GPS & Battery life

[Guest markauk]

What's the best way to maximise battery life & lock the keys/screen with GPS running?

I'm using GPSGate to log GPS position, but can't figure out a way to turn the screen off and lock the keys other than the power button which turns off GPS.

I've tried a couple of screen lock utils (ScreenLock and Screen Switch) but they seem to cause GPS to turn off too.

Thanks,

mark.

[Guest Neil5459]

There are a few apps that have a 'Screen Off' setting mappable to a hardware button (iLauncher and PocketPlus among them) thouhg they may be overkill for what you want. There are also other more fully featured GPS tracking apps that allow the screen to blank.

Windows Media Player also has a programmable 'Screen Toggle' function, so it may be a workaround to open WMP while GPSGate is running, then manually blank the screen with the button you have programmed. The idea behind this is to allow the screen to go off, but keep the processor going, so you can continue to listen to music, so the GPS ought to stay active as well.

[Guest markauk]

Thank you Neil. I actually already have PocketPlus, but didn't think to look there!

Unfortunately it doesn't work... the screen turns off OK, but the 'toggle' doesn't turn it back on. Using the power button turns it on, but I am thinking that that must briefly cycle the power which causes GPS gate to drop the GPS. Maybe that was the issue with the other screen off apps too.

I'll get in touch with the PocketPlus folk - seems like a bug if screen toggle on turns the screen off!

[Guest Robbied]

I use NoniGPSPlot http://aeguerre.free.fr/Public/PocketPC/No...ot/download.php (french site but english download available)

I just tested it by acquiring a signal, pressing standby, leaving it for an hour and pressing standby again. The signal was still there.

And best of all it's FREE! :)

[Guest markauk]

After a fair bit of testing I think I have figured out what is going on.

(1) GPS does keep running when the phone screen is off or when the phone is in standby, however

(2) pressing the power button appears to reset something (maybe the com port?) so any app listening to GPS looses that connection and the GPS turns off (presumably because no app is listening any more). Most apps I tried immediately try to reconnect, but by turning off the GPS has lost signal and it takes (normally) a minute or so for it to turn back on and reaquire position.

Does this happen on all Trinity devices, or is this a 'feature' unique to the Orange SPVM700? An easy way to check is to install the free ChartCross GPSTest (http://www.chartcross.co.uk/products/WM00002_details.asp) and see what happens to the GPS signal when you bring the phone off standby. In my case, it shows signal very briefly, then looses it and takes a minute or so to reaquire.

Does anyone know if there's a way of turning GPS on/off independent of listening on the COM (or GPD) port?

Also, Robbied - thanks for the pointer to NonoGPSPlot. It's a great app! However, for me it doesn't keep plotting when the phone is on standby at all (even though GPS data is coming in). With just screen off it's fine, but not when the phone is in standby from the power button :-(

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Recent HTC devices keep the backlight on very dim when in the lowest power mode, which makes turning it really 'off' very difficult!

I want to add 'screen off' to CamerAware too, so am looking into it.

This is common to many devices, not just the M700...

P

[Guest markauk]

Interesting. You are right (of course!) I can't turn the backlight off but leave the screen on! Turning the backlight totally off would be helpful, but would need to be combined with some kind of key lock functionality to be really useful. Best option, though, (IMHO) would just be to have some way of avoiding the GPS resetting when power came on and/or some way of turning GPS on/off independent of listening on com ports.

[Guest Snooginsguy]

Interesting. You are right (of course!) I can't turn the backlight off but leave the screen on! Turning the backlight totally off would be helpful, but would need to be combined with some kind of key lock functionality to be really useful. Best option, though, (IMHO) would just be to have some way of avoiding the GPS resetting when power came on and/or some way of turning GPS on/off independent of listening on com ports.

Has anyone figured out a good fix for this? I have a Kaiser that is experiencing the same problems, wherein if I hit the power button to put the phone in standby the GPS stops. I guess I could use the external BT GPS receiver I have, but was hoping to not have to do that...

Thanks!