Live data from Hacker News

Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

spectrum.ieee.org

121–130 of 191 posts

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#121

How does this compare with iPhone 8/X, which supports the Galileo system, as well as GPS and GLONASS?

The vast majority of phones out there support GPS and GLONASS (as well as ESA's Galileo), and have for years. That's not new to the iPhone 8 (surely the iPhone has has this before as well, right?)

Using the other constellations helps you see more sats, but it doesn't really help deal with the reflection issue in urban environments. The "big deal" about this chip is that is uses the new L5 signal (and it's equivalent in other constellations). Previously that has only been available in very expensive hardware.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#122

As an avid hiker and runner I'm more excited to see what this will do for things like Garmin smart watches. I run through downtown Boston a few times a week and the accuracy is very bad at times making you look like you run much farther than you do.

> accuracy is very bad at times What makes anyone confident in the accuracy of wearable tracking devices? I haven't seen it verified and I wouldn't assume it: Accuracy is expensive, generally speaking, and few consumers will pay for it or even question it - how often have you heard someone mention it? Or, for example, have you wondered how accurate your simple bathroom scale is? I looked into it a little, wanting to…

The > at the end of your sporttechie link is making it 404, but here's the important part:

“What the plaintiffs’ attorneys call a “study” is biased, baseless, and nothing more than an attempt to extract a payout from Fitbit. It lacks scientific rigor and is the product of flawed methodology. It was paid for by plaintiffs’ lawyers who are suing Fitbit, and was conducted with a consumer-grade electrocardiogram – not a true clinical device, as implied by the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Furthermore, there is no evidence the device used in the purported “study” was tested for accuracy.”

Fitbit’s research team rigorously researched and developed the technology for three years prior to introducing it to market and continues to conduct extensive internal studies to test the features of our products. Fitbit Charge HR is the #1 selling fitness tracker on the market, and is embraced by millions of consumers around the globe.

Consumer Reports independently tested the heart rate accuracy of the Charge HR and Surge after the initial lawsuit was filed in January and gave both products an “excellent” rating. We stand behind our heart-rate monitoring technology and all our products, and continue to believe the plaintiffs’ allegations do not have any merit. We are vigorously defending against these claims, and will resist any attempts by the plaintiffs’ lawyers to leverage a settlement with misleading tactics and false claims of scientific evidence.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#123
post #2

Siri navigation? After you have already looked up the route in Google Maps? What strange world does this writer live in?

Yeah, the intro to the article made it pretty clear that this writer doesn't know the first thing about mobile technology. I think, in his mind, "Siri" is the name for mobile text to speech.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#124

> In a city, the satellite’s signals reach the receiver both directly and by bouncing off of one or more buildings. The direct signal and any reflections arrive at slightly different times and if they overlap, they add up to form a sort of signal blob. The receiver is looking for the peak of that blob to fix the time of arrival. > However, L5 signals are so brief that the reflections are unlikely to overlap with the…

The direct path signal is sometimes attenuated by obstructions so the multipath peak is strongest and captures the correlator for that sample.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#125
This seems like a great step. I had no idea the accuracy was only 5 meters right now. My phone feels like it is more accurate than (like 2 meters) that but I suppose that is because software does a good job at guessing where you actually are?

It's awesome that it is half the power of current chips too. Because I think smart phone users care more about battery life than accuracy.

Edit: Changed my messages because I reread the article and caught something I missed the first time. I missed the power usage statement the first time.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#126

As an avid hiker and runner I'm more excited to see what this will do for things like Garmin smart watches. I run through downtown Boston a few times a week and the accuracy is very bad at times making you look like you run much farther than you do.

Do you run the same path frequently? When I do, I keep the path the same, as I pre-calculate the distance, and can keep a watch to track my time. Thus I have no need for path tracking. A GPS unit is useful for assisting dynamically changing routes (e.g. driving) or to track unknown paths (e.g. plotting your hike in snow/darkness). May I ask what you'd need a fine-accuracy GPS unit for during a run?

The only deficiency I find is accuracy when you are trying to workout at a specific pace on track.

On a longer run they are probably accurate to within 1% which makes practically no difference but you often find on a track that the inaccuracy multiplies on each lap so if you are doing say 1 mile repeats (4 laps) then by the end of the mile you can be 20 metres out.

It's not a biggie because visually you can see if your watch says 0.23, 0.46 etc as you go past the 402m mark you know that you need to up your pace because it's short but having a more precise distance and therefore pace would save a few brain cells when you're trying to concentrate on hitting your paces.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#127
Does anyone know if we will be able to access the OS-NMA messages and manually verify them, or if the chip just discards any forged messages?

The reason why I ask: If we can get highly accurate and signed timing data it will have a huge impact on distributed systems. If the signature is accessible from the API it could be included in a DB transaction that every node could verify.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#128
post #86
post #4

>will give the next generation of smartphones 30-centimeter accuracy instead of today’s 5-meters Didn't the US scramble the civilian signals specifically so it wouldn't be too accurate? And they're just okay with civilians having access to ultra accurate GPS receivers?

Why would consumers want this type of accuracy ?

Better Pokemon Go.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#129
post #55
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The military has better precision, only because they buy better hardware. That's not true. Military receivers can use the Y Code which is encrypted for military use only. There are some really fancy civilian receivers out there that can leverage Y code to a limited extent without knowing the encryption key but full accuracy is only possible on a military receiver that can decrypt and use the Y code.

is there any reason to be even more accurate than a 5 meter radius? I mean, if you are targeting a person in a building, i can't see why it has to be more accurate than that. Navigation of a drone that is less than 5 meters in size may require higher accuracy, i suppose...

Wow really? You would post that on a technology board?

Yesterday I read an idea from a guy who wanted to create a mariokart-style "ghost" via AR to pace you while you are on a run. That's one example.

Re: Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

#130

As an avid hiker and runner I'm more excited to see what this will do for things like Garmin smart watches. I run through downtown Boston a few times a week and the accuracy is very bad at times making you look like you run much farther than you do.

I've run into a severe issue with Fitbit's app on the iPhone 7.

On my older iPhone, the mile counts were reasonably accurate. On the 7, there's a spurious ~2 miles per hour added at all times.

My guess is that the 7's chip updates position much more frequently, so that small inaccuracies (a couple dozen feet west, then a couple dozen feet east on the next update) make it look like I'm sprinting all over the place in random directions at high speed. No idea why Fitbit doesn't smooth it out a little...

Did a six hour, 4.6 mile hike in the Adirondacks and it tracked me at 18 miles (edit: 13, sorry).

Post reply on HN