Top all-time · #11022
Sean Barbeau
Personal blog · barbeau.medium.comsciencehardware
Sean Barbeau's personal blog at barbeau.medium.com covers science and hardware. Since 2021, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 10 times, most often “Measuring GNSS accuracy on Android devices (2019)”. The last post was in 2022, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Sean Barbeau writes about GNSS and GPS accuracy on smartphones, including dual-frequency and L5 support, and the GPSTest app. HN readers value his device support lists and accuracy testing guides.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Measuring GNSS accuracy on Android devices (2019)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-19
- /gnss-interrupted-the-hidden-android-setting-you-need-to-know-d812d28a38212 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-10-15
What Hacker News says?
More and more devices already have GPS L5 chips which is accurate to a foot The problem is altitude. I can't get my watch or phone to give me proper altitude anywhere. Within a meter would be amazing forget a foot. https://barbeau.medium.com/tl-dr-dual-frequency-gnss-on-andr... https://barbeau.medium.com/crowdsourcing-gnss-capabilities-o... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jXtRCoEnnFNWj6_oFlVW...
Comment linking /crowdsourcing-gnss-capabilities-of-android-devices-d4228645cf25
on “Starlink signals can be reverse-engineered to work like GPS”Submitted Measuring GNSS accuracy on Android devices (2019) as a story · 47 points
HN discussionIf you're curious which phones support L5, check out the table linked on this page (SCROLL DOWN to "GPSTest Database" for the up-to-date table, since the first one is out of date): https://barbeau.medium.com/9be4bbb83a7b
Comment linking /9be4bbb83a7b
on “Rethinking GPS: Engineering next-gen location at Uber (2018)”It's transparent to the apps, it's included in all GPS (or technically GNSS) locations. GPSTest has a built in accuracy test mode where to can measure your phones location accuracy. Read more about that here: https://barbeau.medium.com/measuring-gnss-accuracy-on-androi... I noticed a huge difference when I switched from my older phone to my current with dual frequency, and I usually log runs, walks, and bike rides s…
Comment linking /measuring-gnss-accuracy-on-android-devices-6824492a1389
on “iPhone 14 Pro comes with dual-frequency GPS”For Android users, there's an interesting article about dual-frequency GPS at https://barbeau.medium.com/dual-frequency-gnss-on-android-de... (source: https://github.com/barbeau/gpstest/blob/master/FAQ.md#does-g... ).
Comment linking /dual-frequency-gnss-on-android-devices-152b8826e1c
on “iPhone 14 Pro comes with dual-frequency GPS”It's not just the pixel 6, it goes clear back to the pixel 4, galaxy s20, and many more. A totally excellent list of supported and tested devices is at the latter part of this article. https://barbeau.medium.com/tl-dr-dual-frequency-gnss-on-andr...
Comment linking /tl-dr-dual-frequency-gnss-on-android-table-of-devices-9be4bbb83a7b
on “iPhone 14 Pro comes with dual-frequency GPS”Google has held a couple of GPS precision challenges for smartphones, and Galileo recently launched their High Accuracy Service (HAS) for high accuracy Precise Point Positioning. Android has built in support for full GNSS phase measurements. Smartphone positional accuracy is already pretty good with L1+L5 bands, and it will probably get even better soon. https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/smartphone-decimeter-202..…
Comment linking /gnss-interrupted-the-hidden-android-setting-you-need-to-know-d812d28a3821
on “High Precision Mapping from Scratch”I saw EveryDoor mentioned in the OSM wiki but never tried it out. Says it's useful for micromapping which is certainly something I would enjoy. Androids version 10 and above have support for raw GNSS measurements, they provide access to the pseudoranges and lots more. They suddenly became the most convenient platform for accessing raw GNSS data given the proprietary mess that is the GNSS receiver market. We can also…
Comment linking /gnss-interrupted-the-hidden-android-setting-you-need-to-know-d812d28a3821
on “State of the Map EU 2023”Another interesting tidbit is apparently Galileo cannot be "seen" in the USA, not because of same frequency but because the FCC forbids its license? https://galileognss.eu/why-galileo-is-not-seen-in-united-sta... https://barbeau.medium.com/where-is-the-world-is-galileo-6bb... At least as of 2019 but maybe has changed as we approach 2023? Firing up GPStest on various phones to see for myself.
Comment linking /where-is-the-world-is-galileo-6bb7bfa29e
on “GPS vs. Glonass vs. Galileo”
