Archives for January 2015

Why You Need Traffic On Your GPS

January 11, 2015 By Liz E. 3 Comments

Being stuck in traffic is the worst. It’s the only time you’ll see me get excited to inch forward a couple of feet before slamming on my breaks again. The cacophony of horns and shouts is enough to make anyone grumpy and overall, it’s just a colossal waste of time and gas. I would be happy to wager it’s probably everyone’s least favorite part about driving. I know I hate it, and I don’t have to be psychic to guess you do too.

So what if I told you that last year alone you and everyone else combined sat in enough traffic that you could have traveled to the moon and back two and a half times. For those of you a little rusty on your astronomy, that’s roughly 1.4 million miles of traffic. That’s entirely too much traffic.

See where I’m going with this? read more

Filed Under: Featured, GPS News

Epson Steps from Printers to GPS

January 10, 2015 By Liz E. Leave a Comment

Epson America, long known for their inkjet printers has firmly stepped away from printing and into the world of GPS with the launch of several new trackers runners. And, as if intent to banish the thought of printers from the mind, Epson has created an entirely new brand dubbed “Epson Active” which is host to several new and existing Epson fitness and wearable devices including the Pulsense fitness tracker, which was released last year.

Most recently, at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show last week, Epson America debuted their newest Runsense GPS Sports monitors which are designed for runners, walkers and fitness enthusiasts. The device has been optimized primarily for runners and is designed to help serious enthusiasts measure their strides and pace. However, it also can measure a range of different measurements including continuous heart rate, time elapsed, distance, pace, laps, intervals, speed, calories burned and many more directly from the wrist without requiring an uncomfortable chest strap. read more

Filed Under: Handheld/Sport

This Week in GPS — January 9, 2015

January 9, 2015 By Liz E. Leave a Comment

The Garmin 2015 Nuvi Essential Series is the first budget-friendly line that supports a backup camera

This week in GPS is a weekly link roundup of (mostly) GPS related odds and ends, from GPS Tracklog and other places around the Web. This week’s featured image is one of Garmin’s 2015 Nuvi Essentials series, which was debuted at CES this week. Here are some other things happening in the GPS world this week: read more

Filed Under: Featured, More GPS News, This week in GPS

Garmin Debuts Vívoactive GPS Watches

January 8, 2015 By Liz E. 1 Comment

As part of their activewear fitness wearables section, Garmin introduced the new vívoactive GPS smartwatch at CES. This sleek, slightly girly device is designed with built-in activity tracking apps and the ability to customize with additional apps, watch faces, widgets and more via Connect IQ, Garmin’s first-ever open app market.

“Designed to be worn all day, vívoactive can be personalized in many ways—from interchangeable bands to watch faces, apps and widgets—making it versatile, stylish and functional for your life,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice-president of worldwide sales in a press release. read more

Filed Under: GPS Tracking

2015 Nuvi Essentials Boast New Budget Features

January 7, 2015 By Liz E. 1 Comment

The Garmin 2015 Nuvi Essential Series is the first budget-friendly line that supports a backup camera

Garmin announced the details of its 2015 Nuvi Essentials series at the International Consumer Electronics Show going on this week. This year’s entry-level devices include several features that have never been available to the lower-end markets before, along with other Garmin essentials like lane assist, junction view, street name, speed limit, arrival time estimates, Up Ahead (to show nearby services) and more.

The new features that normally only are available to the more expensive devices include Garmin Real Directions, which provides actual landmarks, buildings and stop lights as references for easy-to-follow directions; millions of preloaded POIs from Foursquare along with the ability to search new and popular destinations, and the most talked-about feature, support for backup cameras like the BC 30 backup camera, which is available for $169.99. read more

Filed Under: Auto, Garmin auto GPS

Magellan Introduces New RoadMate Devices

January 6, 2015 By Liz E. Leave a Comment

As part of the International CES Conference taking place this week, Magellan has introduced several new GPS devices in their RoadMate line, including three for personal use and two for commercial trucking. None of the units are available yet, but the personal ones actually look pretty nice. Here’s the information Magellan gave me: read more

Filed Under: Auto, Magellan auto GPS

Garmin Introduces Fēnix 3 Watch

January 5, 2015 By Liz E. 1 Comment

Garmin has finally released details about their newest multisport GPS watch, the Fēnix 3. This awesome watch does, well, everything, and is clearly Garmin’s reponse to the concern that GPS watches are in danger of being replaced by smartwatches. And I have to say, while the watch is a little pricey, it definitely sounds like its worth it.

The watch itself isn’t expected to be available until sometime in the first quarter of this year, and will retail in the $499 – $599 range, depending on which version you buy. The Fēnix 3 will be available in gray and silver with a premium sapphire edition with a sapphire glass screen.

As far as specs, well, this little beauty basically does a little bit of everything, and I can only hope that I’ll be able to get my hands on one to try it out. Keep your fingers crossed! Anyway, here are the details Garmin gave me about the device: read more

Filed Under: Featured, Garmin handheld GPS

GPS and the AirAisa Flights

January 4, 2015 By Liz E. Leave a Comment

2014 saw several tragedies including the downing of several planes, one of which still has not been found. With the recent discovery of the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 in the Java Sea, many people are wondering how, in the age where you can locate your phone anywhere in the world with the click of a button, can an entire flight disappear?

Well, I did a little bit of research on the topic and as it turns out, the answer is a little more complicated than people realize. Times reports that airplanes do have a GPS system, known as ADS-B, which broadcasts the plane’s location on regular flights. But, in the event of an emergency where a plane is going down, the conditions are too extreme for the GPS to function.

“People have been comparing this situation to Apple’s Find My Phone app,” John Walton, a British aviation journalist, told TIME in an article. “But the app can’t tell you very much on the way down if your phone is thrown off a 10-story building.” read more

Filed Under: GPS News

ESA Moves Forward with Galileo

January 3, 2015 By Liz E. Leave a Comment

Europe has been working on its own version of GPS, the Galileo system, for the last several years. They’ve met with nothing but problems with their satellites and after the technical error in a launch in August left two satellites stranded in unusable orbits, everyone began to wonder if Galileo was even going to work out.

As it turns out, the European Space Agency (ESA) hasn’t given up hopes yet and only a week or so after announcing the corrected orbit of one of the two stray satellites, the ESA said that they have finally received the seventh and eighth satellites in their testing center in the Netherlands. The two newest satellites have been going through various tests during the last two weeks in a controlled environment, with more tests to come to ensure that the satellites will be able to withstand the harsh environment of space. read more

Filed Under: Satellites

This Week in GPS — January 2, 2015

January 2, 2015 By Liz E. Leave a Comment

This week in GPS is a weekly link roundup of (mostly) GPS related odds and ends, from GPS Tracklog and other places around the Web. This week’s featured image is from Adrian Faulkner’s excellent post about creating your own Geocaching Resolutions this year. You can read it here to get more tips on how to start off your 2015 right! Here are some other things that happened in the world of GPS this week… read more

Filed Under: More GPS News, This week in GPS