when using google maps it works flawlessly though it is slightly choppy (since its not meant for turn by turn, i never expected it), but with tomtom 6 it works perfectly, extremely accurate, not choppy at all and the signal is lovely in extremely clouded weather here in toronto right now, i can lock on to a minimum of 4 satellites from INSIDE my house where i usually only get 1 bar of signal...

Re: GPS Performance
 

Well, I have just enabled the rev. A and gps on my sprint vogue and overall I am not quite sure on how to describe the GPS. At first it didn't lock on for about an hour (This was right after the update) but after I restarted it, it aquired signal faster and I think more accurately then my garmin etrex in the other hand. It also worked beautifully on google maps. (I started it with the gps viewer thing). I will try it later with after it has been running a while to see if anything funny happens.

Re: GPS Performance
 

Ok.. I ahve Sprint and my gps works great. It locks in around 20 to 45 seconds. And google maps is very accurate and smooth and no delays. So I think its just you location? One thing is for sure. This sure does remind me alot of Moguls initial leak rom. Where it was not that greaT BUT WORKED. THEN ONCE sPRINT RELEASED THE OFFICIAL ROM , EVERYTHING WORKED FLAWLESSLY. so I AM EXPECTING THE SAME FOR THE TOUCH.

Re: GPS Performance
 

I dunno, like i said, first time takes about 10 to lock, then after even a soft reset it locks within a min. I tested that yesterday, and just did it now, and its the same. Arg, but yeah all this is still just hacked up, not official, so I'll be happy that we at least got something going before God know when Sprint will want to fix this.

Re: GPS Performance
 

i've had mixed results, too. i used Garmin Mobile XT to compare GPS on my Touch with the GPS on my Orbit 2 (Touch Cruise) and Samsung Blackjack II and the Touch performed worst. it worked, but the Sprint Touch took the longest to get a lock outside (3-7 minutes vs. 5-15 seconds on the Orbit 2 and Blackjact II) and it lost satellites 4-5 times (but quickly recovered) vs 0 lost satellites for the other 2 devices. once i have satellite locks, i consistently get 6-8 on the Touch and 8-11 on the Orbit 2 and Blackjack II. also, iGo 2006+ and CoPilot performed poorly on the Touch vs. my Orbit 2 and Blackjack II. my simple test was performed while driving 25 miles on a major highway. fyi, when using my Holux 1200 and Freedom Mini with the Touch, its performance is on par with my other 2 devices.

there is one "nasty" issue i'm experiencing with Garmin Mobile XT and the Sprint Touch: everytime i launch Garmin, it resets my clock and date to 7 pm and 4/19/2008, respectively. as long as Garmin is loaded, manually changing the time/date has no effect on the clock. now, once i get satellite locks, the clock will update (i'll have to check the settings to see if i can disable this feature).

maybe GPS on the Touch is not ready for prime time - which may account for the delayed release to the general Touch public. nonetheless, i'll continue to play with GPS until the "official" version surfaces. all of my other phone features are working without issue. in case anyone is interested, i'm using JD's 6.1 ROM.

Re: GPS Performance
 

GPS is working fine for me using just the alltel rom. And I get 2-4 sats while i'm inside

Re: GPS Performance
 

My guess is that since we are not using files made specifically for the Touch, that is why we are getting sub-par performance vs. other devices who have their GPS officially supported. Shouldn't be long before the official version comes out, though, same situation as the Mogul I'd guess.

Re: GPS Performance
 

Yea, I'm kind of hoping the same thing, that once Sprint releases the official rom, it'll clear up this problem... And I guess it is possible that since we are using the files for the Mogul GPS (even through it's got the same hardware), it's causing some minor problems.

If this is as good as it gets however... I might just keep using my bluetooth gps reciever (but oh how I hate to carry and charge two different devices!)

Re: GPS Performance
 

Mine isnt bad right now, although I had to take it outside this morning and allow it a couple of minutes to get a lock. Now even inside upstairs I am getting a lock with 5 satellites, although it puts my altitude at -200ft whereas it should be 600 ft or so. I guess thats due to the lackluster satellite configuration because I have 4 to the W and one straight up. I wonder what affect this is going to have on battery life. Also I wonder if it would be better to increase baud rate to a higher number. I tried 57,600 and it seemed faster updating, but I also think it drained my battery really fast.

Re: GPS Performance
 

Wait until sprint comes out with their update. Im guessing that your not getting true agps, and its prolly just gps.

Re: GPS Performance
 

My battery seemed to drain really fast yesterday (only lasted maybe 6 hours?) when I was playing with the GPS (nearly non-stop). So it definitely appears to impact battery life. Good thing I've got a car holder w/charger for my Touch ;)

Re: GPS Performance
 

Yesterday I did a test where I was plugged up into my car radio, was running iguidance, and using Tracky in the background to log coordinates to a file and also to upload to the web my current condition. I was also playing music with S2P. It did pretty well for the first 20 minutes, but then I started switching between the programs and iguidance started lagging really badly. I closed tracky, and tried again and everything was fine. It was cool because when I would approach a turn, the music would go to half volume and iguidance would say take a right onto soand so, even with the music screen up :)

Re: GPS Performance
 

same thing with mine. i lock in under a minute sometimes and other times it took 5. I still cant figure out how to get my garmin working. keeps searching for bluetooth.

Re: GPS Performance
 

mine's working well. but I'm also using quickgps and have made sure my registry has A-gps is enabled.

Re: GPS Performance
 

an early/different version of this phone had gps set aside specifically on one half of the dual core processor.... meaning 200mhz. This leads me to think that our variance is potentially caused from resource management. As a test you might wish to compare memory usage and all apps running.

Re: GPS Performance
 

Does anyone know where I can download the holux gps viewer for my touch. I been looking all morning. Also I could not get the gps to work with google maps but it worked with Live Search, but I was standing on the roof at my job (General Motors) so I was sure I would get a clear signal up there. But it still has not worked at home so Im still testing mine out.

Re: GPS Performance
 

My GPS worked fine, and will not respond anymore...lol dont feel like going into details...but it doesnt work on JD 6.1 3.04 rom for me anymore. Im getting a replacement touch 2morrow, soo ill give it another go!!!

Re: GPS Performance
 

success...Just wait until the sprint rom comes out. You will have less headaches trust me.

Re: GPS Performance
 

What fun is that.....they call us geeks for a reason

Laggy GPS Performance
 

Did you run thru the stuff you did with your mogul, including regedits? Baf's GPS plugin says that if your device turns off while it's set to on, your GPS will in sorta lag. I think this applies to any program/plugin dealing with the GPS.. Also check this http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showpost.p...&postcount=135.

I would sometimes forget I have the GPS enabled and press the power button. Afterwards the GPS would either not work or lag until I soft reset.

-CC

Re: GPS Performance
 

...........................

Re: GPS Performance
 

My hunch is that the agps isn't working.. Could it be that the servers aren't excepting input from our touche's?

I stayed outside under a clear sky (in a park) for about 20 minutes yesterday trying to get a fix - never got it...
-mark

Re: GPS Performance
 

the more i mess with the gps, the more i realize it works when it wants to really.
i had great results right after the flash.. then it just became flaky

does cloud cover and rain have any effect on gps?
and it def sucks the batt down and warms up the touch

i just hope a nice toggle comes around where we can turn gps on and off with ease through comm manager like bluetooth.
imma LMAO if sprint found out what were doing and turned off their agps servers or pulled some method to disable what were doing..

Re: GPS Performance
 

Try this:

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/attachment...8&d=1209238045

or this:

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/attachment...9&d=1209238143

Re: GPS Performance
 

same exact thing for me....driving me crazy!! let me know if you find a fix.

Re: GPS Performance
 

I say we've got GPS on our Touch's. So it might be a bit flakey at times, who cares. We've got it and no provider gave it to us, so kuddos to the person who provided the Alltel rom, ImCokeMan (for the unlocker, the guy's a brainiac), hGray (for being the intial guinea pig, and figuring out what was needed and how to make it work) and JD for getting us a working 6.1 rom.

Don't know about most of you but I only need GPS when going on a trip or somewhere new to me, so a bit of a wait for a lock isn't too inconvenient for me. Of course for the purposes of testing which is kind of a novelty and will wear off, it does seem annoying to wait. But again WE'VE GOT IT........

Re: GPS Performance
 

This is major QFT.

Re: GPS Performance
 

To clear this up once and for all I did some experimenting - via getting the gps to work and attempting to break it.

In TOMTOM while gps functioning...
I've found that during times of low memory if you push power off button -wait a few seconds- slide2unlock- then the gps loses signal and you will just have to restart the app.

However, If (in TOMTOM gps config) it shows no bars and the wheel is not spinning you will at a minimum have to soft reset the phone.

If necessary, I've found in all circumstances that taking the battery out and putting it back in would allow the gps to work again. (provided you aren't using too much resources when you run it again)

I've experimented on both my Mogul and my Touch and it appears to be the same.

Re: GPS Performance
 

I think that aGPS might be screwing a little the GPS part.

At times, even though I'm connected to 6 satellites on google maps,it just starts to stray away. Google maps would be showing me going in the wrong direction for about 20-30 seconds and then actually come back to it's proper location.
Maybe it's google maps sucking / crap, but besides those couple of instances, I found it to be really good.

I want to try something else, but don't want to pay for it :S

Re: GPS Performance
 

In the reg, not sure of the keys do a search, set the gps id to 4 and use JD's test rom 2. GPS locks in less than 10secs outside and less than 1 min inside. Telenav works flawlessly. It's sweet when your plan includes telenav free! Get the unlimited plan or your driving your convertable with the top up!

Re: GPS Performance
 

JD's test rom 2?

Re: GPS Performance
 

It's HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOftware\HTC\SUPL AGPS

The GPSMode setting can be changed to 1 for GPS (Satellite) Only, 2 for GPS/AGPS (I think), and then 4 for some kind of hybrid mode.. I've found 4 works best.

JD had 2 attempts at the his GPS Rom. 99% of the links to his rom is the second attempt. The first one was missing some files or something to get the GPS working.

Re: GPS Performance
 

I don't get nearly as far as any of you guys.. i'm runnin JD's rom, can run gps viewer and it find the gps device on com 4. hit open and it finds sat's but all of them are over the N on the little globe and it will find about 12 but no LAT or LAN and all..... i'm so frustrated " and sorry for the run on i'm just so pissed

Re: GPS Performance
 

Damn it!!!!! ME TOO! When I launch Mobile XT, the damn clock rolls back to 4/19/2008, however mine time was set to 5pm!!!

What gives?!

Re: GPS Performance
 

LMAO!!!! Sorry, but this one was funny!!!!
I almost did the same!

Re: GPS Performance
 

i'm experiencing issues making and receiving calls as well as a few 10-30 second "freeze" episodes so i bailed out: i'm going back to the stock Sprint Radio and a WM 6.1 ROM until Sprint releases the official upgrade. i have a Blackjack II and Orbit 2 with GPS so i'll use those for navigation when needed...

Re: GPS Performance
 

I got frustrated because I kept trying to get locks, but couldn't. Then I left it on and went to sleep. When I woke up, bam 4 locks.

Now it only takes like a few seconds to lock, and google maps is working perfectly. Well, it worked perfectly until I soft reset my phone, then I had to try for 20 minutes to get a lock afterwards. But after getting that initial lock, everything is working fine again.