With version 10.4 released, we are now able to see the spatial gps accuracy in Collector on iOS. We have attempted to connect a few external gps units to the device to see if we can improve the gps quality. After connecting the external device via bluetooth and then configuring collector to see the device, all capability to use gps stops working in the app. ( the accuracy window disappears and the gps toggle button in the map is disabled) By disconnecting the external GPS unit, the gps capability comes back. Has anyone run into this? Any suggestions on how to resolve? Has anyone had any success with any Trimble units?
Collector for ArcGIS 10.4 (on iOS)
Server for ArcGIS 10.3.1
Garmin Glo
Follow up on this topic for anyone interested. Pairing certain low accuracy external gps devices (tested the Garmin Glo) can be done simply by connecting via bluetooth without configuring the connection in Collector. We then attempted to connect a Trimble Pro6H with NMEA and Floodlight activated. We had to purchase the AMAN enterprises NMEA-BT unit to send the gps stream to Collector. You then have to download an app called NMEA Talker and configure it. After that go through the Collector settings menu to change the provider and configure your Location Profile. This worked very well for us. We tied into a local RTK subscription service and were able to see better than submeter quality data. Two downsides, one is that Collector does not seem to like to report better than 12.3' of horizontal accuracy. We have to perform more testing to quantify this. Second was with the Pro6H unit itself. We found out that upon powering the Trimble unit down, the NMEA output is toggled off. So if an end user planned to use it for the day, they would have to connect the Trimble unit to their desktop and enable the NMEA string again. This is an inconvenience for now, but limits our end users to qualified GPS/GIS field crew members.