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iPhone and GPS trackers

theBlob

Bokeh master
Sep 28, 2011
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I have been using an app called runtastic. That seems to work pretty well, It actually works better for cycling than jogging. I did a test around a measured jogging track and it came out about 500m short on a 5km jog. But when cycling the tracker seems to stick on the road much better.

A friend of mine said that mounting the i phone on my bike will just see it destroyed in a short time from the vibration, and I should get a bike specific tracking device. I can't see why it would necessarily be any different they are both solid state devices after all?

Does anyone have any experience with this?
 
Its the motion sensor in the iPhone that gets messed up apparently also if you should drop the phone while riding the likelyhood of it surviving is limited. My Garmin 705 on the otherhand came free (Broken mount that I taped) at about 50km/h bounced down theroad and was all in one piece and ready to roll again, something your iphone won't recover from.

Also once you start exploring out in the mountains away from the radio masts that surround you in the big smoke your iphone will soon become useless when you loose signal.
 
I use the SmartPhone only for directions not for tracking. I prepare the ride before and load the GPX file in apps like "Cyclemeter". Even if I don't have a network I can see the track and my location to know how to return back to my route. The Phone gets packed in a zipper-bag and goes into the jersey back-pocket.
For Tracking I use Garmin Egde500. The don't use the directions feature of the Edge500 as the device can get so busy recalculating your route it will forget to store some track points.
 
I've tried the mapmyride app. Works well enough. Haven't really done any real distance, so can't speak for much 'useful' stuff off of it.

In terms of mounting on the bike, I know people who do it. I don't know how long it will last, i would imagine that it is made well enough to handle some amount of vibrations. But for a device that does a lot more for you (like call people when you are in trouble) I wouldn't use it as something mounted.

I've used it for tracking (in my pocket), but even that I will probably stop due to the already crappy battery life on the iPhone. Unless you carry one of those little spare charger battery gigs.

Will look at some other 'focused' GPS device in the near future. Same price I guess as an iPhone but I won't have to worry about it flying off and not being able to call somebody. Of course, I could still fly off and screw my phone.... but really only so much you can do i guess.

Also, as mentioned, signal can go a bit wobbly in slightly more out of the way areas.

So all that typing and I haven't really addressed your question, but there you go....
 
There are pretty neat GPS trackers out there - very small, light, cheap and easy to use. I used to track my rides using a Holux which would slide easily into a back pocket alongside many other things. It takes one rechargeable AAA battery, and battery life was fine for at least 15 hours (I've never done more in a day).
 
The HOLUX prdts look very cool - especially the M-1000C - 64 channel GPS.. wow!

There are pretty neat GPS trackers out there - very small, light, cheap and easy to use. I used to track my rides using a Holux which would slide easily into a back pocket alongside many other things. It takes one rechargeable AAA battery, and battery life was fine for at least 15 hours (I've never done more in a day).
 
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