I have used several GPSs over the years and this one takes the cake. It went on a trip to Ireland the Scotland with me and performed so well I am thinking of new ways to push it to see where it might fail.First it locked on just about anywhere, inside airports while in my luggage, inside the overhead bin on the plane while inside my luggage, inside cars while in my pants pocket, in buildings, in hotels, in pubs large and small. It locked on everywhere, and when it did not it just kept me in the same location until it did find a lock, meaning it did not show me bouncing all over the place when I was really just sitting still.
Secondly the software is OK, I did use it for downloading the data, setting up the GPS, exporting to GPX and Google Earth, and some preliminary review of the days events, but really that was it. So I cannot talk to how it does anything else, nor do I much care. It does what I needed it to do very well with no problems or complaints. I ran it on XP SP3 on 2 machines and it had no issues of any kind.
Thirdly it lasts FOREVER. I left it run almost 2 days, nearly 42 hours, before it died. 42 hours. That is amazing. Plus since it charges via USB I can charge it ANYWHERE. I can charge from my laptop, desktop, car charger, wall charger, even from those little engergizer 2xAA battery thingies. I even made a charger from a USB cable and a 4xAA battery holder. So I can charge this from rechargeable batteries as needed without connecting to my laptop.
Forthly it stores a lot of info. I have easily almost 2 weeks of time, in 1 minute increments about 10-16 hours a day, stored on here. You cannot erase from it , it just overwrites the old stuff, so I can see all the way back to when I first got it still, plus the 9 day Ireland/Scotland trip, plus all the flights to and from, plus misc playing around with it. It is all still on there. Amazing.
The one thing you really really really do have to do though if you plan to geotag photos, and I know you already know this but just listen anyways, is to sync the camera clock to GPS time (in your home timezone if possible). My camera time drifts, I had synced it before maybe 6 months ago when using the Garmin GPS around home, but I was 5 minutes off, which would be fine except that my shots of a given church were blocks away, my shots of the Cliffs of Moher are geotagged from the parking lot, etc until I corrected for the drift. There is no way to tell what time this GPS thinks it is, but since all GPS receivers use the same time it is a simple matter of syncing to any GPS or just to a reputable Stratum 1 or 2 time source online.
The good:
1. The GPS chipset is very sensitive. It even tracked my flight when placed in a pocket in my backpack that was in the overhead bin on the plane.
2. The battery life is advertised to be 40 hours. I tested it up to 20 hours and it still worked when two other units died due to exhausted batteries.
3. Moreover, the battery can be user-replaced as it is a standard Nokia cell phone battery.
4. There is a switch that you slide to switch the unit on and not a push button. No problem with accidental disconnections.
The bad:
1. Qstarz Travel Recorder software hangs a lot on my Vista 32-bit laptop computer.
2. QStarz Travel Recorder software is not very well designed as opposed to @Trip PC, a wonderful and mature product by a competitor that makes the IGotU units. Please note that it is very easy to export the tracks from Travel Recorder to the *.gpx format and import them to @Trip PC.
If someone found a better GPS Data Logger than the QStarz BT-1000x, please post in this thread.Using Qstarz GPS tracker on a Mac:
All in all, I would not recommend buying a Qstarz to a Mac user until they come out with some functional Mac software it is way too complicated (and seems risky to me for the security of your system). It seems like a good GPS tracker and the Windows software might be good if it works, but for a Mac user, I don't think it's worth the hassle. It's taken me 2 full days of messing around with the system of my computer to be able to download the data, and I'm still missing out on a lot of the functionality. By the way, the windows program comes on a tiny CD about 3 inches wide and probably does not load into most computers. Also the "reference guide" included with the box is poorly translated and almost worthless. The actual GPS measurements seem to be rather consistently about 30 meters East of where they actually were taken, but other than that seem accurate. I wrote down what I can remember of getting this thing to work on a Mac for any one else who really wants to try. The open source BT747 program is what makes it all possible, and is a very useful and powerful program, in spite of the difficulty of actually installing it.
To Make Qstarz BT-Q1000X work on a Mac:
I strongly recommend reviewing the following web pages which probably explain most of the steps better than I do (but as I found out, also seem to leave some steps a little confusing, not that I can do it better):
bt747.free.fr/content/?q=book/export/html/4
stngiam.wordpress.com/2008/12/25/using-a-qstarz-bt-q1000p-gps-travel-recorder-with-a-mac
1. (this step may not be required and is probably better not preformed unless Bluetooth does not work): download and install a USB driver: Mac_OSX_VCP_Driver (from: bt747.free.fr/content/?q=book/export/html/4 and follow the link to silabs.com VCP drivers); will require a restart. Note that this program will prevent you from ever using Fusion or Paralells on your Mac and should be removed if you need to use these. I think with Bluetooth, you will not need this USB driver and it is best to avoid this step.
2. Start up the Qstarz and set to NAV mode. Pair the Qstarz with Bluetooth in system preferences, using the advanced box and following the prompts. The Qstarz will only be momentarily connected, and then will disconnect after noting there are no services available. That's ok.
3. Start up your computer in admin user (assuming you have separate admin and user accounts if not then just use your normal acct);
open terminal and type in:
sudo mkdir /var/lock
it will then ask for your password; enter your admin password and "enter" (you will not see that the password is going in as the cursor will not move; I think that it just moves to the next line if the password was entered alright); then type in the following command and "enter" to make the locked shell globally writeable:
sudo chmod 777 /var/lock
(I have no idea what this does for the security of your system; as always, type those commands exactly without extra spaces). I think you can close the terminal then.
4. Down load and install the following program: "Install Desktop version of BT747" from "bt747.free.fr/content" and go to the "Download & Install Desktop" (above the "documentation" link which is also very useful) in the left upper hand sidebar, and from there click on the "Install the desktop version of BT747".
Note that the "download and install" appear to occur together and may hang several times, just click on the install program again until it completes. Agree to allow the program files (all of them) access to your computer once again I have no idea how serious of a threat to the security of your system this is. After all this the BT747 program should be open on your desktop.
5. Set your Qstarz GPS to "NAV", (make sure it has already been paired with Bluetooth in "system preferences"; at the bottom of the opening page (first tab "Log Operations"), at the bottom next to connect, move the option to "Bluetooth (for Mac)", and click on "connect". With any luck you should see information showing up in the upper right hand corner "GPS Device Data". That's good!
6. Now you can close the BT747. For some reason you will not be able to start it up again from it's icon in Applications, but will have to run the "BT747_J2SE_Install-jnlp" script again every time in order to start it up again it's much faster than the initial installation and does not download new files. The copy I use came from "sourceforge.net/projects/bt747/files/bt747/Latest/BT747" (I had version 1.68.25) download the full zip file, unzip it, open the folder and look for "BT747_J2SEInstall-jnlp". Copy this to wherever you want to keep it and can find it again (maybe in "Applications"). I have no idea why the "BT747 Desktop Latest" icon won't just start up like any other program.
7. At this point I would restart the computer, back into my normal user account; and restart the BT747 program via the "BT747_J2SEInstall-jnlp" script again. Make sure that you can connect to the Qstarz.
You will need to assign Places for the "Raw log file" and "Output Directory" in the upper left corners (I made separate folders in my home/Documents). I also made a separate folder for the "BT747_J2SEInstall-jnlp" script, and made an alias for it in either "Applications" or a place where I start up programs.
Now you can adjust the settings of the Qstarz itself, (it has many adjustable parameters which seem rather complicated to me, and is explained in the "bt747.free.fr/content/?q=book/export/html/4" on the documentation page well worth downloading!).
You can download the data also in BT747, but it only comes in as a .bin file. Sometimes it can be converted, but I can never manage to export that new file to anything useful in other programs. However, if it is successful at converting the data, you can see where you've been on a map, and the speed between points.
Each time you quit the BT747, you will need to start it up again via the "BT747_J2SE_Install-jnlp" script.
I use "HoudahGPS" for downloading the Qstarz logs in NMEA or GPX files (which is what I need to use for the Maperture program and I think most other geotagging programs); , without actually geotagging the photos there (which you could also do if needed, although the free version has a limit of 5 photos a time); however you cannot control the parameters of the Qstarz itself via HoudahGPS.
Be careful not to use both the BT747 and the HoudahGPS at the same time, or it is very difficult to reconnect with the Qstarz again in the future (try shutting down your computer, repairing the Bluetooth and Qstarz if you do by accident). I think you actually have to shut the Qstarz off after using either the HoudahGPS or the BT747 before you can use the other program.
I hope that all of this can be useful to you, sorry in advance about any points I've forgotten or if it doesn't work for you.The Software is good, Installs and Loads OK, nice features including showing path taken on Google maps (nicely integrated with internet on-line maps and satelite pictures), and speed during the trip (Can click on speed vs distance graph, and it shows where on the map speed limit was violated). However if I leave the software running on my PC for an hour, Windows says it is taking too many resources, and it hangs/freezes.
Program allows pictures to be tagged with location and elevation, with an adjustment if needed for Camera and GPS times being offset.
The accuracy is good, It generally shows the exact parking space I was in, and which lane I'm driving on a wide street. However, If it sits in one spot for a few hours, it has occasional drift in calculated position, and looks like it is moving around the size of a soccer field, with an occational spot several blocks away, even with a view of the clear sky and good signal lock.
The device has a nice feature to save data space, with option to only record points if they exceed a certain distance or speed from earlier points. Data point entries can be also programed for variable time between points. Battery life is over 24 hours. Minor incovenience is the upload of the data log is slow, takes several minutes.
Blue Tooth allows this to work real time with my palm pilot and PC map programs when I'm driving. In addition to logging the route for later playback. The size is small and easy to fit in a pocket. Comes with USB cable, AC wall charger and 12V DC car charger. Printed documentation is OK but tiny font and black & White pictures, Better to read the documentation on the Disk (easier to read on the computer and is in color).
All in all, I'm glad I purchased this device. If they have software upgrades in the future to address consistant accuracy and S/W hanging, it would be 5 stars.My goal was to get a GPS data logger for geotagging my photos when taking 1-2 week long trips. After comparing GPS data loggers for weeks, I finally settled on the Qstarz BT-Q1000x for several reasons:
-Highest accuracy with the MTKII chip
-Long battery life (rated for over 40 hrs, depending on which mode you run it).
-Replaceable battery (Uses standard Nokia cell phone battery readily available for less than $5 online)
-Locks on to satellites quickly (my old Garmin eTrex would take several minutes when sitting under the open sky. This unit locks within a few seconds *indoors*)
FORM & FUNCTION:
Less than 2.5" on the long side, this unit is smaller than my Sony Ericsson cellphone. A rubber back allows it to sit conveniently on my dash but it operates just as well in my car's cup holder or in the recesses of my camera bag.
It operates in two tracking modes: logging and bluetooth+logging.
* The logging feature simply records location+elevation at specified intervals. This can be changed by software on the PC to record at time intervals or distance intervals or time and distance intervals ("every 15 seconds or 30 meters"). The unit can *track* 5 times per second (Hz), but will not *LOG* 5Hz. So if you're wanting a unit that will record your skydive or rollercoaster ride, this is not your unit.
* Bluetooth+logging allows your bluetooth PC (or PDA) to connect to the unit and use it as the GPS for your mapping/navigation software. I bought a $3 bluetooth USB dongle and had no problem getting the Q1000x to connect to my Microsoft Streets & Trips via bluetooth and show me exactly where my desktop PC was located (as if I didn't know already :)
* Pressing the Waymark button will record a waymark in the log.
* You can tether the unit to your PC or PDA with a USB cable. Bluetooth is an option, not a requirement.
OPERATION:
Turning the unit on and tossing it into the glovebox lets me track the car's location as I drive around. Doing the glovebox test was important to me as I want a unit that can track where my tour bus might take me when touring foreign countries. The unit would occasionally take a minute or so to get its first fix, but so far, I've not noticed any serious issues with losing fix.
SOFTWARE:
There's lots to mention here, but the main thing that I liked is that I point the software to a directory of photos, and it searches that directory and all directories under it to find photos with the appropriate time stamp in the EXIF. It then plots out my trip on a scaleable map (Google Maps, Google Earth, etc), with the photos in place. It even gives me a "play" button that plays a cursor along the trip line. It also allows me to export the trip, with photos, in a set of HTML files so I can upload the whole trip to my website.
For details, download the manual off the website because there is a lot of info for this plain-looking unit. It goes well beyond my expectations and is well worth the $105 I spent for it.
I understand the iBlue 747+ is an identical unit, but doesn't include the software. For me, the software is well worth the extra $20.
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