You might consider the Arrow 100 GNSS Arrow 100 - Eos Positioning System . It provides 60cm accuracy (2dRMS, 95%) with just free WAAS signal. If connected to an RTK Network then you'll get subfoot with the same receiver. It supports all current constellations concurrently: GPS, Glonass, Galileo and BeiDou. It is fully compatible with Collector running on iOS, Android and Windows. You might want to take a look at some performance results here Comparison Results of Field-Tested Submeter GNSS . You may want to inquire Contact - Eos Positioning Systems to get in touch with your nearest dealer and take it for a trial.
Here is a list manufacture / accuracy comparisons done by the USDA Forrest Service. (Open, Medium, & Heavy Canopy)
The latest version of Collector (v10.4) now has Location Profile settings that enable it to work at sub-meter, sub-foot and Centimeter level accuracy levels from external high accuracy receivers. These version updates from ESRI occurred in July (for iOS), Aug (for Win 10) and Oct (for Android).
For Trimble devices (the R1 and R2) your local Reseller can walk you through the settings needed to initially configure Collector to achieve these results. The R1 is sub-meter. The R2 has several models; from sub-meter to Centimeter capable and prices range from $2,700 to around $12,000 depending on accuracy desired and correction source.
Shital,
Small Correction: The 5m floor you are referencing is true of positional data that is passed through the corelocation framework to apps making the call for positional data. When collector makes calls for data directly from external GPS Receivers this limitation isn't present. Direct integration with Bad Elf Devices occurred last summer and I know Esri has done the same with other hardware manufacturers: GPS receiver support—Collector for ArcGIS | ArcGIS
Collector just needs to be configured to use the device you've chosen to supply the more accurate data stream, our help article on this process can be found here: Configuring Esri Collector for ArcGIS - Bad Elf
Best Regards,
John@BadElf
I looked into all the external GPS that is compatible with Esri Collector App (as per their website) and summarized their prices and accuracies below:
Correct be if I am wrong, but although submeter accuracies can be obtained with high-end GPS, Collector App does not claim an accuracy less than 5m in its current version.
Thanks,
Shital
Did anybody used U-blox 'NEO-M8P' RTK with Arc collector?
I have been researching the same issue and I have found this company that states their unit will work at sub-meter accuracy
Comparison Chart | Eos Positioning Systems they are spendy. He also stated that they work great with canopy cover. I have not tested it as of yet. I also just found this unit as well and they are working with ESRI and the Collector app Blog - Bad Elf
Hi,
We are a rugged tablet and bluetooth GNSS receiver rental company. Many of our rental clients use Collector on our field iPads paired to our Bad Elf GPS, Arrow 100 and 200 models, Trimble R1 and the iSXBlue II and III. Also, some clients running their own tablets (iPads, Panasonic tablets, Samsung Android tablets) with Collector and just renting the GNSS receivers they need based on their accuracy requirements. To help people with all the new GNSS receivers on the market, we conducted a field comparison test against known reference points in varying amounts of tree canopy to examine the accuracy of all the major bluetooth GNSS sub-meter receivers on the market. You can read our results here http://anatumfieldsolutions.com/?p=2071
Hope you find the results informative.
Matt
There are a lot of variables that can affect the accuracy, but with SBAS you are probably looking at a best case scenario of .5 meter XY accuracy and 1.5 - 2 meter vertical accuracy
I am going to rent a GPS SX Blue 3 and use it with SBAS (EGNOS), in am in France.
Can you tell me the right accuracy in horizontal XY and especially in Z vertical.
Thanks
Cédric
The Trimble R1 has been a consistently great sub-meter unit. and if your in Florida you can use the FLDOT FPRN network for correction.
Thanks, Michael. We'll look at that.
There is a dealer in Tigard, Oregon, too, Resource Supply, LLC, Resource Supply LLC.
Yeah Geneq hasn't ever been very responsive to our direct inquiries.
We go through GeoMobile Innovations out of Corvallis, OR for our iSXBlue and EOS Arrow units. They are very responsive and helpful with sales and support.
Rich Ash is the sales guy we've worked with over there. He's been pretty fantastic whenever we've had questions, issues, or even when we needed to rent some units for short term gigs.
Mobile Geographic Information Systems
If anyone has the names and contact info for one or more Geneq SXBlue distributors in the U.S., I'd appreciate having those. We're window-shopping for an SXBlue II + GNSS and want to pick the distributor we do business with.
The company hasn't been forthcoming with distributor information. All they have been willing to do so far is to pick a distributor for us and have that distributor call us.
billy.k.lemons@resourceanalytical.com
Very informative post. A colleague of mine suggested using this to pair a Garmin Monterra with an Ipad, I'm interested in any specific settings or steps folks can share with actually getting the BT pairing and getting collector to recognize it.
I haven't tested the GLO specifically, but I can confirm that a wifi-only iPad will hook up to and use a bluetooth GPS while offline.
That said - there appears to be a bug in iOS 8.3 with the use of some external bluetooth GPS units. You might keep this in mind and stick with iOS 8.2 to be safe.
Thanks Dominick for sharing your experiencie, can you tell me if you have tested the Glo with an IPad wifi? can the Collector get the coordinates offline?
TerraGo, a young mapping company, becoming more and more a direct competitor of ESRI in the data collection applications, makes good progress in incorporating third-party GPS devices to work with the phones and tablets. TerraGo is aggressively expanding. Their people keep luring us to try their tech. So ESRI would be wise to get its act together fast before they lose whatever advantage they still have now.
ok, thank you.
Is there a way in Collector to see the GPS info? Accuracy, number of satellites, etc?
Collector doesn't have documentation about this. But you can go to those gadgets website and they should mention it supports 3rd party app.
Is there any documentation that stats this? I need to go to my folks and be able to say that "GPS units linked to Android via BT are leveraged in Collector". I would prefer to be able to say more than "this is the case as documented by Miaogeng Zhang's forum post. No disrespect intended, but you know how bosses are.
We've been actively exploring picking up an EOS Arrow 100 or 200 to add to our existing iSXBlue units... but it doesn't seem like they are actually out and available in the sales channel just yet.
We are interested in picking up an Arrow vs. an additional iSXBlue because of the significantly increased Bluetooth range, as well as the ability to use OmniStar for correction in locations where it is tough to acquire SBAS signals.
One of our folks talked with the EOS rep at the ESRI Dev Summit and they mentioned that EOS was formed by folks who came from Geneq (manufacturer of the SXBlue) specifically including the guy who created the Bluetooth stack for the iSXBlue model. We haven't been able to get an evaluation unit just yet, but we expect good things.
That said we have been VERY happy with our current iSXBlue fleet. The are reliable and work as advertised... delivering a .7 meter signal in real time, most of the time. The only time we have issues is when we are in an environment where we can't get access to the SBAS signal or in dense canopy.
Has anyone tried any of the Arrow series units by EOS?
Arrow Series – Eos Positioning Systems I am currently looking into these as well as the iSXBlue receiver for use with iPads for field collection for wastewater utility.
When I first got the Dell, a Windows update messed up the Bluetooth functionality, but Dell tech support was able to remove the update and fix the problem. That was last summer, so a new update might have done the same thing.
Regarding the accuracy of the Dual GPS - qualitatively, it looks good. Last week I turned it on for the first time in several months, and it took almost an hour to "find itself". In Collector for iOS the GPS dot was showing >100 feet south of where I was. The Dual GPS app said estimated accuracy was 16 feet, so that wasn't right. Eventually it fixed itself. I realize it needed to download the current GPS almanac before it could accurately locate itself, but an hour is a long time to wait when you want to get to work.
The Dual GPS advertises +/- 2.5 m accuracy with SBAS.
I haven't really tested it quantitatively. I wish that Collector would display useful coordinates.
I had that problem with the Dell Venue 8 Pro and ArcPad as well (with iSX Blue II GNSS). No problem with the receiver, it pairs well to any smartphone. After Dell updates the wifi/bluetooth settings on the tablet went a bit weird. I re-installed updates, and removed and re-paired the bluetooth reciever. Then I tried switching between each of the different COM ports (go to GPS settings in ArcPad, and try out each of the COM Ports). That got it to work for me after about an hour or two of troubleshooting. The only problem with an android tablet is that you can't use ArcPad . . .
Which OmniSTAR service were you using? (If you were)
Every external GNSS unit will have different levels of accuracy. See what the venders are reporting on accuracy, but also collect some data on NGS control points or survey control to see what you are collecting. In addition, depending if you have access to SBAS, accuracies vary. With the SX Blue and SBAS I was recording submeter data. Better yet is that the lines are very straight, and the data collection accuracy is repeatable.
What kind of accuracy were you getting?
I have a Dual Electronics XGPS150A Bluetooth receiver and it worked well with an iPhone 5S and Collector. I tried it with a Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet with Windows 8.1 and ArcPad as well - it worked for the first couple of outings, but now I can't pair the GPS with the tablet. I think this is mostly the Dell tablet's problem - it's really a piece a junk and doesn't work well for anything. I'd like to try the Dual GPS with an Android tablet.
You may be interested in this Kickstarter project that just got funded:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1101202238/connect-any-high-precision-gnss-unit-over-bluetoot?ref=users
It is a dongle that connects to a variety of GPS units from the major manufacturers (any that support NMEA output) and then connects to an iOS device via bluetooth and provides the data stream. This will get you sub-meter from any device that supports it using real-time WAAS correction.
From the same programmer who did the bluetooth connectivity for the iSXBlue so I expect it to work as advertised. He will also be offering a paid app to do on-device NTRIP correction which has the potential to get you CM level accuracy.
I know vertical accuracy costs a lot of money. Most of the units talked about in this thread aren't going to do that great vertically. Depending on what you need you will most likely have to go survey grade.
Hi All,
Thanks for all the posts. It's lead me to more info that's been really helpful. However, I'm not seeing much in terms of vertical accuracy specs in these discussions nor do I see much for vertical specs (with some exceptions) on the vendor product pages. What am I missing?!? Anyone have some info on vertical accuracy?
Thanks!
Aaron
Not sure if this post can help anyone: ArcGIS Collector External GPS Options - Spatial Times
It doesn't discuss Altus products, but does discuss other external GPS options from Bad Elf, Garmin Glo, and iSX Blue II. They are all great, just depends on your exact needs and budget.
Hi Craig,
We are having trouble connecting the iSXBlue II to our Trimble Juno. Do you have the pairing process documented?
Thanks, Jon
Is anyone using Altus products?
I have used the Garmin GLO clipped to the bill of my ball cap (clip sold separately) and it worked great with a disconnected Collector map.
We've got 2 iSXBlue II units out in the field this summer - so far we've been seeing ~0.7m accuracy. Since it uses SBAS I was worried we would loose the correction signal when we got too far north (survey running up to the North Slope in Alaska) but so far no issues.
Also tested with the Garmin Fenix 2 - works really well... Though need to try some long hikes in varying terrains/tree cover to see how it performs.
I agree with Anthony above, the Garmin GLO has been working a treat on our iPad minis with Collector 10.2.4.
This guy works pretty easily - https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/oem/sensors-and-boards/glo-/prod109827.html
Only tested with iPad/iPhone with Collector
Awesome! What model did you use and what accuracy were you getting?
BTW, we were testing the Bad Elf on a WiFi only iPad (which has no GPS chip) and the iPad was reporting 5m accuracy.
We did test Collector (iOS) with Bad Elf and it does work. We connected it using a 30-pin to Lightning adaptor, not Bluetooth, because we didn't have the BT version. I don't have one right now so I can't give you the setup steps.
Kenan,
I was able to use a SX blue with great results. I could Bluetooth it to my android phone, and to an older Trimble Juno for use in ArcPad. I have a friend who uses it with a large Samsung device with collector, and he really is happy with it. Good luck to you. Craig
We are about to get an SX Blue II demo. Very interested in this subject!
We had done some testing comparing a GLO on a known fixed locations using the collector application on a iphone 5c in an urban environment. The GLO was between 1-4 feet and iphone without the GLO was 2-10 feet. We have found the combination of a 7 inch tablet running collector in disconnected mode, and using the GLO, a very cheep way to collect high quality GPS points in the field.
We just purchased a GENEQ SXBLUE II. I just received it yesterday. We are in the process of installing the app on our iPads. My email is tkukitz@cityftmyers.com. I will post info here when I find out how it works.
Are you saying the Geneq blue worked with Collector?Has anyone tried the Garmin GLO Bluetooth?
I have a Bad Elf, but am unable to use it with the Collector App. Can anyone provide a step by step? I'm using an iPhone 4S running iOS 7.1. I'm able to pair the GPS via bluetooth. When I open the Collector App it still seems to be using my phone's Location Services and not the GPS. If I turn off Location Services and maintain my bluetooth connection to the Bad Elf, Collector tells me it requires Location Services to be turned on.Thanks in advance.
I have been testing a few of the Geneq blue, both the GNSS and II-B beacon model. Both are excellent and greatly increase the accuracy of the data collection. They also make repeat positioning a reality. I found that I could get meter - sub meter collections on a regular basis. I encourage people to give it a try.Craig
Has anyone tried using an external bluetooth GPS receiver with Collector? If so, how has it performed and what model/make is the receiver? We're looking to get sub-meter accuracy using Collector and am curious if anyone has had success doing this.Thanks in advance!
Los miembros registrados pueden publicar, seguir actualizaciones y más. ¿Nuevo aquí? Regístrate gratis.
Find useful guides, FAQs, and documents to help you navigate and make the most of Esri Community.
