Nokia Sports Tracker

m00nd0g

I understand this is still running but under a different name.
Is it free to use?
Compatible with HRM?
I like to analyse data when I get back home and rather reluctant to fork out for a Garmin.
Any suggestions?

dubmodder

http://www.sports-tracker.com/

m00nd0g

Thanks
But is it going to cost to be hooked up to GPS?
I dont think it works quite like the Iphone application, am I right?

dubmodder

Its free, all of it, accept the HR belt which is £60.

Anonymous

It's same as always, just that Nokia allowed what was a nice killer app they could have made money from, to go off with the developers to an independent company. Same name, just dropped 'Nokia' in the name, and meant the developers could knock up iPhone and Android versions too.

Only cost is the belt as mentioned, which is entirely optional.

iPhone version I believe doesn't have the belt as an option due to Apple restrictions, but otherwise does the GPS stuff much the same.

The "new" version on Nokia has some improvements but also a step back in that they dropped the GPS filtering which makes it quite inaccurate in places. Though the OSM map integration with offline caching is nice.

The Android version apparently has GPS filtering. Not sure about iPhone. They use Google Maps on phone though I think which might not be cached for offline use (no data connection).

The web site looks sexy and better than most the competitors, but it's heavily flash and sucks in performance.


And finally, GPS in mobiles is largely not very accurate. Just something to note. It'll get the rough route right. Altitudes are far more tricky as they need to offset off a known reference, which most tracking apps don't do. Consumer GPS itself is deliberately crippled and can vary by 10s to 100s of meters. I get similar results in many other apps. However good apps can apply filtering to smooth inaccuracies out. Dedicated devices tend to do this also, plus have bigger antenna built in compared to those in mobiles.

keith1200rs

"Selective Availability" was switched off for consumers years ago - consumer GPS is pretty accurate - far better than 100s metres, would say within 10m at worst unless you have poor satellite coverage. I use Endomondo an my Nokia and the route tracks pretty well even though the cell signal gets lost part of the route - the GPS still tracks and gets uploaded when the signal is regained.

Keith

Anonymous

Using the in built GPS diagnostic app on my Nokia I see the accuracy and altitude values vary wildly. It depends also on the environment. Where there's a lot of tree cover I find it varies a lot more,

They fluctuate between over 100m and usually down to 40m. Rarely more accurate. Endomondo won't tell you any of this and it smooths out the GPS spikes to give a neat looking graph, though I've noticed it can skip out things instead, e.g. tight twisty switchback and it just does a straight line. Sports Tracker will show the twisty stuff but the lack of filtering can pick up the GPS fluctuations and suddenly will zip off 100m somewhere and back, or climb 100m in a second and back.

That said, I use my old Bluetooth GPS gadget now and connect to that instead of the internal GPS. It doesn't have so much variation whilst tracking. Probably just better receiver being a dedicated device. Still way out on altitude though. Where I ride has a max height of 965ft, yet it tracks anywhere between 800 and 1100ft. Other than showing up and down, the altitude is something largely to ignore.

keith1200rs

The Nokia diagnostics on mine usually shows around 15m to 20m accuracy with no excess tree cover. Looking at tracks of my routes I can see +/-10m errors when riding with partial tree cover and more when there is heavy tree cover - up to 30m errors.

In car GPS tends to look better because they assume you are on a road so they pick the nearest road (sometimes the wrong one!).

Keith.