Pandora GPS, just add GPS [updated]
July 21, 2010
Journeymen Spirit and Zapman have turned their unassuming Pandoras into bona fide satnav units, and left a trail of only slightly scary instructions in their wake. Both are using garden variety Bluetooth GPS receivers (<$100 from your favourite bargain pit), a few bits and bobs from the Angstrom repo including TangoGPS navigation software, and map packs from the OSM project. A bit of terminal work is required to get it all going (with some mandatory head-desking along the way), so it’s one for the power users at this stage – but pioneering isn’t supposed to be easy. That’s why these guys are doing it for us. Hit the source link for their success stories.
Update: There is now a GPS information page on the wiki (thanks Cheese!): http://www.pandorawiki.org/GPS
Impressive. I’m keen to see if it has real time traffic control
I knew I held on to that Bluetooth GPS unit for a reason.
hahah.. me too!!!! My Dad got me one to use with my Pandora like two years ago……
I’m actually using a USB GPS Mouse (Navilock SirfStar III) and just asked the right questions to make it run on my pandora.
Would be great if someone with pnd-making skills could wrap tangoGPS up for the pandora app sites..
Yeah! My prayers have been answered. We one about using the Pandora as a GPS device. Not the one about me actually having a Pandora.
lol can i track where my pandora is?
+1
PORN!
Yes, another nail in the coffin for closed source!!!
Small nail. Big coffin. Don’t suspect Steve Jobs noticed.
Still. F*ck yeah!
I need to hurry up and get one of these so I don’t have to fool around with trail maps anymore
This is what I like about the community around the Pandora, and the thing that’ll keep it being an amazing piece of kit even as more powerful stuff is being released.
I got one of those bluetooth GPS dongles a few years back, back before I had a phone with built-in GPS. I also have a netbook on which I’ve slapped an install of Ubuntu. I tried getting the two to work together – I got as far as talking to it and getting some numbers off it, but nothing as useful as an actual map.
But here comes the Pandora community and with only a few hundred devices in the wild come up with the solution. So it still takes a bit of effort to get everything paired up and talking, but just having a set of instructions is a big help.
Care to elaborate on specific devices anyone? And would a CF GPS work as well?
The Pandora doesn’t have a CF slot, and while you could plug one in via a, external card reader I rather doubt if that would work.
I have one of these: http://www.play.com/Mobiles/Mobile/4-/3496734/GPS200-SiRF-III-Bluetooth-GPS-Receiver/Product.html
I can’t guarantee it’ll work on Pandora since I don’t have access to one, but I’ve not yet found a device it won’t talk to, including linux machines.
Awesome! I was going to try to whip up something like this when I got my Pandora (I’m somewhere near #4000), but these guys saved me the effort.
I imagine pretty much everything will be developed and working by the time I get mine.
Very cool, but it also shows just how much time has passed. When I began following the Pandora project, this is one of the apps I dreamed of having most. Now I have 3 gps devices: one built into my car, an older suction mount gps, and of course my smartphone. For me at least, it robs most of the excitement to realize my most wanted app is now something rather mundane. Make of that what you will, I suppose.
Finally, a use for that dusty Freerunner!