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What device do you use FieldMaps on?

madxwild

Hi community! Just wondering what devices does anyone use for their field data collection? Historically I've been a big fan if TDC600 due it's high gps accuracy but am on a lookout for a more cost effective (but ideally obviously losing little of the GPS accuracy) solution. Running FieldMaps on my android phone at the moment, but the accuracy is well out, by at least 5-10m so just wondering if there's anything in the market I could either add on to my phone to get the GPS accuracy to be higher or are there any other devices you guys are using that are really smashing it out of the ballpark in the point and feature collection game in the field with FieldMaps?

Any advice much appreciated 🙃

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JustinJohnston

I just bought a Trimble Catalyst antenna, which is really affordable for the hardware. You buy the accuracy you want as a subscription model or you can buy the top end precision in 10-hour increments. That can be centimeter level accuracy, which I will be using for ground control for drone work. I am going back and forth myself on the best device and not at all considering the accuracy of the GPS of the device since I will be using the Catalyst antenna. I am considering what is best for people to handle in the field vs screen real estate while using Field Maps. I have used Field maps on my iPhone in the field, and it is better for typing information into the device than a full sized tablet. However, it doesn't show a lot of the map when entering data since the form takes up half the small screen. So it comes down to typing with two thumbs quickly and not seeing as much vs. seeing everything and hen pecking the letters one by one on a tablet.

Also, in my experience, if someone deletes something in ArcGIS Online and you want to recover it from the device directly, it is relatively easy on an iOS device. It is very difficult on an Android device. The temporary geodatabase created on the device of each is slightly different. The iOS version of the geodatabase is virtually plug and play in ArcGIS Pro, whereas the Android version of the geodatabase will likely require a developer to troubleshoot getting it into a usable state.

So for my purposes, it will be an iOS device and between a phone or iPad Mini.

Cheers,

Justin Johnston

RobertBorchert

If you want better accuracy you should stick with what you have.

Phones are not going to give the kind of accuracy you may want. Even 1.4 is pretty bad

SteveTaylor6

We have recently been testing the top end Samsung Ultra. Hard to get better. 1.4m GPS accuracy and big battery that lasts a full day of mapping, with some to spare.

SuzyFer

Hi,

Curious to find out what you ended up going with? I would be looking for a cost-effective method for ecological surveying - company currently has iPads/older iPhones + access to Field Maps but would be looking to add some GNSS receivers to the mix to improve accuracy.

EricCollinsOVV

Doing paid work, I wouldn't rely on an iPhone with autonomous positioning. If you can get an R1, they can get SBAS corrections so get your accuracies down much better. Otherwise your run the risk of being 30 feet out

LakeCountyForestPreserves

We utilize a number of Trimble R1 units for ecological monitoring and they do work well for that. Yes they could clip to a backpack or to a tablet sized device. Trimble also makes a small antenna that can clip or slide into the top of a hat.

RobertBorchert

Making a decision on GPS equipment can be confusing and technical. There are so many different options.

As you mention you are gathering locations for ecological mapping so you don't need to spend the money for cm accurate gear.

However, to that end an iPhone would also be good enough.

I don't know if I am able to post this company's name but https://frontierprecision.com/

serves a lot of the needs in the Midwest (USA) and are very customer oriented and fair priced.

madxwild

Hi everyone, some great input here - looking at potentially getting a Trimble R1 (albeit it looks like it may have been discontinued?). I do a lot of ecological mapping work, e.g. habitat delineation, field survey data collection, veg plots etc. so 1.5m accuracy from TDC600 for my work is already pretty decent, so not really needing anything more accurate than that. However, ideally looking to just use my Samsung S20 for this work now instead and pair it with an external GNSS receiver if I can get similar or more accurate results than TDC600, and not have to drag 2 separate devices to the field. Assuming I could potentially just attached the R1 to my backpack or smth and it would work pretty ok?

RobertBorchert

I have taken my iPhone out in my front yard and turned on one of my apps with Air Photos behind them and stood at my mailbox and the cursor came up almost exactly on the place I was standing. However, 2 days later it was in the middle of the street

RobertBorchert

if you need low end GPS accuracy for collecting of points I would stick with the TDC600 or get a complete Trimble system for point and streaming collection.

I am not the biggest fan of Apple but web apps seem to work better on Apple.

To that end we use iPhones and iPads. If your not doing point collection than being off by 30 feet is negligible.

TDC600 is only 1.5 m gnss accurate so that is nothing go get excited about for accurate placement of points.

If you use that to place a buried asset and want to come back later being off by up to 1.5 meters is pretty big.

LakeCountyForestPreserves

We run iPad Pros with Field Maps along with external GNSS receivers of various accuracy levels that connected via bluetooth. A few of the receivers we utilize include EOS Arrow Gold, Bad Elf Flex, Trimble R1 and Bad Elf GNSS Receiver. All work well with Field Maps and provide differing levels of accuracy for various mapping/surveying tasks.

SteveTaylor6

Good question. A good way to test how accurate a smartphone actually is is to use the GPS test app by GitHub. We run the top end series Samsungs and pro version of iPhones. The Field Maps app often has the GPS accuracy at 3.2 to 4.2m. But if you run the GPS test app, they are actually often running at 1.8m accuracy. As good as a purpose built GPS. More than adequate for mapping our project sites. To improve to below 2 metres you can buy a Bluetooth surveyor quality GPS. That will give cm accuracy, but they are expensive.

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