Pandora For Geocaching?

[Gautama]

For those of you don't know, geocaching is basically a scavenger hunt in which you are provided only with GPS coordinates. You locate the hidden stash, sign the logbook and read previous entries, and there are trinkets inside which you can either leave or exchange with one of your own.

I'm thinking about getting into this but I don't want to spend the money on a dedicated GPS. Are usb GPS units accurate enough for such an application? Do linux drivers and software exist that could be ported?

 

[lulzfish]

There's definitely a few USB GPS units that will work. If you use Google's site search, such as "GPS Pandora site:www.gp32x.de/board", you might be able to find one of threads.

However, I don't know how accurate USB GPS units are, so we'll have to wait a moment for someone else to provide that half of the answer.

The drivers should already work for some units, since they're supposed to be pretty simple, and there's also some mapping software. I think there's one called Tango. I tried it once, you can easily tell it to download, say, 200MB of map data for a certain area and it will get road maps from OpenStreetMap. I don't think it does satellite maps, as that would take a lot of space, and I don't think satellite data is free. If you have a cell modem on the Pandora as well, you could use that for Google Maps or whatever.

 

[WizardStan]

They most certainly do. A lot will work, someone just needs to sit down and figure out exactly which ones have open source drivers. Most (maybe all?) bluetooth ones should work. At least all the ones I've seen just connect to the bluetooth as a simple serial device and stream a standard data set across it; no need for special drivers there.
As for accuracy, I can't find any GPS units that actually say how accurate they are. Every single one claims to have "the highest degree of GPS accuracy" but exactly how accurate that is, I can't say. The one that I borrowed from a friend a couple years back was good to within 15 feet, but it was a dedicated handheld GPS, not a USB one.
So... yeah, can't answer that one.

 

[Gautama]

Reports I've seen say that the Holux M-1000 is just as accurate as all but the high-end handheld units. Plus, its bluetooth and only $40. Supported in the kernel (some config file editing required), but looks like this plan is a go.

EDIT: Spec sheet says its accurate to about 2.2m, which is pretty damn good. And Tango already has an ARM port!

 

[conso]

best thing I found was a ballpen

I use an old win-mobile navi I got for free and it does it's job, Hope the pandora might offer me something better, specially because I also want to use it for openstreetmaps (mapping and navigation)

 

[Spirit]

The Pandora & USB/Bluetooth GPS will be the perfect Geocaching and OpenStreetMapping device. Actually that was the main reason for me to order one.