Xiaomi released a phone with dual frequency GNSS in 2018 (with the Broadcom BCM4775 chipset), and as far as I know most Android phones have had it since then, or maybe a bit later. If you want to see if your phone supports it, try GPSTest.
Garmin has recently released several watches with it as well, both their high end models and some more affordable ones. They also have an auto mode that switches it on or off depending on if the current environment needs it, to save power when you can have the same accuracy without it.
Personally, I find the accuracy and sensitivity of modern GNSS devices amazing. I remember when you had to wait maybe 10 minutes to acquire a fix, the accuracy was poor and maybe within 10 meters, and if you covered the receiver with clothing you would lose satellite fix. Now my phone gets a good position in a few seconds, I can see which side of the road I ran on, and even with my phone in my pocket I can often get a reasonably accurate track indoors.
The speedup you are noticing is probably mostly due to assisted gps, where your phone gets a location using - partial gps information + wifi location + cell tower location all triangulated. Your eg early 2010 car gps unit didn't have any of the addition ways to speed up the location fix
Apple has supported GNSS since the iPhone 8/X generation in 2017. This is about L5 GPS which I'm not sure how well this is supported in general ATM as its pretty new
Does the Android OS and apps like Google maps actually use multiple frequencies to get a position fix? I have friends with Samsung phones supporting dual frequency gps yet the GPS accuracy doesn't seem any better than single frequency devices.
Though the table could use an update, I've tried to add new devices I got my hands on because (conversely) I'd like to know the accuracy of a device before buying it with mapping in mind.
What I found interesting is that
> As of 2021, some recent smartphones claim to support Galileo but in fact do not work with it. This includes the Fairphone 3 and 3+; Motorola Moto G Power and Moto G30. On the other hand, the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite does not claim Galileo support (including on the manufacturer's own page), yet it works. The Samsung S10e is also confirmed to work.
The spec sheet doesn't always match reality unfortunately (or, for Xiaomi, fortunately!).
Considered that I follow hardware development fairly closely, I didn't even know this was not a thing on iPhone. And now Apple is making a big deal about it.
Could anyone shares any thoughts as to why Apple only include it now? And not earlier?
Does anyone here have any insights or opinions on L5 only navigation? oneNav seems to think it's better than L1+L5, citing lower complexity and power usage, but with maintained accuracy. Sounds too good to be true, will devices skip the L1 band eventually?
Honest concern: how do we know that Apple isn't going to secretly share this data anyone who asks for it politely? I know they've been very good at maintaining privacy-first appearance, but where is too much good stuff a bad combo?
Seriously though, I love iPhones as the next guy, and find them very convenient, but are we trading convenience for carrying an unbound GPS tracker in every pocket, and if so, how do we change course? Is it even possible these days to unsubscribe from Apple/Google without feeling like one's living back in the stone age?
I for one absolutely recall "classic" GNSS based purely on GPS. The combination of only having GPS, early slow hardware with only cold starts, young software implementations, made for quite a ropey experience.
I think my first proper experience was a PCMCIA GPS card in an HP IPaq running TomTom 2, or possibly some Garmin version. Revolutionary at the time, and brilliant on long journeys, but compared to today it was awful.
It shows that using more than just GPS substantially improved accuracy in challenging environments. Dual frequency GPS should show strong improvements too.
> Support for Galileo and Glonass was touted maybe a decade ago
I bought a new phone in 2021 and it newly touted Galileo support but when actually opening up GPSTest, there were no satellites. On the forums, it turns out nobody could receive any Galileo. This isn't something that has been around for very long as of today, and when it's advertised, it might not even work.
Also, "As of 2012, [Galileo] was scheduled to have 15 satellites operational in 2015 and reach full operation in 2020" (Wikipedia). The first satellite had been launched only a year prior, 2011. This really wasn't a thing yet, a decade ago.
GLONASS is something my previous phone (Huawei, Feb 2017, €240) could reliably receive along with BeiDou, so that has been around a bit longer.
The difference between my GPS-only 2012 phone and the Huawei was night and day. Multiple minutes to find a fix versus mere seconds, both under reasonable conditions next to a window (both lying on the windowsill, started searching for a fix at the same time). Whether that's due to GLONASS and BeiDou or if the GPS chip itself also made a leap, I don't know, but yes this has gotten a lot better and it's definitely noticeable as a regular user, if you use GNSS specifically.
Probably you haven't noticed because phones, by default at least, upload WiFi identifiers around them to Google/Apple which then return a location, so in both cases you get a fairly good position within whatever your ping time to goopple is, and goopple gets a nice map of users' locations in return. (Or to Mozilla, if you modified your phone to use MLS instead. I tried it once, was nice, but a hassle to set up so my current phone doesn't have it anymore.)
Its an interesting choice, yes, l5 works better inside (supposedly) but its not good enough for AR. For that you need visual positioning/SLAM (just with pre-calculated maps, so not simultaneous, or mapping)
Only dual frequency? Triple frequency for L-band corrections is all the rage these days. If you have that you can get close to RTK accuracy anywhere (with good sky view).
Such as? I'd be interested but don't know I would find any. Dual-frequency is already hard to come by and only mentioned somewhere far down their spec sheets.
I'm glad that this will massively increase safety of the general public. No more cut out signals confusing police responders. What are you afraid of? It can only be used by authorized apps.
[+] [-] sorenjan|3 years ago|reply
Garmin has recently released several watches with it as well, both their high end models and some more affordable ones. They also have an auto mode that switches it on or off depending on if the current environment needs it, to save power when you can have the same accuracy without it.
Personally, I find the accuracy and sensitivity of modern GNSS devices amazing. I remember when you had to wait maybe 10 minutes to acquire a fix, the accuracy was poor and maybe within 10 meters, and if you covered the receiver with clothing you would lose satellite fix. Now my phone gets a good position in a few seconds, I can see which side of the road I ran on, and even with my phone in my pocket I can often get a reasonably accurate track indoors.
https://www.androidauthority.com/dual-frequency-gps-878169/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.gp...
[+] [-] Nappes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pilif|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akelly|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alephxyz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rnk|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] NelsonMinar|3 years ago|reply
It says that GPS has added a new band (L5) that works better indoors. Combining it with traditional L1 gives better results. L5 is not fully deployed.
[+] [-] shaky-carrousel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lcedp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cesarb|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|3 years ago|reply
Though the table could use an update, I've tried to add new devices I got my hands on because (conversely) I'd like to know the accuracy of a device before buying it with mapping in mind.
What I found interesting is that
> As of 2021, some recent smartphones claim to support Galileo but in fact do not work with it. This includes the Fairphone 3 and 3+; Motorola Moto G Power and Moto G30. On the other hand, the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite does not claim Galileo support (including on the manufacturer's own page), yet it works. The Samsung S10e is also confirmed to work.
The spec sheet doesn't always match reality unfortunately (or, for Xiaomi, fortunately!).
[+] [-] causality0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksec|3 years ago|reply
Could anyone shares any thoughts as to why Apple only include it now? And not earlier?
[+] [-] TedShiller|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sorenjan|3 years ago|reply
https://onenav.ai/solution/
[+] [-] Forge36|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kirillzubovsky|3 years ago|reply
Seriously though, I love iPhones as the next guy, and find them very convenient, but are we trading convenience for carrying an unbound GPS tracker in every pocket, and if so, how do we change course? Is it even possible these days to unsubscribe from Apple/Google without feeling like one's living back in the stone age?
[+] [-] tosh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lgats|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josteink|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ricardobeat|3 years ago|reply
Even worse, Apple Maps still freezes after I leave a tunnel - I’ve been through at least 3 different models in the meantime.
[+] [-] simonjgreen|3 years ago|reply
I think my first proper experience was a PCMCIA GPS card in an HP IPaq running TomTom 2, or possibly some Garmin version. Revolutionary at the time, and brilliant on long journeys, but compared to today it was awful.
[+] [-] coder543|3 years ago|reply
Why don't you supply a source to go along with your bold claim? Instead, here is the first set of test results I found on google: https://rxnetworks.com/press-releases/test-confirms-that-gal...
It shows that using more than just GPS substantially improved accuracy in challenging environments. Dual frequency GPS should show strong improvements too.
[+] [-] lucb1e|3 years ago|reply
I bought a new phone in 2021 and it newly touted Galileo support but when actually opening up GPSTest, there were no satellites. On the forums, it turns out nobody could receive any Galileo. This isn't something that has been around for very long as of today, and when it's advertised, it might not even work.
Also, "As of 2012, [Galileo] was scheduled to have 15 satellites operational in 2015 and reach full operation in 2020" (Wikipedia). The first satellite had been launched only a year prior, 2011. This really wasn't a thing yet, a decade ago.
GLONASS is something my previous phone (Huawei, Feb 2017, €240) could reliably receive along with BeiDou, so that has been around a bit longer.
The difference between my GPS-only 2012 phone and the Huawei was night and day. Multiple minutes to find a fix versus mere seconds, both under reasonable conditions next to a window (both lying on the windowsill, started searching for a fix at the same time). Whether that's due to GLONASS and BeiDou or if the GPS chip itself also made a leap, I don't know, but yes this has gotten a lot better and it's definitely noticeable as a regular user, if you use GNSS specifically.
Probably you haven't noticed because phones, by default at least, upload WiFi identifiers around them to Google/Apple which then return a location, so in both cases you get a fairly good position within whatever your ping time to goopple is, and goopple gets a nice map of users' locations in return. (Or to Mozilla, if you modified your phone to use MLS instead. I tried it once, was nice, but a hassle to set up so my current phone doesn't have it anymore.)
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] chasd00|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KaiserPro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt_attack|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spread_love|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TedShiller|3 years ago|reply
you get what you pay for
[+] [-] atemerev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elfchief|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Waterluvian|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cronix|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FBISurveillance|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikotodomo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaaaaaaaaaab|3 years ago|reply