This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. Find out more about how to manage cookies, or dismiss this message and continue to use cookies.
Looking for inexpensive handheld unit that shows my location
JunkyardDog
0 Points
I have a Garmin Nuvi in my car to tell me how to find places, unfortunately it does not tell me where I am (actual latitude and longitude) I often drive and ride a motorcycle on out of the way roads, and if I should have a breakdown, I have no way of knowing where I am so my road service plan can find me. I have a regular cell phone, and do not plan on getting a smartphone. I don't need something fancy, just a way for me to know my exact location. Any ideas? Thanks.
Comments
Another approach is to press Where To > Coordinates. The default coordinates that are filled into the form will be your current location.
I also have an old Garmin eTrex. It is the yellow one. It has no number, I think it may be the first eTrex made. It does give actual coordinates, in tiny little numbers down at the bottom, but it is a greyscale display, and no matter how I adjust the contrast the numbers are to faint to be read accurately.
The coordinate format is affected by the preference you choose however. The menu may be different on your Nuvi, but typically you would press Settings > Units & Time > Position Format > Coordinate Format. What is shown on that screen? Mine is set to h ddd.ddddº
If yours is set to something else, then change it to whatever you prefer. The other commonly used options would be h dddº mm.mmm' or h dddº mm' ss.s"
All of this may seem a bit much, but I was out driving my car, and realized that if I had a mechanical problem, I had no way to know where I was, so my road service would be useless. I would be unable to tell them how to find me. I never realized until a couple of days ago that my GPS did not show my coordinates.
Unless you have a really ancient cellphone (like 10 years old), it will have an internal GPS, a law was passed many years ago requiring this so that 911 could see your location. So you don't need a smartphone for that - 911 will know where you are even if you don't. :)
Of course, none of this makes any difference if you're in a location with no cell service. If you're concerned about that, Garmin recently bought DeLorme and now sells GPS units that can send messages through satellites:http://forums.gpsreview.net/discussion/30747/garmin-announces-new-inreach-se-and-inreach-explorer
But hey, I was just trying to save you some money. If you just want to buy a basic GPS to show your position, a Garmin eTrex 10 should do that and should be cheap if you can find a refurb. OTOH, you could get any Android or iPhone and use it as a GPS withough purchasing any phone service or inserting a SIM card. There are many free apps that can display this and most new phones have decent GPS chips with GLONASS. You should certainly be able to find Android smartphones for as much if not less than an eTrex 10 and they would have the option to be used for other apps as well. You don't need any cell service to use a smartphone as a GPS.
I like the Oruxmaps app for Android, it's free and has an impressive feature set. Lots of options for free maps. It can take awhile to learn all the features though - http://www.oruxmaps.com/cs/en
Now if you only want to see coordinates you don't need an app with all those features. Have not really looked for that kind of app but there should be plenty available through Google Play. I have an Samsung Android tablet that I use sometimes, but use an iPhone for everyday stuff, so I'm not real current on the state of Android these days. The iPhone has a built-in app that will show coordinates, not sure about Android.
Check the fine print on the "free" phone though, there may be a requirement to purchase a service package to get it. And it could be "locked" in a way to prevent it from working without their service.
But there should be plenty of unlocked phones you can buy that are as cheap as a bottom of the line Garmin unit. A used one would be even cheaper. No personal experience with these, but have been reading they are popular for use as a GPS and people use them with no service agreement or SIM card. Looks very impressive, waterproof and shockproof, street price a little over $100. Have thought about getting one just to play around with. But I really have too many GPS devices already. :D
http://www.blackview.hk/blackview-78/