gpstest Support external GPS via Bluetooth

Summary:

From a user in the Google Group at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/gpstest_android/Uwmhvp-glfA:

Is there any chance that GPSTest will support using external bluetooth GPS?

I'd like to support this. I assume this means supporting NMEA sentences over Bluetooth serial port profile, although I'd like further clarify from actual users for what devices they'd like to see supported to make sure we can get this right.

Information that would be useful from users:

Make and model of the external Bluetooth GPS device you'd like to use
Make and model and Android version number for the Android device you'd be running GPSTest on

Steps to reproduce:

Start GPSTest

Expected behavior:

Give me an option to see external Bluetooth-connected GPS in the app

Observed behavior:

There is no way to view external Bluetooth GPS in the app

Mar 28 '17 02:03 barbeau

I have Stonex S5 external GNSS receiver and android 6.0

Apr 15 '17 11:04 tzac

Thanks @tzac! I emailed Stonex earlier today to ask for technical specs to connect to this device. Did you get a GNSS Server APK with your device? If so can you share that?

Apr 15 '17 18:04 barbeau

I paired my Huawei P9lite mobile and S5 with Bluetooth GPS apk from GG moblab and enabled Mock GPS provider. After that GPS Test showing status from S5 but without sat list

Apr 15 '17 18:04 tzac

So to my understanding the Mock GPS provider should let you see location lat/longs from external GPS in Android apps, but to my knowledge you can't see status information like elevation, azimuth, signal strength or satellite IDs per satellite - that comes from a different Android API.

Have you found any other Android apps that allow you to see a list of satellites from your external device? If so, what are they?

BTW, my email to Stonex bounced, so I'm not sure how to get more detailed technical information about possible integration.

Apr 18 '17 17:04 barbeau

Bluetooth GPS app showing all that info on status tab page, and on NMEA tab page all nmea log from external gps

Apr 25 '17 18:04 tzac

Thanks - this is the app?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=googoo.android.btgps

Looks like it reads a NMEA sentence over Bluetooth serial port profile. I'll see if I can contact developer and get more details.

Apr 25 '17 18:04 barbeau

Correct

Apr 25 '17 18:04 tzac

Hi this project has external gps support and it is open source!!!!! https://github.com/platypii/BASElineFlightComputer

Aug 30 '17 19:08 panosmark

Thanks @panosmark! I'll check it out.

Aug 31 '17 01:08 barbeau

Here's the Bluetooth management code: https://github.com/platypii/BASElineFlightComputer/tree/master/app/src/main/java/com/platypii/baseline/bluetooth

Aug 31 '17 01:08 barbeau

Is this still on your list? I'd have a couple of external Bluetooth GPS devices that I'd like to see the app to work with:

Garmin GLO 2 (unknown chipset)
GNS 2000 plus (MediaTek MT3333)
Nokia LD-3W (SiRF Star III)
Qstarz BT-Q818 XT (MTK II)

Other interesting chipsets would be MediaTek MT3318 and MediaTek MT3329 (used by some Holux devices).

I currently have the Nokia, the Garmin and the GNS 2000 available, although I'm thinking about returning one or both of the Garmin and the GNS 2000, as I'm not 100% satisfied with their accuracy. Which is how I stumbled across your app, to maybe gain some more insight, which unfortunately doesn't seem to work yet.

So if you need any more information I could provide for these devices, let me know, before I possibly return them.

Sep 06 '19 22:09 sp00n

@sp00n It's still on my list of features I'd like to add to the app but I just haven't gotten to it yet.

For this and sending NMEA over USB/serial (https://github.com/barbeau/gpstest/issues/308) it looks like I may need to get a hold of an actual device for development. It's hard to implement something when you don't have anything to test against.

Sep 07 '19 00:09 barbeau

Well, you can get a used Nokia LD-3W for around 15€ on eBay these days. Not sure about the US though.

Sep 07 '19 00:09 sp00n

This perhaps belongs in a separate PR, but in addition to bluetooth it would be nice to support NMEA over TCP sockets. Vespucci has support for this now, to be able to use local rtklib on the phone or an external GPS receiver over wifi.

Nov 22 '20 01:11 gdt

@gdt Could you open a new issue for TCP support and link to this issue? If you have any links to existing tools/code you could share that would help that would be great.

Nov 23 '20 17:11 barbeau

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

Jun 03 '21 20:06 stale[bot]

Hey bot: Despite no activity, this is still valid.

Jun 03 '21 22:06 gdt

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. Please comment here if it is still valid so that we can reprioritize. Thank you!

Oct 01 '21 23:10 stale[bot]

Hey bot: Despite no activity, this is still valid.

Oct 01 '21 23:10 gdt

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. Please comment here if it is still valid so that we can reprioritize. Thank you!

Apr 20 '22 23:04 stale[bot]

Hey bot: Despite no activity, this is still valid.

And, here's a device that can provide NMEA over Bluetooth SPP: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/18442

Apr 20 '22 23:04 gdt

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. Please comment here if it is still valid so that we can reprioritize. Thank you!

Nov 07 '22 01:11 stale[bot]

Hey bot: Despite no activity, this is still valid.

Another device is the Sparkfun RTK Express. A fairly large number of devices just send NMEA over a bluetooth serial port, so the app connects to SPP (serial port profile). Another app that can talk to bluetooth GNSS receivers is QField.

Nov 07 '22 11:11 gdt