Posts Tagged ‘hacks’

find home machine uses GPS and LEDs to guide you home

Jun 17, 2011 ,


This is a “Find Home Detector” as labeled by the developer and it is designed to show the way home by indicating direction with a light. Components include LilyPad board, a GPS receiver, compass and some LEDs. Simply it uses the GPS to get a position fix and figure out the direction to your house. The compass then comes into play to figure out your heading so it can light up the correct LED towards your home.

We have talked about other Arduino powered GPS projects here at Navigadget and this is definitely a nice addition to that list.

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Garmin ecoRoute hd

Jan 6, 2010 , , ,


Garmin just introduced ecoRoute hd, which uses your car’s onboard diagnostics port (OBD II) to transforms your compatible Garmin nüvi into a real-time diagnostics computer. The main goal here of course let you save more money by helping you keep tabs on your mileage, gas consumption, etc. Of course when combined with the eco Routes features you’re also getting a ‘low emissions’ route that is best for the environment.

By accessing onboard diagnostics and performance data through ecoRoute hd, drivers can use a compatible Garmin nüvi to wirelessly monitor real-time vehicle diagnostics for most vehicles while accurately calculating ecoRoute data and driver challenge scores (speed, acceleration, braking, etc.). By simply plugging the ecoRoute hd module into the vehicle’s standardized onboard diagnostics port (OBD II), safely mounting the transmitter clear of vehicle controls and pedals, and completing the easy one-time pairing with nüvi, drivers can start receiving the vital data from their vehicle and run diagnostic checks through nüvi’s intuitive interface before a trip to the auto shop is necessary.

ecoRoute hd will be compatible with many current and future nüvi models, including 1260, 1370, 1390, 1490 and 1690.

You can get the EcoRouteHD for $150 starting in March. It does more than just trying to save you some gas money. It lets you monitor

  • Intake air temperature information
  • Coolant temperature data
  • Throttle position and engine load
  • Intake manifold pressure
  • Battery and charging system information
  • Mass airflow rate
  • Timing advance
  • Emissions


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hack OnStar GPS

Dec 26, 2009 , ,


You’ve got OnStar enabled GM vehicle and don’t use it? How about we told you that you could hack into to GM’s controller area network – which they call GMLAN – and make use of the GPS data?

Yeah we know – a simple USB GPS receiver is cheap and is easy to use; but who wants to do that when you can pull your car apart and access what’s already yours? See this as a way you sticking it to the man!

sprintf(nmea,”%u,N,%03u%02u.”,latminsint,longdeg,longminchar);
printf(“%s”,nmea);
for(k=0;k<8;k++)
{
checksum = checksum ^ nmea[k];
} //end for

If any part of this makes any sense to you follow this link to hackaday and get started!

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real time kinematic GPS receiver

Nov 18, 2009 ,

rtk-gps
Real time kinematic GPS receivers are the ones used by pros to do land survey jobs which can provide down to 1 centimetre accuracy. Now you don’t have to spend a fortune on one of these since you can build your own thanks to researchers at Tokyo University.

All you need is a cheap beagle board, the instructions here and lots of free time and patience…

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Palm Pre tweets GPS coordinates

Aug 27, 2009 , ,

Do you want your Palm Pre to tweet its location on a regular basis? Now you can. But you’ll have to do some “hacking” as one might call it. Before anything you’ll have to setup SSH and dynamic DNS on your Pre. Does that mean anything to you? OK, here is a simple test. If the next line scares you, maybe you should not mess with your Palm Pre:

< ?php
$gps = `luna-send -n 1 palm://com.palm.location/getCurrentPosition {} 2>&1 | cut -d, -f4,5 | sed -r ’s/[^-\.0-9,]//g’`;

What? You can write shorter regular expression that does the same thing? Well… here are the rest of the instructions.

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hack your Nokia N95 for better GPS reception

Aug 2, 2009 , ,

nokia-gps-04
Do you have problems with your GPS reception on your Nokia N95? How about some soldering skills? If you’re brave enough you can open your N95 and remove the default GPS antenna and instead stick in an 8″ speaker wire in there and wrap all over your N95 before closing it back up. You should follows the instructions and read comments here though.

The poster of this hack claims you can get a satellite lock in 5 – 10 seconds – even indoors. However doesn’t share if this is after a cold – or a warm – or a hot start.

Give it a shot – why don’t you?



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iPod Nano GPS hack

Apr 28, 2009 , ,

ipod-nano-gps
We haven’t been talking about any decent “hacks” lately. Well we just found one thanks to hack-a-day. Even though the hacker claims this is not all that complicated we advise you take his words with a grain of salt. After all the guy did end up writing a “graphics driver” to display the latitude and longitude on iPod’s screen.

Combining a reference design board containing a Nemerix GPS with an Atmel ATMEGA324 micro-controller (and of course assorted supporting components), I had the hardware tools to spit-out data to the iPod. However the iPod will not accept just any serial data stream. The data has to be formatted to display on the iPod screen, which made this project a challenge and appealing to me.

For all the details please check out this site.

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AarLogic C10/3: Linux OS breadboard with GPS

Mar 31, 2009 ,

linux-gps-board
Let’s take a break from all those ready to use, nicely finished GPS navigation systems and tracking devices and have a look at this tiny Linux machine with an embedded GPS receiver. It is called AarLogic C10/3 and with this, the possibilities are endless!!! (provided you have at least a BSE from an accredited university and the time and energy to actually build something out of this).

You can make your own sat nav device, vehicle tracking system, or even a satellite guided missile!

The breadboard includes a Quad-band GPRS module SiRF Star III GPS receiver, USB, RS232 and ethernet interface. It comes with 4 Mb NV memory standard but can be expanded a lot since you there’s also an SD-card reader.

The heart of the PC is two ARM processors, responsible on one hand for the GSM component, and on the other for applications executable under Embedded Linux. The processor module, including the GSM component, is also available for purchase separately. Despite its small surface area – roughly the size of a matchbox – its 160-pin socket provides a wide array of connectivity options. Aside from keyboards, digital cameras and reading devices, this also includes WLAN, Bluetooth and GPS components.

You’ll be pleased to hear that there is a free test server available visualisation of the geo-data.

It measures 104mm x 63mm (4″ by 2.5″) and costs €192.00. …

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unlock GPS on Verizon HTC Touch Pro

Dec 27, 2008 , , , ,

htc-touch-pro
If you’re a Verizon customer and own a HTC Touch Pro you’re going to enjoy this one. We’ve got some information on how to unlock the GPS capabilities of this device. We already talked about Verizon unlocking the GPS themselves but there’s no reason to wait for them now, is there?

You can find all the detailed instructions here at ppcgeeks which goes something like this:

1. download lllboredlll_VZW_GPS_Fix_v2.cab AND PPST1.46.cab and put on your storage card or any folder on your device
2. install PPST1.46.cab
3. use gsfinder,total commander or File Explorer to navigate to \windows\ppst.exe

4. click on ppst.exe and go thru the prompts
5. reset your device as needed
6. NOW install lllboredlll_VZW_GPS_Fix_v2.cab
7. use gsfinder,total commander or File Explorer to navigate to \windows\ppst.exe
8. reset your device as needed
9. Dial *228 option 1
(the above step is the steps I did, option 2 also works but I needed to prove it takes a full update without rewriting data)
10. reset your device
11. Install HTC GPS Tool if needed

12. I would suggest a soft reset… do what you want on this one
13. Open up HTC GPS Tool. Set Chip to Q 7500 and mode to Cold Start (left soft key for those who dont know) then set baud to 4800 and open port.

Of course as usual, if you give this a try come back here and leave a comment for others…

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gps for your dell mini 9

Oct 8, 2008 ,


If you had your eye on the Dell Mini 9 but were holding off because it contained no internal GPS receiver you no longer have an excuse. Thanks to Tom you can now add your own GPS receiver with A-GPS support to your Dell Mini 9. You’ll have to spend some extra cash on the receiver (only $30), and have a quite a bit of soldering skills we’re guessing. And of course some free time.

…I then started moving the Bluetooth adapter and removing the old mounting provisions for it, since they were now in the way. There was enough room, but just barely. If the GPS was another 2mm thick, it would not have fit. The GPS completely fills the space between the Bluetooth adapter and trackpad. There is a lot more space on the bottom of the laptop in the unused WWAN card area, but the GPS needs to be on top so that it has a view of the sky. A unit with a separate antenna may provide other mounting options, but I decided it would unnecessarily complicate things…

via

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