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Xiaomi released a phone with dual frequency GNSS in 2018 (with the Broadcom BCM4775 chipset), and as far as I know most Android phones have had it since then, o
by sorenjan 4y ago
Xiaomi released a phone with dual frequency GNSS in 2018 (with the Broadcom BCM4775 chipset), and as far as I know most Android phones have had it since then, or maybe a bit later. If you want to see if your phone supports it, try GPSTest.
Garmin has recently released several watches with it as well, both their high end models and some more affordable ones. They also have an auto mode that switches it on or off depending on if the current environment needs it, to save power when you can have the same accuracy without it.
Personally, I find the accuracy and sensitivity of modern GNSS devices amazing. I remember when you had to wait maybe 10 minutes to acquire a fix, the accuracy was poor and maybe within 10 meters, and if you covered the receiver with clothing you would lose satellite fix. Now my phone gets a good position in a few seconds, I can see which side of the road I ran on, and even with my phone in my pocket I can often get a reasonably accurate track indoors.
https://www.androidauthority.com/dual-frequency-gps-878169/ https://www.androidauthority.com/dual-frequency-gps-878169/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.gpstest https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.gp...
- rnk 4y ago
- osigurdson 4y agoIt interesting how Apple has been able to stay ahead while often being a step or two behind from a technological standpoint (in some areas at least). I think it goes to show how important it is to have things work in a very seamless way.
- gumby 4y agoMany tech products are still sold on feature lists. Few people care any more. This great (short and funny) internal video from Microsoft was supposed to be a wake up call, but nothing really changed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k The fact that Apple doesn't really play that game seems to drive some people wild.
- bobthepanda 4y agoThe real player in this space is Nintendo, which specifically uses commodity hardware in its devices to drive down costs and to my knowledge does not sell consoles at loss the way that MS or Sony do or have done in the past. As I once heard it described, Nintendo is fine to laugh about being a second-rate console all the way to the bank, because while MS and Sony fight out expensive battles to be people’s first consoles, the second console is usually Nintendo.
- scotty79 4y agoAhead in what? Money they fleeced from US market? Core fanbase satisfaction? I don't think they were technologically ahead in anything in a decade or so. Unless you count inventing new charging ports and removing headphone jack or discovering that screen can have notches and customers still buy it.
- ulfw 4y agounless you count the fast mobile chip year over year for the last decade, developed and designed in-house
- scotty79 4y agoAre they leapfrogging their competition or just keeping pace with the first place going alternatively to Apple and Android chips every generation where simply the newest chip is the fastest?
- ulfw 4y agoWhen was the last time a Qualcomm (let alone an Exynos or Kirin etc) was faster than the Ax of that year? I can't even remember. Any ideas?
- scotty79 4y agoI don't know, but assuming the answer is never I got response to my original question. Apple is ahead in the amount of money they fleeced from US market, core fanbase satisfaction and CPU speeds. That's not nothing.
- kergonath 4y agoApple has always been “behind” on some aspects and “ahead” on others. It boils down to the fact that they have their own priorities, which are different from what Android OEMs like to emphasise, which are also different from what people on Teh Interwebz like to go on about.
- Krasnol 4y ago> stay ahead while often being a step or two behind Yeah, good advertising can make even those sentences a valid statement.
- osigurdson 4y agoYou dropped “from a technological standpoint” from the parent comment. Removing words from a sentence changes the meaning.
- jiggawatts 4y agoBut things are better when they’re from Apple. A random example is Apple TV vs any Smart TV. I just bought a flagship Sony A95K smart television. It has everything, it ticks every checkbox, but the software is basically trash. Low effort garbage that should have failed QA the second you see any part of it. It is 1080p upscaled to 4K, so it’s blurry!!! Even with my worsening vision I can see the fuzzy edges and it makes my eyes hurt. It’s too dark so that in a bright room it is borderline invisible. It isn’t color managed, which means the better the TV panel, the more garish it looks. On this QD-OLED panel it looks stupid bad. The second you switch to the Apple TV you instantly realise why they’re the biggest company on earth. It’s beautiful! It’s crisp, fluid 4K with correct colors and brightness. Such simple things to get right. Google (Android TV) and Sony just… couldn’t be bothered to any of that properly. They threw some features in the and called it a day.
- rnk 4y agoI think you should check out google tv on the latest 4k version. Your review is almost like a sarcastic example of a lazy pro apple review. Some crap tv ui like that sony apparently is does not really say much about apple competitors. Apple is great at some things, but they aren't the only good thing.
- jiggawatts 4y agoWhat are you talking about!? I have the latest Google TV operating system on the latest flagship Sony television, a model released just months ago! The Google TV OS on the latest available version. There is no excuse for Google & Sony being so obviously inferior. The difference between the two is night and day, not some "fanboyism". Switch inputs to the Apple TV and you instantly think "wow!" unless legally blind. Switch back and it's instant disappointment. Dark oversaturated 1080p upscaled and blurry versus razor sharp native 4K with subtle hues is something anyone can recognise as a clear difference. The downvotes on my original comment and your response is very telling. Let me ask you: Have you actually sat down and compared the two? As in, plugged in an Apple TV 4K into an Android TV and switched back and forth? Or are you just assuming I'm a "fanboy" and have a preference based on nothing more than tribalism?
- pilif 4y agoApple has supported GNSS since the iPhone 8/X generation in 2017. This is about L5 GPS which I'm not sure how well this is supported in general ATM as its pretty new
- reportingsjr 4y agoGNSS is a generic term for satellite based positioning systems. It looks like you're referring to the iPhone adding Galileo support in the 8/X. L5 support has been available in a number of devices for a couple of years now. Garmin was one of the first to use L5 in commercial devices, with their Fenix watches a while back. The phone I'm currently using, the Pixel 6 Pro uses the L5 band. It's nice and I can definitely tell a difference, but it still struggles due to antenna size. In my experience, for people doing significant outdoor stuff like backpacking, endurance running, etc, a positioning device from a solid company like Garmin is going to be a good bit better than an apple, Samsung, Google, etc device.
- bobthepanda 4y agoIn my experience I find Apple tends not to add features that don’t meet a reliability or quality bar, which is why they’re usually not first movers on things like 4G or 5G. I had an LG phone that was one of the first in 4G (at least on my carrier) and the thing ran so hot it was often painful to touch.
- Nappes 4y agoThe speedup you are noticing is probably mostly due to assisted gps, where your phone gets a location using - partial gps information + wifi location + cell tower location all triangulated. Your eg early 2010 car gps unit didn't have any of the addition ways to speed up the location fix
- extrapickles 4y agoDownloading the orbital parameters can be done via the internet rather than at the 50 bps that the satellites broadcast them at.
- dhsysusbsjsi 4y agoAlso the challenge of old receivers was which Doppler shift frequency to listen on depending on if the target satellite is going towards or away. By knowing the rough location (from cell towers, known wifi AP’s etc), they can get an instant lock.
- KennyBlanken 4y agoThere are three things that lead to fast lock times for cell phones. * Ephemeris and almanac data updated via the internet so the receiver doesn't have to wait for either and can immediately know what satellites to listen for and acquire. * Precise clock via NTP so the receiver has a smaller solve space for its internal clock * AGPS gives a very good position fix to further help with the initial clock and position solving
- stjohnswarts 4y agoHow long ago was that? I never remember it taking more than a minute or so to get a good fix with GPS devices. I'm talking about Garmin devices.
- glenngillen 4y agoI had a Garmin Forerunner (I can’t remember the number, 425 maybe?) circa 2007. IIRC it was one of the earliest on-wrist GPS devices Garmin did. Most of the time it would only take a minute. There would be occasions where it took much much longer. Increasingly so by the time I retired in 2018.
- sorenjan 4y agoThe first GPS device I used didn't have any built in maps, only a breadcrumb trail on a monochrome LCD display. It used AA batteries and it was before selective availability was turned off, so accuracy was quite poor compared to today. Late -90s, so around 25 years ago now. If I recall correctly it was a Garmin 38.
- nradov 4y agoGarmin devices have supported downloading satellite ephemeris data from the Internet for several product generations. This greatly accelerates getting a GPS fix. Some models will also get an approximate location via Bluetooth from a paired cell phone. Long fix times are still an issue today with cameras that lack connectivity.
- alephxyz 4y agoDoes the Android OS and apps like Google maps actually use multiple frequencies to get a position fix? I have friends with Samsung phones supporting dual frequency gps yet the GPS accuracy doesn't seem any better than single frequency devices.
- sorenjan 4y agoIt's transparent to the apps, it's included in all GPS (or technically GNSS) locations. GPSTest has a built in accuracy test mode where to can measure your phones location accuracy. Read more about that here: https://barbeau.medium.com/measuring-gnss-accuracy-on-android-devices-6824492a1389 https://barbeau.medium.com/measuring-gnss-accuracy-on-androi... I noticed a huge difference when I switched from my older phone to my current with dual frequency, and I usually log runs, walks, and bike rides so it's easy to compare the tracks. But maybe my old phone was just bad, my Garmin watch uses single frequency and it's usually quite good anyway. I've seen a few reviews of new Garmin watches and there dual frequency seems to make a small and not always noticeable difference.
- nradov 4y agoThey might not notice a huge difference depending on where they use location services. The real accuracy advantage of dual-frequency GPS only become apparent in degraded signal environments, such as next to tall buildings (multipath signal reflections) and under tree canopies. With a clear view of the sky, regular GPS is already quite accurate (especially if the device also supports other GNSS constellations).
- akelly 4y agoWow you're right, GPSTest on my 2019 Oneplus 7 shows L5 GPS satellites, in addition to L1 GPS, GLONASS, Michibiki, and dual-band Galileo.