UKC

Just written a blog post on my experience with this easy mod:

http://www.alexroddie.com/2013/11/how-to-turn-android-phone-into.html

Of course you could just buy a GPS, but I had a Nexus 4 kicking around and thought "why not?"

In reply to Only a hill:

Or you could just use a phone as a phone *and* a GPS device. This is one of the nice things about them!

Of course that's two safety devices gone if it gets wet.

Neil

In reply to Neil Williams:

True - which was one of the things that started me thinking about going back to a cheap pay as you go phone for emergency use.

Plus I started to miss the feeling of being off the grid while in the hills It isn't the same if you have easy access to 3G internet, somehow...

In reply to Only a hill:

Nice job, I think I might have a doing similar with my "spare" samsung europa, just as a little project.

Thanks for the blog

||-)

In reply to Only a hill:

Some nice ideas there - I like the black background and custom start page.

There's a bikg thread over at singletrackworld along similar lines, but with more stuff on bike mounts and where to get cheaper phones from:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/home-made-gps-with-mapping-and-trac...

In reply to Only a hill:

An interesting idea.

I've been thinking about making a diy vehcle tracker using an Android phone and "where's my droid".

In reply to TimB:




Thanks for the link, interesting stuff there.

In reply to Neil Williams:


... only if having the battery last a whole day isn't important to you.


Not if it's a Motorola Defy+, which is what I use as a mountain phone. Ancient version of Android, dog slow, but cheap and totally waterproof. Mine survived three days in my jacket pocket in the Bavarian Alps during the heaviest rain I have ever experienced in my life - the great Central European Deluge of spring 2013 - without missing a beat, so you can even save on the cost and weight of a protective case.

In reply to AlanLittle:

Nice one, I've often thought about the Defy+. Does it have any internal memory issues?

In reply to Only a hill:

Not that I've noticed for relatively light usage - bit of web surfing, MyTracks, GPS Essentials & Google Maps, Kindle and a couple of games to keep kids quiet in the car. I keep as much as possible on an SD card, and the phone's own storage seems to suffice for all the above.

In reply to AlanLittle:


Have to chime in on this one - had lost my Defy on Ben Vorlich this summer, it was found about 4 weeks later by a nice chap who returned it to me after he had dried it out and managed to start it up on mains power. Had to replace the battery but the phone was working just fine. Until then I didn't take the waterproof/-resistant claims very seriously, but nearly a month out in the open on a Scottish hill seems good enough.
Obviously the screen still becomes rather difficult to use in the wet though.

In reply to Only a hill:

Whilst stripping out unnecessary apps is sensible, I'd imagine that simply putting the device into flight mode ought to remove the two big drains, preventing WiFi and mobile data access (which, with sensibly written apps(!), ought to kill the activity of anything that needs data comms).

As for mapping apps, I'd suggest looking at OruxMaps or Locus. For the former, look for v5.5.3 for the last version able to use Bing OS mapping... Google com.orux.oruxmaps.v5.5.3.apk. Alternatively, use MOBAC to create map sets for Orux.

I think I might create a home page dedicated to mapping apps and widgets, a bit like your single home page. Black home page is the way forward... Pity it's not one of the default options in Android; why can I not use the colour picker to select a simple desktop? Fortunately, it's easy enough to create a single pixel black image to use...

In reply to Only a hill:


I never had any internal memory issues with my Defy+. I'm not sure why you think it have any? It's pretty vanilla Android once you disable the social media bloatware (as you should do in step 1). If you root it you can go further and delete the unwanted rubbish altogether using something like Titanium Backup (which does a lot more than just backups, and is one system utility app that is genuinely worth the money).

Another good thing about the Defy+ is that it has a replaceable battery, so you could take spare batteries rather than a portable power pack. I suppose the downside is that you have to power the phone off to swap the battery, and if the weather's foul you'd risk letting the wet in while you did the swap. Then again, the USB socket isn't water-resistant once you remove the rubber plug so there would be a vulnerability with the external power pack as well, and for longer.

I now use a Sony Xperia Acro S which is also water resistant. Doesn't have a replaceable battery, though.

I do think you should add a disclaimer to step 2 of your blog post along the lines of: "other launcher, GPS, mapping etc apps are available". For example, SickSky Launcher is much more compact and minimalist than Nova Launcher, which actually seems rather bloated (I've also not been overwhelmed by the author of Nova Launcher's other apps - they're OK but can be a bit clunky). I used to use SickSky's predecessor Zeam Launcher on my Defy+ and it was bulletproof. Also, some phones already have power toggles and an acceptably useful battery meter, so they wouldn't necessarily need the apps you picked for those functions anyway.

As captain paranoia says, simply putting the phone in flight mode should stop anything which needs a network connection from draining the battery. GPS still works in flight mode because it's passive (apart from the assisted GPS function, but that's not required for normal GPS to work and it isn't much use where signal is poor anyway).

Those comments apart, it's an cunning idea and well written up.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Does flight mode not disable the gps? (It should)

In reply to Cardi:

Why should it? GPS is based on receiving data only, not like WiFi and phone/data communications which also transmit.

In reply to Martin W:

Good points, thanks. I maybe should have added that many alternatives exist. I quite like Nova launcher but you're correct, its performance isn't the best on older devices.

The goal of the post was to show how you can customise an Android to turn it into a dedicated GPS and not a phone at all, if that's the way you want to roll, but I can appreciate that many people would prefer to leave phone functions in there as well. Been an interesting discussion both here and on Twitter as well!