iPad in your ride?

[06dak287]

gear list so far:
Asus transformer TF300 (hacked)
Google maps (built in to tablet)
Globalsat Bluetooth (12v charger so it never dies along with tablet)http://www.amazon.com/GlobalSat-BT-3...498606-4724562
GPS Bluetooth app (to recognize the external antenna, although i could use the built in GPS and be just fine) Android Market
Backcountry Pro app (Chartplotting topo app) Android Market

and thats it!

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[06dak287]

What bluetooth gps antenna are you running? Has anyone tried the Pantech Element tablet? It's water proof, could be nice option.

hmmm never seen the pantech.....if its android than yea you can run it just like mine. pretty forgiving and open compared to iOS apple stuff.

[06dak287]

another little quicky i threw up on youtube to show you guys the software i run on my tablet....

[Goatpoker]

Hey all. I finaly got motivated to get after this again.

I got hooked up with a great CAD/Machinist out of Vegas (thanks to Forty1Racing) who is currently working throug the design. We actually have a nice 3D mock up that will get polishe over the next week or so. Hoping to cut metal this month. I'll be sure to post the design when we are close to prototyping so you can all chime in on it.

Keep the software ideas coming. I still think the hard wired antennae is the way to go. BT is really weak especially through a billet case and roof tin. Thoughts?

[Mark Newhan]

Hey all. I finaly got motivated to get after this again.

I got hooked up with a great CAD/Machinist out of Vegas (thanks to Forty1Racing) who is currently working throug the design. We actually have a nice 3D mock up that will get polishe over the next week or so. Hoping to cut metal this month. I'll be sure to post the design when we are close to prototyping so you can all chime in on it.

Keep the software ideas coming. I still think the hard wired antennae is the way to go. BT is really weak especially through a billet case and roof tin. Thoughts?

You may think about a rapid prototype. It would be made of plastic and you could have onein your hands in a few days. The process is pretty inexpensive.

[06dak287]

Keep the software ideas coming. I still think the hard wired antennae is the way to go. BT is really weak especially through a billet case and roof tin. Thoughts?

Well the Bluetooth mounts on the dash so it has a clear sky view. The reason for using BT is to keep the charging port on your tablet open. If your unfortunate enough to own an iPad than its a double edged sword. You use a bad elf and keep it charged and than you don't have SD storage and the bad elf isn't near the windshield so the signal might be iffy. Or you use the bad elf and an SD plug and the battery dies fast.

IMO. Unless you already have an ifap. Then android, BT antenna, 32 gb SD card. And your all set.

[Zambo]

ok heres the lowdown on what im doing for my daily driver weekend runner. unless you already have an ipad....i would go android for this idea. most android tablets have a built in gps chip that doesnt need cell or wifi to work. a rooted android gets all the free gps and topo maps with chartplotting. bluetooth actually works very well with my asus transformer tablet. the plus side to using bluetooth antennas is that you can use your charging port on the tablet...well..to keep it charged on vehicle 12v. for crapple products you need a usb host device. pretty much converts the bottom charging port to a powered usb host port. a simple female usb adapter wont work because it doesnt actually HOST the usb like a computer does. so between the paid apps on ipad (unless jailbroken) and all the adapters and cables to run a hardwired gps ant. your battery will die fast also. and android tabs are cheaper, faster, and work more like computers and dont rely on itunes.

but yea my asus android tab with a bluetooth gps antenna running google maps with all the waypoints saved for offline use. super responsive and i think accurate down to 20m or so. and everything is through google maps. so you can overlay usgs topos and you can drop waypoints on the fly and whenever you get cell or wifi signal it will auto upload to your gmail account. and you can alter and save waypoints at home as well as saving the maps to the sd card.

edit: oh yea. most android tabs have sd card slots

Dude, seriously, WTF are you talking about?

First, the iPad doesn't need wifi or cell service for the gps to work. I don't know where people get that idea. If you have the wifi only version just use a bluetooth gps...simple. The bluetooth on these things works fine, hell I'm typing this on my ipad with a bluetooth keyboard right now.

Second, what the heck are you talking about with all this USB stuff? The battery in the iPad lasts a pretty darn long time and there are only about a gazillion car chargers that will let you keep it charged with vehicle power. What do you need a USB port for?

You don't need iTunes to download apps to your iPad you can do it right from the built in app store. If you want to send and receive gps data for your nav app, you can almost always do that right from within the app. MotionX and lots of other apps let you cache a ton of maps onto your iPad so that you don't need to download maps on the fly. You can export your stuff straight to Google earth to manipulate till your heart's content.

[06dak287]

ok sorry. i should have explained a little better as to not offend the apple fanboys. wifi only ipads dont have gps.....3g ipads might have an internal gps im not familiar but ive heard about them sucking. people mentioned wanting a hard wired external gps antenna.....aka bad elf (which isnt really external because it doesnt go on the roof or the dash) or a USB puck (which would need a USB host adapter in order for the ipad to recognize it)

using a USB adapter to run an external puck, would not enable you to be able to use a car charger. someone else mentioned using a plug in SD card dongle. which would ALSO take away your ability to charge.

I didnt mention needing itunes to DL apps... i said the ipad relys on itunes for any sort of issue solving or backup and restores. i was comparing to the androids which allow you to save backup files directly to the tablet and refer to them in case something in the software goes back in the field. and people were complaining about caching offline maps taking up internal memory...hence i was comparing the sd card slot on my tablet.

hopefully that cleared a little bit up?

[Baja Bryan]

I think the BT 821 would be the way to go.

http://www.usglobalsat.com/s-17-bluetooth.aspx

Compare
http://www.usglobalsat.com/store/Blu...son_chart.html

Will also work good for cell phone gps.

The new Nexus 7 coming out cold make a nice dash mount. They are only $199. You can pre load maps to use without wifi or cell service.

http://www.google.com/nexus/#/7/features

[Zambo]

ok sorry. i should have explained a little better as to not offend the apple fanboys. wifi only ipads dont have gps.....3g ipads might have an internal gps im not familiar but ive heard about them sucking. people mentioned wanting a hard wired external gps antenna.....aka bad elf (which isnt really external because it doesnt go on the roof or the dash) or a USB puck (which would need a USB host adapter in order for the ipad to recognize it)

using a USB adapter to run an external puck, would not enable you to be able to use a car charger. someone else mentioned using a plug in SD card dongle. which would ALSO take away your ability to charge.

I didnt mention needing itunes to DL apps... i said the ipad relys on itunes for any sort of issue solving or backup and restores. i was comparing to the androids which allow you to save backup files directly to the tablet and refer to them in case something in the software goes back in the field. and people were complaining about caching offline maps taking up internal memory...hence i was comparing the sd card slot on my tablet.

hopefully that cleared a little bit up?

Um ok. Apple fanboys? Someone here has an agenda all right.

Instead of recommending an android because the ipad can't handle some ridiculous USB setup that wouldn't ever make sense for anybody, you could try simply talking about how the most simple and user friendly way of using an android compares to the most simple and user friendly way to use an iPad.

Using an iPad is simple. You get MotionX or another mapping app installed, mount the iPad in your vehicle, pair it with a BT gps, and plug it into vehicle power. I doubt any other platform has a simpler setup than that. Any iPad will have plenty of spare memory to cache maps for even the biggest adventure, unless of course you have some need to hoard dozens of hours of video on board.

What I'd really like to hear about is if the Android or any other platform has a better mapping application that MotionX for the iPad. The hardware for ALL of these things works fine, but so far I haven't seen an app that really does what I'd like to do for racing.

Now, once again, as far as "cellular assisted" GPS goes, all that it means is the the GPS uses cell towers and known wifi spots etc to help it get a quick satellite lock. You've all seen how long it can take a Lowrance or Garmin to lock on if you've moved the vehicle or haven't fired up the GPS in a while, the cell assist helps the phone avoid that delay by using local triangulation to help the GPS get a quick lock. That way when you've been inside all day and then jump in the car you don't have to wait for the device's GPS to get a good fix. It is a full up GPS in every way. HOWEVER, it isn't really optimized for high speed type stuff and like any internal GPS, if its inside the car (as it would have to be unless you put your ipad itself on the roof) it isn't going to get a great look at the sky.

Using a bluetooth GPS fixes all of that. Most Bluetooth GPS units like this one from Dual Electronics are super accurate, especially when in range of WAAS transmitters,(Wide Angle Augmentation System is fairly common in Baja). Even if your tablet has a built in GPS I would recommend using one of these units if accuracy is a priority.