External GPS [Added: 4 GPS devices now compatible]

[Siempo2000]

While i am happy to see you guys are working with the Holux Device i must admit this would not be my device of choice.
a. Its battery operated (AA & recharable batteries are discouraged!)
b. reviews are showing slow gps fix & irratic behaviour

I used to have the Qstarz BT-Q818XT and i was very happy with it.
They have a new BLE GPS device BL-1000GT and i am wondering if you are looking at this device too.
http://racing.qstarz.com/Products/BL-1000GT.html

[Huha]

Hello to everybody...

I was a very happy user of a Nikon D700 + Unleashed D200+ ’09 + Holux RCV-3000 combo. For me, both geotagging pictures and recording GPS tracks add an extra level of experience to any outdoor activity. Since I am about to sell the D700, I started looking for a GPS solution for the D750. Foolography was my first option, of course.

After going through the website, I had started to test the GPS on my Huawei P20 Lite. Any I was not impressed, to say the least. I would very easily loose track, even worn on the top of my backpack's shoulder harness, and with no leaves on the trees in the forrest. This did not happen with the RCV-3000. Apart from not tracking satellites the same as a dedicated GPS tracker, it also does have an impact on the phone's battery - which I prefer to keep off, to be turned on in a case of emergency only.

I was very happy to see that there are more people wanting a GPS device, rather than using a cell phone, and even more happy to see that Foolography is trying to work out a solution.

Please, make it work with an external GPS, and kindly keep us updated on the progress.

Regards,
Huha

[reginalb]

Since I'm on this thread - some good news too:

We've made good progress with the Holux M-241 Plus. We've reverse engineered the protocol - at least for the most part, and have gotten it to play nice with the rest of the Unleashed.
We're still testing how well it works, and are still optimizing how to pair it, making sure the Unleashed reconnects (and disconnects) when it makes most sense, etc. We've added new GPS modes for using only the external GPS device, or keeping the smartphone as a fallback option too.

I was in the US for a week in January, so I was able to confirm correct decoding of Western longitudes, as well as longitudes near 0º, which was very helpful.
The only thing I'm not yet 100% confident in is the decoding of Month and year, but that's not quite so easy to do without a timemachine ;-) I have tried to reach out to Holux for some more details, but have not had any success.

The data from the Holux unfortunately is also missing some info, such as the number of satellites used to calculate the position, and it adds the geoid to the altitude into a single value. That might actually be the more interesting value, but with other Bluetooth GPS receivers, Nikon only stored altitude and ignored geoid, so the info stored is now different. To be honest, we also don't get the number of satellites from the phones, nor do I know for sure how the phones calculate their altitude.

Oliver

I'm trying to be nice here, but it's again been a month with no reply. You have definitely made a real detractor out of me.

[Siempo2000]

Hi reglnalb,
Please be patient with the Foolography Team, i know it is frustrating to wait a long time for a reply.
But you have to remember its a very small team and they are trying to make the product as good as we want it to be, plus deliver it to all of us.

Sure it looks simple to just reply to our posts but remind you we also expect from the team to keep their "promise" so in case they say "yes that is a great idea lets implement that" we as end user often feel we will have it at the next release.
The unleashed is not 100% ready yet and allready see a lot of improvements since the initial release.

Siem

[toorude]

I give up. I think have been very patient, for years, it seems. Has anyone a spare Unleashed 09 for me? I want accurate GPS data embedded with my pics, and without implementation from an external GPS this is not sufficient for me.
I have an Unleashed N2 for sale. I don't need a smartphone based remote control for my camera, I need precise GPS data along with my pics, and the Unleashed is not capable to implement this. Anyone interested in long exposure remote etc please feel free to contact me.

[Oliver]

Hi toorude.

We added support for the Holux M-241 Plus in May. It's easily paired from the app, and once paired, you have 2 new GPS modes: External GPS only and External GPS with Smartphone fallback. However, it's still not advertised, as we are still not 100% sure if we got decoding the date correct. This is very difficult to reverse engineer, as we only have a very small set of data, all from a single year.



We were already able to fix one incorrect assumption, and the new data we got supports our alternative implementation perfectly - we'll have to wait until September 1st to have it completely confirmed.

https://www.foolography.com/products/un ... /firmware/


If you don't mind purchasing a Holux M-241 Plus to test with, we'd be very happy to get feedback. My current work and family situation do not allow me to travel as much as I used to to test GPS devices as extensively as I used to with the Unleashed '09. Whenever I did have the chance to test, it worked very well, aside from the date issue that we had to fix. I'm personally not a huge fan of the single AA battery, I much prefer Lithium Ion batteries, rechargeable via USB. But then again this was the main selling point of the M-241 which was always very popular...

[allanimal]

Hi toorude.

We added support for the Holux M-241 Plus in May. It's easily paired from the app, and once paired, you have 2 new GPS modes: External GPS only and External GPS with Smartphone fallback. However, it's still not advertised, as we are still not 100% sure if we got decoding the date correct. This is very difficult to reverse engineer, as we only have a very small set of data, all from a single year.



We were already able to fix one incorrect assumption, and the new data we got supports our alternative implementation perfectly - we'll have to wait until September 1st to have it completely confirmed.

https://www.foolography.com/products/un ... /firmware/


If you don't mind purchasing a Holux M-241 Plus to test with, we'd be very happy to get feedback. My current work and family situation do not allow me to travel as much as I used to to test GPS devices as extensively as I used to with the Unleashed '09. Whenever I did have the chance to test, it worked very well, aside from the date issue that we had to fix. I'm personally not a huge fan of the single AA battery, I much prefer Lithium Ion batteries, rechargeable via USB. But then again this was the main selling point of the M-241 which was always very popular...

I have similar wishes / needs as toorude. I'm glad that there is progress with external GPS units like the Holux M-241 Plus. But what I really like is the Bad Elf unit paired with the unleashed 09, and how the buttons on the bad elf unit can control focus and shutter activation on the camera. I find the smartphone is way too finicky for this - for example, with the bad elf and the old unleashed, I can be watching what I am trying to shoot, and hit the shutter so easily just by feel. With the new unleashed and my phone, there is no feedback, I have to look at the phone to find the trigger. And if the phone has shut off the display or I have switched to another app, getting back to the unleashed app and finding the trigger means I probably missed the shot. If I move my hand back to the bad elf, the fingers find the three buttons so quick I probably still got it. So, I hope you can continue to make progress with external GPS, and maybe get a partner like Bad Elf again to do a feature like you had with the old unleashed.

[Oliver]

Hi Allan,

you're very welcome to write to Bad Elf too about this - believe me, I've written many times. They would need to release a GPS device with Bluetooth Low Energy (or dual mode: Classic+Low Energy), but currently don't have any plans to do so.

They would be our first choice for sure - we loved working with them when we made the GPS Pro and Pro+ compatible with the Unleashed '09.

However, If you're looking for a hardware trigger, you're also in luck - we have just that planned. It would be paired directly with the Unleashed - just like the Holux. Stay tuned for that. ;-)

[Siempo2000]

Hi Oliver,

So i decided to try out the Holux M-241 Plus and here are my findings:

The tracker is bigger than expected but feels really sturdy.
After reading the really short quick start i tried pairing it with my unleashed.
So i am able to pair it after several attempts and reboots of both the Unleashed & Holux but i am unable to get it actually connected. It remains disconnected no matter what.

So i try pairing the 241 with my iPhone and here i am getting pairing timeouts all the time.
version of the Holux is V1.03 BV1.00
On a sidenote i am also unable to see the Menu entry for Language and Bluetooth settings (Only Dist By & Point/Route option are there).

Am i missing something here or am i lucky to gotten a DOA?

Siem

[Oliver]

Hi Siem,

After pairing, the Unleashed will register that an external GPS was paired, but will disconnect from the Holux again right after that. You still have to go back to photo mode, then to GPS Mode, and choose one of the two new Modes (External GPS only, or External GPS with fallback to the smartphone). Only when one of these is selected, and the camera is in active use, will the Unleashed reconnect with the Holux.

Make sure you unpair the Holux from your phones system settings if you paired it there, otherwise the Unleashed won't be able to connect.