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Comment by z92 | Hacker News Reader

If you can't purchase the GNSS HAT, use an old Android phone and install Termux on it. Then run some bash scripts on the phone that will do the job.

The phone will communicate with your network over wifi, and replaces both the Raspberry PI and the HAT.

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Also important to note that the Android approach is more likely to continue to work. In many places (certainly Manhattan, where I am), everything but LTE (and I gues 5G) has long been turned off such that GSM/Edge/UMTS/etc no longer work.

What? I'd think lots of IoT and other automated data service relies on cheap and less-than-bleeding-edge technology. 3G coverage seems to include Manhattan (and most of the USA): https://www.whistleout.com/CellPhones/United-States/New-York

Cell site visualization tool featured on HN front page a few days ago shows thousands of 2g and 3g sites in NYC

https://alpercinar.com/open-cell-id/

I wonder how this data is collected and how long it takes for a tower to not be be seen before it drops off the map.

Carriers may be keeping a small (relative) amount of capacity up and running, but in the meantime prevent new activations (ATT does this with there 3G network for example), so "coverage" is a bit misleading in many cases.

> everything but LTE (and I gues 5G)

Oh wow. Various types of monitoring use cellular, house alarms etc.

Are those things just using LTE now?

In the states, LTE Cat M1 is most frequently what's used / available from my experience for IoT. In other places NB-IoT is more prevalent (which is way slower, but also way simpler)

You could also install am app like Tasker or Macrodroid and set up triggers for handling incoming SMS (e.g. If SMS received, forward using another mechanism)

For outgoing SMS, have Tasker or Macrodroid watch an email inbox and send emails to that inbox with a format like email subject line = recipient phone number, email message body = SMS body. Then parse it through those automation apps and have it send the SMS for you.

I did something like this before and it worked decently well but I haven't had the best luck with getting Android apps to run stable for long periods of time without manual intervention. Not sure if it was battery optimization settings or what.

I wonder if anyone tried running virtualized Android with an eSIM with VoWiFi? This way you could completely give up the need of having any hardware at all.

For solving a problem always there are millions of ways..

It's likely that this one is cheaper and more accessible to many, many people, including those in developing countries, since it doesn't rely on sourcing quasi-obscure hardware like the HAT

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