Anybody using this application as a regular training aid/diary? If so, are you using Livesharing? I’m interested to know what impact it has on battery strength and how much data it’s uploading.

I use it o my n95, it doesn’t seem too bad on the battery, well it wasn’t on the last firmware, this firmware its even better even if it seems to now take an age to upload!

its really good, but I’ve lost count of the times I’ve ridden around only to discover that I’ve forgotten to press start!! 🙄

oh you can add me, username: unfit

I’ve used it for solo night rides so my wife can detect the emergency servcies if I don;’t come back.

use my garmin 305 the rest of the time though.

I have a 305 too, but I like this from the safety angle.

I used it on my N95 8GB, it ate the battery to the extent that I couldn’t make a call after two hours use on the trail. Plus it dropped the GPS signal regularly. Nice concept, get a proper GPS to avoid dissapointment is my my advice.

I’ve been using it on my E71,No freezing or gps problems so far and can also take calls etc while it’s running on hands free. I only really use it for solo night rides up the local trails in the live mode so, if something happens the missus can see where i am. Had a stack the other night on a downhill run and you can see on the graphs it gives you when it happened (Altitude + Speed)… lol

Used it on a day trip and the battery seemed to hold out for a days riding ok. Just needs os maps…

I’ve just got a phone with this on, havent had a go yet but solo night rides does seem quite a sensible idea until they work out that the marker has stopped for a while, check a proper map and find out its the pub!

Do you pay any connection fee, usage charge whilst the gps is running?

I use it all the time – it’ll happily work for about 7 hours on my original N95, and longer on the N95 8GB.

Do you pay any connection fee, usage charge whilst the gps is running?

If you’re doing live update, you pay data charges for sending your location (assuming you haven’t got unlimited mobile internet). Otherwise, you don’t have to use any mobile services to use the GPS. You can also turn on AGPS, which uses about 5kb of mobile data per time you start the GPS, which talks to the mobile phone network in order to get a very quick fix on the GPS satellites, and makes GPS work much better.

Joe

I’ve got a separate gps receiver for my N95 – it’s far better and means I can keep the phone in my pack out the way with just the gps unit wrapped in clingfim in a slightly more external pocket.

Is there an app for the Nokia phones that would allow you to d/l a .kml or .gpx file and use it as a route finder?

I have used it a few times, although not with the livesharing bit, although I do like the idea of it if I’m out in the wilds on my own… am not sure I would use it unless I had an unlimited data plan though.

The longest I’ve had it running is about 4 hours, and that drained the battery quite a lot, although the phone was still useable but that was on the old firmware. Not tried it on the new firmware yet, but the general battery life has been improved no end with it, so it should be better now.

BoardinBob… ViewRanger is a full on GPS OS mappy thing for S60 phones…

wwaswas… I just tend to start mine and sling it in my rucksack and it works fine. If it’s gonna be very wet then I just put it in a small plastic bag. Not had an issue with it losing satellite track yet.

It will use more battery, you need to experiment with that. It may very between phones though. Leaving the display backlight active (showing the data continuously) whilst it’s going (this is an option) will be the biggest drain though. I find it’s perfectly ok for a ride if the battery is charged beforehand. Problem is without the backlight, many phones have an almost black screen.

As far as data is concerned, the data rate is fairly low so I’d not expect it to run away with your cash too much. I have checked, and the data file sizes mine downloaded whilst live tracking look to be about 20Kb for half an hour ride, so work that out at your GPRS rates. (Plus some for overhead). GPRS rates vary from about £4 per Mb down to 20p (Asda Mobile 🙂

The Sportstracker app which runs on the phone is neat and works very well. My gripe is that the Beta software which runs on the web machine at the observer end is pretty clunky when run on a mobile phone. So you can report your position pretty well to someone sitting at a PC, but if you are mobile yourself, and want to look up the Sportstracker web site using your phone to check on someone else, that is not slick.

GPS in mobile phones is nowadays “network assisted” if you enable that option on your phone. Doing so helps enormously. This enables most of the coarse aquisition code (basically timing data) for GPS to come from the cellular network rather than the GPS satelite. This greatly improves GPS reception, and appears to allow operation in really GPS areas. My N78 will pick up half a dozen satellites even from inside my house, the Garmin strugles to do that.

Take a look at the Google Latitude also. I ran that up the other day and it’s very neat. It gives no logging, but is ultra easy to show people where you are. It definitely was much more heavy on data than the Sportstracker though because it runs in mobile google Maps. So it downloads maps as it runs as well as reporting your position. I think once they are downloaded they get saved so the data usage for that bit should peak out after a few MB, at least for a local area. Nice thing is the “observer” can be mobile as well using another phone.

Sports Tracker definitely gets my vote. I’ve been using a Forerunner 201 for the last four years, and whilst it’s great, I really wanted to be able to do live tracking for both safety and so that my girlfriend/support cyclist can come and meet me on longer runs.

I use ST for tracking my daily ride to work too, which is quite interesting (for me). If you’re looking for a GPS tool, then it’s definitely worth checking out the latest Nokia/Symbian software. Accuracy seems good, although on my last longer run, my phone showed a distance of 14.3 miles compared to my watch, showing 16 miles.

As has been said above, you need to be running the latest and greatest version of firmware to get maximum battery life and fastest A-GPS.

can you view your route in google earth? If so hows it done please

you upload it to the sportstracker site, then download the file and upload to google earth, I think?

also make sure you update it, the new version is much improved!

You can save any workout as a kml file. Once that’s on your PC, just open it with GE.

You can get it to your PC either by emailing it, or connecting via Bluetooth etc

Oh aye – you can do it through the Sports Tracker website too…

This was the “killer app” for me. I never wanted a bells & whistles mobi until rosqo showed me this on the phone he blagged. So, I got one. Top tip, start your recording then switch apps to Nokia Maps. Live on-map progress plus Sportstracker recording. Neato.

al.

A mate of mine had forerunner, he could upload route to googlemaps, then forgot how he did it but you could actually view the route moving is that possible with this?, can see as it as a sort of drawn out route