[HOT] Feedbacks about smartphones use for OSM field surveys

Banick, Robert Robert.Banick at redcross.org
Mon Jun 11 00:48:40 BST 2012


Hi everyone,

I'm happy to see this discussion taking place, as I've been personally researching and debating this question myself for a little while now. It's my gut feeling that as software for data collection improves smartphones will increasingly play a complementary role to traditional GPS devices in humanitarian fieldwork.

One contribution I might make: At the suggestion of the kind people over at Catholic Relief Services, we're exploring linking smartphones to high accuracy external GPS. The best model we've encountered so far is the Dual XGPS 150<http://xgps150.dualav.com/>. We had success with some preliminary trials in Lima last fall. When the units connected with the smartphones we received very precise coordinates, but we encountered hiccups maintaing the Bluetooth connection with the cheapo Androids (the model name/number escapes me) we were using.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or experiences others might have would be most appreciated.

Best,
Robert


Robert Banick | GIS Coordinator | International Services | American Red Cross




On 6/9/12 6:24 PM, "Jaakko Helleranta.com" <jaakko at helleranta.com<mailto:jaakko at helleranta.com>> wrote:

Some quick thoughts.

This comparison / discussion is very much needed. Thanks, Sev, for initiating.

* gps a major problem. Seems to b the concl of others, larger ngos with tech teams, too
- I'm gonna b testing ext BT gps solutions in the near future
* qwerty is good. I yearn for it always.
* small screen is bad
- 7" display is lovely
- large size can cause security issues, devices being "lost", too
* amoled is _good_ (and other bright screens)
* dust/water proof is good
* battery is usually a problem
* I'm working with a Finnish mobile data survey platform provider (poimapper.com) and they are looking into creating a more directly osm-compatible version of their mobile app. The license is currently 250 or 500eur/mo (for upto 25 devices) for ngos/businesses, respectively, but if there's an interest within HOT to participate in helping create the osm-geared app/solution I'm quite sure that we could get one a free license for HOT.
.. I'm going to be testing the usability of Poimapper "as is" with some OSM presets in the (more or less) near future in any case. If someone's interested I can create a test account on individual basis. Let me know.

Cheers,
-Jaakko

Sent from my BlackBerry® device from Digicel
--
Mobile: +509-37-26 91 54, Skype/GoogleTalk: jhelleranta

-----Original Message-----
From: Séverin MENARD <severin.menard at gmail.com<mailto:severin.menard at gmail.com>>
Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2012 12:07:44
To: <hot at openstreetmap.org<mailto:hot at openstreetmap.org>>
Subject: [HOT] Feedbacks about smartphones use for OSM field surveys

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