April 8, 2011 at 13:45Is the communicator ready to replace the navigator?
Every year, communicators in the market are gaining new positions, crowding out aging devices. Rarely in everyday life can you see calculators, alarms, phone books. Has the turn come of GPS navigators? We reflect on this in this article.
Almost all communicators, regardless of platform, are created with built-in GPS-receivers. Any communicator owner can get the coordinates of their position by running the corresponding application. Why then need navigators? And what is the functional difference between a communicator and a navigator?
The first differences can be identified at the level of signal reception. Manufacturers of communicator phones are very limited in space, which is why they most often use miniature antennas located at the upper end of the device. Manufacturers of GPS navigators have more options for attaching the antenna, often they take it out of the case, thereby improving the reception of GPS signal.
The conditions for receiving a signal will affect the purity and intensity of the signal, which means the quality of the data. You can talk a lot about “mathematics”, which allows to improve the solution, but in fact the positioning by GPS-navigators is more accurate and more stable than by hybrid devices.
Navigators, as separate devices, are passive in terms of electromagnetic radiation, communicators, like hybrid ones, are not. This is not to say that navigation is impossible with a telephone that is in talk or data exchange mode, but the spatial solution will be worse than if a device without the ability to transmit data was used.
An important difference is the size of the screens. Communicators in this regard are quite limited - on the one hand, the screen should be large, and on the other, the device should fit in your hand. Thus, navigation occurs on the screen no more than 4.5 inches.
For navigators, the screen size is determined by the purpose - a tourist needs a small screen, and an athlete may not need it - for example, there are GPS pedometers - for a navigator of a ship where visibility is needed, special chartplotters are needed - large screens for drawing electronic sea charts.
The battery of the device is rarely designed for more than 3-4 hours in navigation mode. Navigators in this regard are less whimsical - most of them work on AA batteries, or on high-capacity batteries. An exception is auto navigators and devices operating on other types of vehicles, designed for frequent charging from the “cigarette lighter”, but more than compensate for this drawback with the size and brightness of the screens.
IPX7 - the abbreviation means that the device can be immersed in water for a short time. For navigators, this is a common standard that guarantees the operation of the device in the most difficult conditions. Even in the city, watching how raindrops fall on the screen of the communicator, the first thought I had was to remove it somewhere, where it was drier, to say nothing of going on a route in the pouring rain. Among navigators, there are even models capable of swimming (for example, Garmin GPSMAP 78s ).
GPRS - is this good, as is commonly believed? Really - what could be more convenient? - You are in an unfamiliar place, turn on the phone, and it loads cards, descriptions, photos from the network. This is convenient, but there is the opposite circumstance - if suddenly you do not have the opportunity to connect to the Internet, you risk not only being left without maps, but also without navigation at all.
Many communicators, compensating for the design flaws of the antennas, download ephemeris (data on where the satellites are currently located) from the network, and if there is no network, then positioning takes as long as it takes to find a newspaper kiosk and buy a map cities.
With navigators, trips are best planned in advance. Determine the purpose of the trip in advance, buy maps, download them. In this case, the user can be 100% sure that at the destination he will receive spatial information with exactly the details that he was offered.
Spatial information management is a very resource-intensive process, therefore, when navigating in communicators, such phenomena as “map freezes” are often encountered. This is a consequence of the fact that the communicator processor does not cope with all the tasks that are currently running. In this regard, the processors of navigators are in a more advantageous position, since they have a single role - navigation, and all device resources are aimed at solving it.
Developing GPS-receivers for a specific target audience, manufacturers can take into account her wishes, such as an altimeter, pedometer, heart rate sensor, fuel consumption sensor. Communicators, designed for the mass consumer, can not boast of such.
The conclusions can be made as follows: A
communicator with a navigation function is useful where -
1. There is no need for precise positioning of more than 10 m.
2. Where the signal reception conditions are not disturbed by the environment.
3. Where you do not need an instant large overview of the map.
4. Where you don't need a miniature GPS sensor.
5. Where the power grid is always at hand and there is the possibility of recharging.
6. Where dry, warm and clean.
7. Where there is constant GPRS coverage.
8. Where the user is not annoyed by the freezing of the screen.
We can conclude that communicators are ideal for summer walks in the city, excursions, and the search for attractions. Communicators today are able to replace a pocket atlas, a guidebook and a notebook in a backpack of a tourist.
Navigators are becoming a niche product, acquiring more and more modifications to meet the challenges of sports, tourism, car navigation, navigation, and mapping. The navigator becomes an attribute of a professional, finally casting aside the already disappearing prefix “household”, and the line to the museum will not be suitable for them soon.
Almost all communicators, regardless of platform, are created with built-in GPS-receivers. Any communicator owner can get the coordinates of their position by running the corresponding application. Why then need navigators? And what is the functional difference between a communicator and a navigator?
Signal reception and position calculation
The first differences can be identified at the level of signal reception. Manufacturers of communicator phones are very limited in space, which is why they most often use miniature antennas located at the upper end of the device. Manufacturers of GPS navigators have more options for attaching the antenna, often they take it out of the case, thereby improving the reception of GPS signal.
The conditions for receiving a signal will affect the purity and intensity of the signal, which means the quality of the data. You can talk a lot about “mathematics”, which allows to improve the solution, but in fact the positioning by GPS-navigators is more accurate and more stable than by hybrid devices.
Navigators, as separate devices, are passive in terms of electromagnetic radiation, communicators, like hybrid ones, are not. This is not to say that navigation is impossible with a telephone that is in talk or data exchange mode, but the spatial solution will be worse than if a device without the ability to transmit data was used.
Ergonomics and efficiency
An important difference is the size of the screens. Communicators in this regard are quite limited - on the one hand, the screen should be large, and on the other, the device should fit in your hand. Thus, navigation occurs on the screen no more than 4.5 inches.
For navigators, the screen size is determined by the purpose - a tourist needs a small screen, and an athlete may not need it - for example, there are GPS pedometers - for a navigator of a ship where visibility is needed, special chartplotters are needed - large screens for drawing electronic sea charts.
The battery of the device is rarely designed for more than 3-4 hours in navigation mode. Navigators in this regard are less whimsical - most of them work on AA batteries, or on high-capacity batteries. An exception is auto navigators and devices operating on other types of vehicles, designed for frequent charging from the “cigarette lighter”, but more than compensate for this drawback with the size and brightness of the screens.
IPX7 - the abbreviation means that the device can be immersed in water for a short time. For navigators, this is a common standard that guarantees the operation of the device in the most difficult conditions. Even in the city, watching how raindrops fall on the screen of the communicator, the first thought I had was to remove it somewhere, where it was drier, to say nothing of going on a route in the pouring rain. Among navigators, there are even models capable of swimming (for example, Garmin GPSMAP 78s ).
Maps, data and internet
GPRS - is this good, as is commonly believed? Really - what could be more convenient? - You are in an unfamiliar place, turn on the phone, and it loads cards, descriptions, photos from the network. This is convenient, but there is the opposite circumstance - if suddenly you do not have the opportunity to connect to the Internet, you risk not only being left without maps, but also without navigation at all.
Many communicators, compensating for the design flaws of the antennas, download ephemeris (data on where the satellites are currently located) from the network, and if there is no network, then positioning takes as long as it takes to find a newspaper kiosk and buy a map cities.
With navigators, trips are best planned in advance. Determine the purpose of the trip in advance, buy maps, download them. In this case, the user can be 100% sure that at the destination he will receive spatial information with exactly the details that he was offered.
Instrument software and resources
Spatial information management is a very resource-intensive process, therefore, when navigating in communicators, such phenomena as “map freezes” are often encountered. This is a consequence of the fact that the communicator processor does not cope with all the tasks that are currently running. In this regard, the processors of navigators are in a more advantageous position, since they have a single role - navigation, and all device resources are aimed at solving it.
Developing GPS-receivers for a specific target audience, manufacturers can take into account her wishes, such as an altimeter, pedometer, heart rate sensor, fuel consumption sensor. Communicators, designed for the mass consumer, can not boast of such.
Conclusions and Conclusions
The conclusions can be made as follows: A
communicator with a navigation function is useful where -
1. There is no need for precise positioning of more than 10 m.
2. Where the signal reception conditions are not disturbed by the environment.
3. Where you do not need an instant large overview of the map.
4. Where you don't need a miniature GPS sensor.
5. Where the power grid is always at hand and there is the possibility of recharging.
6. Where dry, warm and clean.
7. Where there is constant GPRS coverage.
8. Where the user is not annoyed by the freezing of the screen.
We can conclude that communicators are ideal for summer walks in the city, excursions, and the search for attractions. Communicators today are able to replace a pocket atlas, a guidebook and a notebook in a backpack of a tourist.
Navigators are becoming a niche product, acquiring more and more modifications to meet the challenges of sports, tourism, car navigation, navigation, and mapping. The navigator becomes an attribute of a professional, finally casting aside the already disappearing prefix “household”, and the line to the museum will not be suitable for them soon.