External Bluetooth GPS Receiver

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01-17-2014 05:56 AM
mpboyle
Occasional Contributor III
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!
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RussRoberts
Esri Notable Contributor
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RussRoberts
Esri Notable Contributor
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mpboyle
Occasional Contributor III
It doesn't seem to mention the specific GPS devices used during testing...
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MiaogengZhang
Esri Regular Contributor
For iOS device,  you can try Dual (http://gps.dualav.com/explore-by-product/xgps150a/ ). I heard people used http://bad-elf.com/. Or you can use GPS cable to connect other high end receivers (http://amanenterprises.com/gpscable/ ).

For Android device, any external GPS with Bluetooth module should be able to work.

As a note, all those gadgets will help smartphone to provide better location and our collector app just leverage it. We don�??t have control on it.
DanielSmith
Occasional Contributor III

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.

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MiaogengZhang
Esri Regular Contributor

Collector doesn't have documentation about this. But you can go to those gadgets website and they should mention it supports 3rd party app. 

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DanielSmith
Occasional Contributor III

ok, thank you.

Is there a way in Collector to see the GPS info? Accuracy, number of satellites, etc?

MichaelDavis3
Occasional Contributor III

Right now - no.  The manufacturers (Geneq, EOS) provide SDKs that you can use to access this info, but Collector doesn't have that support yet. 

Can confirm that it does work though, we are able to access and record GPS quality info in our apps developed with the ESRI Runtime SDK.

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DanielSmith
Occasional Contributor III

Ok thanks.

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AlexZhuk
Occasional Contributor III

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.

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