Garmin GLO accuracy

edited April 2013 in RaceChrono for Android
Hi guys,

I was wondering if the Garmin GLO will provide me with any more accuracy than the my current 5Hz Gtop bluetooth receiver. I have read through the forums that the qstarz bt-q818xt doesnt provide any greater accuracy than its 818x brother.

Im only going to ugrade to make use of the 10Hz capability for Android (& symbian if possible) otherwise ill stick with whatI have.

Cheers,
Dave






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Comments

  • edited December 2013
    I have Garmin GLO and it works great, but I haven't yet been able to give it proper test on race track. I have suspicion that it has better accuracy due to huge amount of satellites it can lock on to. In addition to GPS satellites it has access to GLONASS satellites as well...

    Notice that Garmin GLO works with Android version, but it probably would not work with Symbian or Windows Mobile versions.

    WARNING: DO NOT UPDATE YOUR GARMIN GLO TO 2.40 FIRMWARE: It's buggy. You get 6-7 updates per second on Android phones but the timestamps are in one second precision. So you get 6-7 updates all with the same timestamps :( So in effect the update rate is only 1 Hz as the correct timestamp is really important for lap timing! Also the update app bricked one of my receivers!
  • thanks AOL appreciate the feedback
  • I tried the QSTARZ BT-818XT (10 Hz) with erratic results at both 5hz and 10hz. I now have a Garmin GLO which is superb. It runs at 10hz and usually locks on to about 15-19 satellites. aol is correct that the GLO does not work with Symbian, which is why I had to buy myself a Sony Xperia Mini ST15i on eBay for £67 to replace the Nokia 700 I had at first wanted to use the GLO with.
  • edited April 2013
    kartracer: Excellent, nice to hear some first hand experience of the GLO! Too bad it didn't work on Symbian, but I guess it's time to move on to fresher platforms :)
  • edited October 2013
    I've had first proper test run with Garmin GLO, and I have to say this is the benchmark for sub-100 Euro/Dollar GPS receivers for now on. I installed my Garmin GLO on a BMW 320 e91 dashboard and drove some laps on Finnish Alastaro Circuit. Notice the car is very slow, but I'm still pretty amazed with the quality of data:

    + Had lock on 22 satellites when car was stationary
    + Had lock on minimum 12 satellites in 180 degree corners and then lock came back to 20-22 satellites during straights
    + Really smooth driving line and trajectories, even some basic driving line analysis can be made from the data
    - On my Nexus S the reception over Bluetooth was varying between 10 hz and 5 Hz so some updates were dropped. Was running OBD-II at same time (prototype!) so it might be something to do with it. But not a big problem, as the 5 Hz is still plenty (notice also QSTARZ receivers seem to suffer from this on Android).

    I will write more data analysis once I get to test this on a faster car.
  • Also, any updates to this? I did a search, and I didn't find anything.

    I'm considering selling my BT-818XT to get one of these.
  • edited August 2013
    What kind of updates you need? I think my June 10 review (above) is still valid from my perspective. It's a great device, also few more serious racers are bought ones and no complaints from them either. Some phones suffer from varying update rate, probably due to low Bluetooth RFCOMM bandwidth on operating system level, but I think even with that slight problem it's much better than the Q818XT (which also suffers from same problem on some phones).
  • edited August 2013
    I am using Racecrono (lately v2.34) Samsung Galaxy S3 (GT-I9300, android v4.1.2) with Garmin GLO in Karting and the setup is great for my use. GPS update rate seem to oscillate between 10 to 5 Hz disregarding expert - or any other - settings but that's no real issue. (Though my reference is using Galaxy S3 internal GPS or ancient Insmat SiRF III external 1Hz GPS receiver...)

    By the way, is there data about devices which would run Garmin GLO @ 10Hz? At least seems that high end Samsung Galaxy's tend to drop some updates?
  • Since you said, "I will write more data analysis once I get to test this on a faster car," I assumed that you would come back with more info. I think I'm going to sell my 818XT and get a GLO.
  • Snizzoop, sorry about that, I already forgot what I wrote earlier. Yes, I tested it on a faster car and same results as with the slow one. Also my friend with a race car tells me it's working great.
  • edited October 2013
    Got feedback from an user driving a fast race car, that his lap times were within few hundreds all weekend compared to the transponder times. So I would say Garmin GLO is confirmed to be excellent for this purpose.
  • I'm using a Glo plus Galaxy S3, for timing a bike on track. At my last two events, for some laps, the course plotted differs significantly from the actual track. Anybody have an ideas what may be wrong?
  • edited September 2013
    BigHeartedTone, not sure, but where and how did you install the receiver? Also which country are you in, for checking the GLONASS coverage?
  • It was gaffer taped to the top of petrol tank within a thin (see - through) plastic housing. I'm in the UK.
  • Maybe next time try rear section of the bike, that way your body never covers the view to satellites. The plastic housing should not matter much...
  • For me, the update rate always jumps 5-10 hz back and forth.

    I use RaceChrono 2:34 on my HTC One S with Android 4.1.1. and Garmin Glo.
    Under RaceChrono Settings I've tried in the expert settings Bluetooth fix, there was no improvement.
    ..... what can I do to make the signal clean runs on 10hz?
  • I've had the same issues with mine. I'm going to try to re-mount and see if the data rate gets more constant. I was seeing it go from 0-10 hz almost rhythmically. And the rhythm would change with speed. So something is up...

    Due to the rythmic rate changes. First test was poor.
  • edited October 2013
    Like I said in my earlier posts, I'm seeing the data rate varying between 5-10 Hz too. This is due to the data output being higher than the phone can receive for some reason, maybe a firmware bug in later Androids? But still, even with the varying data rate, I can safely say the data quality has been far better than any other affordable GPS receiver (such as Qstarz).

    Ziploc, I have not seen the data rate vary between 0-10 Hz, but rather 5-10 Hz. If it goes down to 0 Hz it's not good sign. But 5 Hz is still very good.
  • I'm getting 0.1 - 10hz with glo as well.
    Attached is a screenshot of my session.
    https://db.tt/JyEsHw2G

    I'm using HTC one on 4.3 att stock Rom.
  • Thats bad... Does it get disconnected all the time? Do you see "Connecting to" warning with red background regularly?
  • Don't think so, I'm watching the guage and see the satellite count flicker from 10hz to 5hz then sometimes down to 0.1hz
  • Just tried with my friend's quartz 818xt and shows 10hz steady, so I'm thinking it's not my phone, maybe a bad unit?
  • edited October 2013
    I don't think the hardware is bad, probably just incompatibility between the phone and the Garmin receiver :( So I don't think the situation improves even if you buy a new Garmin GLO...
  • edited October 2013
    sloppyjoe, this might be Android specific problem, I'm seeing the same problem with Nexus 7 and Android 4.3. It's actually really bad, disconnecting all the time and having 2-6 second pauses in the data :( On older Android versions it seems to be just varying between 5-10 Hz and never goes lower. I will be contacting Garmin support about this.
  • Hello, sorry for so little information. Here's some more to help you debug/fix/identify the issue.

    Nexus 4, latest Android. Should be latest RaceChrono build.

    I had tried a Qstar a few weeks prior to trying the GLO. It was only after receiving the GLO did I go back and look at a hz graph of the Qstar data. I also noticed fluctuations from 0-10hz with some drops. After that, I started troubleshooting my Nexus4.

    After lots of tests with wifi on/off, OBD2 streaming on/off, I started googling and heard people mention an app called 'Bluetooth GPS' on the PlayStore. Which will connect to GPS antennas and present them in the OS in such a way so that other apps may have an easier time connecting to them. So I gave it a try. Immediately I noticed an improvement. Now I fluctuate between 5-10hz like the poster above with more consistent readings.

    Let me know if I can help further. Thanks for the wonderful app!
  • Hi Ziploc, thanks for the detailed explanation. I tried the "Bluetooth GPS" app from play store as well, and when connecting with that to Garmin GLO, enabling the "mock GPS location" from phone's developer options, and from the app, and finally selecting to use Internal GPS in RaceChrono; I'm able to use Garmin GLO in 5-10 Hz in RaceChrono as well. This gives me hope I can create a fix to RaceChrono as well.
  • Ok I think I've fixed it. I will release v2.43 soon with a work around to this.
  • Thumbs up!
  • great news! Thanks for looking into this.
    I look forward to trying again at my next track day nov 9th :)
  • edited December 2013
    I updated the race chrono app a week ago. Just got a brand new GLO and took it for a ride on the bike around the streets.. its rapidly changing from 5-10hz here is a screen shot. The glo was on my back seat in clear view of the sky.
    https://www.dropbox.com/sc/6jav197juorwghj/nuEYpim8t4
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