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Comment by cyberax | Hacker News Reader

> Unless you go for a run, for example.

You can bring your phone with you! Then you can combine its GPS tracks and the information from Pebble.

> And custom applications, not the least of which are navigation tools like Google Maps or Citymapper.

They won't work without the phone connection because Pebble does not have a cellular modem.

But there are mapping apps for the Pebble that use the phone's GPS: https://apps.repebble.com/maptastic_52e7521679f937c182000004 or https://apps.repebble.com/maps-nav_99279aadf6df4c0fadfdb39a

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>You can bring your phone with you!

You can, but it's pretty awful. put it in a pocket and it flops around. Wear a band that slides in your phone in and get it soaked (i'm a sweat monster).

I own a pebble, but I'll gladly just run without a phone.

Have you tried one of these upper arm holsters?

Actually, you gave me an idea!

There are button-sized Bluetooth GPS loggers. They can record a GPS track, and you can later download the data from them. Since it's freaking GPS, it automatically has timestamps, so it's easy to correlate with other activity.

As a bonus, I think it should be possible to connect them directly with the phone.

BRB, I think I have a ESP-based Tiny Arudino somewhere...

Heh, I used to use bluetooth GPS tracker with my nokia 770. It worked well since I could place the gps where it got the best signal. I could start a track, have it record it, and then check in with the n770 only when I needed to see a map. That way I made the most of my n770's battery life, but still got continuous tracking.

Beware that they take much longer to start since they don't know the GPS coords of the nearest cell tower, nor do they download the GPS almanac over the cell connection. They will however remember the almanac so you can leave it on for 30 minutes and not have to redownload it the next day.

I have a small Meshtastic device, not quite button-sized but still tiny. The chip on it supports aGPS, so I can upload the almanac and prime it with the approximate location. I'm very familiar with this process, I wrote a small utility for my cell phone back in ~2010 after I screwed up its factory image by installing Cyanogen.

Nice, I have a few mestastic widgets, but do want something small enough for a dog collar. That way my wife and I can carry a radio and keep one in the car so we have a good chance getting in range.

Sad that most of ham radio, which has similar APRS for tracking, doesn't do async or multi-hop.

I found this one when searching for something similar: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GF6QL9S9 - it should even be hackable.

I have not tested it, but it should be hackable. I have a couple of discrete RAK chips, and I've ordered a PCB with a trace antenna for them.

Looks nice for some uses, but pretty big for a dog collar, almost 3" on a side. I've some long/thin dev boards that I could pair with an 18650 that should be closer to 1".

I'm planning to use a small LiPo battery with a JST connector. The whole footprint should be slightly larger than 3x4x1 cm. Still a bit too large for a pocket device, but perfect for a collar.

Sounds great, best I found so far is the RAK19007 (30x60mm), then add a GPS (RAK12500). It will be kind of long (60mm + case) but not too wide (30mm + 3d printed case).

Or the Mesh Node T114 Development Board V2 (23mm wide).

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