using agps and some strategic baby-stepping, i was able to get a good lock

i started from a 6storey tower at a local tourist trap, walked with a clear view of both horizons to another open 'bowl' area, and then....i had a lock

it was still a bit of a weak lock as now that i am indoors, it is gone.

i hope nokia does as much as possible to make this its best. while i dont expect fully enclosed gps, i would like to at least be able to skirt around buildings with wifi and get some simultaneous GPS and WiFi action going on.

to give me some hope, after taking my walk, maemo-mapper made a gorgeous and very high res map of my trail
probably one of the best paths i have seen anything generate. so heres hoping we can get nokia to make the gps more robust and then anti-telecom geeks like me can gps around public wifi!
(or offline when needed...geocaching!)

sorry for all the info, but i figured it only helps in making the forums searchable.....

i just had a wifi enhanced gps experience.........life will never be the same!

while stationary with 6/10 satellites, i had a variance of 00.00005° not too shabby!

i would love to hear other peoples' mileage!

Now there are two of us

bun

I had great GPS recently on a train trip. It worked everywhere except in tunnels. When it stopped working, it immediately resumed when the mountain got out of its way. I was using Maemo Mapper and A-GPS.

I have always had fair GPS, but it really got good with Diablo and A-GPS.

I sat behind a window for 4 hours or so the other day, I'd used agps-ui and had 10 satellites listed, eventually (5min) I got one signal, and then (10min later) I had signals from all 10 or so (odd as some of them were apparently on the other side of the house, so must have been bounces from the houses on the other side of the road).

Anyway, the point is that even with locks on the satellites, I never got a fix.

Outside (sat on a field), it appears to work far better. I imagine this is to do with signal corruption/interferences from relfections and the like. That's a gps chipset/processor problem to sort out. Is the N95/etc. any better at holding a lock?

In my experience it seem that you need to have over 30 "signal strength" on at least one (maybe more?) of the satellites to get a fix, even with A-GPS working. Anyone confirm this behavior?

What are the odds that this is something Nokia can or is willing to address?

It's unfortunate that they compromised the quality of the GPS offering itself just to claim it. I wonder if they did it just to add to the shelf appeal.

I don't want to accidentally lose my locks just because I walk by something most other GPS devices don't care about. If that's the case they should be offering to mail us out some bluetooth external GPS units. It's a question of whether or not the feature they've offered in the device is at a point that it is usable. Not just that there is a GPS chipset and antenna in a box.
(If that's the case, I have a GPS ready to go to market if there are any investors reading!)

I would be careful making claims without knowing all the facts. The reality is that the GPS works well enough for many/most outdoor applications. Design limitations of the n810 meant serious size and power limitation in order to fit within the device.

The software needs some work, don't get me wrong, but I don't see how you are claiming they intentionally crippled/compromised the product.

Without AGPS it's unusable. Even then still, the impracticality of the time it takes to get a signal lock is bewildering. The only thing that did impress me was the resolution of the data when I did have a signal lock, but again - that had it's snags. The data jumped around like crazy; enough to drop new waypoints on my recorded path and start drawing new lines .25 of a KM away from where I was actually standing or any other waypoints/lines.

So to use it, you need to know of your need for GPS well ahead of time, which when it comes to some peoples' use for driving is not always apparent. I actually can't think of many situations except geocaching where GPS is an inevitability.
Second, you need to make sure you don't pass by anything that obstructs the GPS for too long (like the side of a building).
Third, you need an internet connection for AGPS.

But! Of all things, the GPS software is actually very well developed! I'm of the exact opposite opinion. I want my hardware to be robust and intelligent enough to provide a consistent and reliable data stream. There are some circumstances that can't be accommodated, but when I've got at least 60% of the sky open, walking by a building shouldn't clobber the life out of it.

If it's a question of the software not acting properly with the data, I'll gladly take back what I say. But from the looks of it, when you need a program like AGPS, something is amiss. I understand the premise behind AGPS, but it's still very goofy to have a GPS device that requires it when there are so many that don't. No assumptions there.

I can't think of many uses for GPS that require you to gently walk at a snail's pace, not walk by anything taller than your arm-level and maintain an internet connection at the same time.

Just...Doesn't seem practical. No assumptions, pure experience.