iPhone 6 Technical question (GPS)

The_Hornet

I have an iPhone 6 which I'm delighted with. I use it a lot for navigation while I'm out and about and the internal GPS works well. However I have a Garmin GLO external GPS that I use with my iPad and this is probably more accurate than the phone's internal GPS. Does anyone know a way of using this in preference to the internal GPS?

I know I can disable the internal one by turning Location Services off but this then prevents the navigation apps from working properly.

Frozen_up_north

I think we can all be fooled by the apparent accuracy of GPS, I have a Garmin with the enhanced accuracy of WAAS (a form of differential GPS). However, the readout is to 1 metre and the claimed accuracy is 3 metres with WAAS. The fly in the ointment is that from switch on to that level of accuracy is 15 ~ 20 minutes with a clear view to the south (it uses geostationary satellite broadcasts of the WAAS correction signal), even when used in the past hour.

Some other modern GPS units still have location averaging and the later Garmin hand held manuals suggest averaging over at least 90 minutes to obtain an accurate location.

My iPhone GPS often shows an initial accuracy worse than 2 or 3 KM, before settling down to around 10 metres.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about the accuracy of the built-in GPS on your iPhone. They are good enough for most purposes, if you want survey level accuracy then you need to be looking at Trimble and Leica products, not Apple.

wongataa

The iPhone's GPS will be plenty accurate enough for navigating with the phone. You have stated it works just fine as well. Don't bother with the Garmin GLO.

The_Hornet

Fair enough, I just wondered if it were possible. I also wondered if it might save battery power, I find that if I'm out for few hours geocaching with it the battery needs a boost with an external power pack (I have 2 free EE power bars so no real worries)

wongataa

The_Hornet wrote: »

Fair enough, I just wondered if it were possible. I also wondered if it might save battery power, I find that if I'm out for few hours geocaching with it the battery needs a boost with an external power pack (I have 2 free EE power bars so no real worries)

For geocaching I would probably use a handheld GPS device as they would be more weather proof & rugged and the batteries last up to a day (depending on model). Something like a Garmin Etrex would be ideal.

Frozen_up_north

wongataa wrote: »

For geocaching I would probably use a handheld GPS device as they would be more weather proof & rugged and the batteries last up to a day (depending on model). Something like a Garmin Etrex would be ideal.

I'll second that, I have an eTrex. Amazon list them as the number 1 for geocaching, although I don't use mine for that...