GPS Insight Blog » GPS Navigation

Sep 07 2010

Going to Vegas with some GPS Insight employees!

Category: GPS Insight Employees, GPS Navigation, Garmin Integration, Las Vegas, Routing — rdonat @ 10:26 pm

So I head out tomorrow morning to Las Vegas for the AFLA Conference (American Fleet Leasing Association), and probably won’t have much time for documenting GPS Insight in the blog.

So I have to pick up 2 GPS Insight employees tomorrow, & don’t know where they live (I won’t name names — what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas).

Easy enough — I just enter their addresses into the GPS Insight Route Dashlet on the dashboard, choosing a Start/End of my house & Sky Harbor Airport (both pre-defined landmarks in GPS Insight’s account):

How to route myself via Garmin to 2 employee homes & the Airport

Press “Get Route” and voila!

Create an optimized route to pick up employees before heading to the airport

Create and send an optimized route to my vehicle's Garmin to pick up employees and head to the airport

Now I am able to send the route named “Vegas” to my Garmin, which will have 4 sequentially numbered stops, and will take me in that order.

Also, I can always map it by pressing “Map This” and it will show the overall route, to include the time (1 hour & 10 minutes) and turn-by-directions (not that I’ll need them — that’s what the Garmin is for!):

Mapped route with a start & 3 sequential stops

Now I need to pack & get some sleep for a very busy conference full of learning and such…

Rob.

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Aug 23 2010

GPS Navigation Humor

Category: GPS Navigation, Humor — rdonat @ 7:53 pm

How true, again from our favorite geek comic strip, XKCD.

GPS Navigation Humor

Original here:

http://xkcd.com/783/

This happens to me all the time, & it drives me crazy. Except then inevitably they live on some crazy brand new street and I wind up calling them for directions anyway…

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, Humor, xkcd

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May 25 2010

Good LA Times article on the history of GPS & the new system going in soon

Category: GPS Navigation, Miscellaneous — rdonat @ 1:09 pm

Here is a really good article about how GPS works, and the new satellites going up to replace the aging ones out there now:

GPS has become critical to EVERYTHING (to include GPS Insight...)

It’s really worth reading if you are interested in this world-changing technology.

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS System, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking system, NY Times

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Apr 20 2010

Why I hate Microsoft (or why resetting your Ford Sync GPS is a bad idea)

Category: Availability, California, GPS Insight Employees, GPS Navigation, Google Earth, Routing, competition — rdonat @ 10:49 pm

Obviously I am pretty dependent on GPS for just about everything when it comes to getting around [also for money...].

I have 3 GPS Navigation devices with me when I drive my car (factory installed, Garmin, & my iPhone) so I never print directions any more.

So, on the way out to Long Beach a couple weeks ago, my family and I took our 3 month old car with Ford’s/Microsoft’s “Sync” system (with GPS Navigation). No directions, just our factory installed GPS navigation unit.

Just outside of town it crashed on us. I figured out how to do a factory reset and get it back up & running.

Here’s the point: AFTER RESETTING IT, I FORGOT TO TELL IT “FASTEST” & NOT “SHORTEST” when optimizing our route. DOH!

We took the 10 out to LA area, but then it took me through some really sketchy, slow-moving areas.

On the way home, I thought about it, & realized I needed to change my GPS setting to FASTEST from SHORTEST.

I was curious how much longer it took me time-wise to get there than to get back, so I ran a 3D history report & saw very quickly that it was twice as long (60 vs. 30 minutes):

Run a week long history for our trip to/from Long Beach

Slow, direct route vs. Fast, indirect route

All I had to do is look at the 2 points where the route deviates then converges again, and compare times and distances:

Where I took a GPS dictated "dumb turn"

The times/mileages are:

Going there: 17:47 & 4571.6 miles to 18:53 & 4602.5 miles

Coming back: 10:26 4618.8 miles & 10:58 & 4656.3 miles

Doing the quick math, it took 31 miles & 66 minutes there the “short” way, & 37.5 miles & 32 minutes (half as long) the “long way.”

So to save 6.5 miles, I wasted 34 minutes of my life, praying we didn’t get car-jacked. At least if we did, I would know where the car went…

Anyway, I thought of this the other day & was curious just how much extra time it took us because of that one GPS setting on my (Factory Installed — not GPS Insight…) navigation device.

Because I track that vehicle, it took me about a minute to figure it out using GPS Insight.

Oddly enough, while I was writing this, my new Microsoft Windows 7 box crashed Google Earth as well. It knew I was badmouthing Microsoft. Sooner or later, all things Microsoft eventually crash.

I’m really glad we don’t run our systems on Microsoft products.

I just checked and our two “primary” servers which our customers rely upon (with lots of auxiliary and backup servers, of course) have been up for two years to two years & 3 months:

GPS Insight servers run for years without incident

I’m glad most of our competitors run Microsoft though…

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, microsoft, system availability

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Feb 21 2010

Better GPS Tracking than EZ-1000’s for Skiing

Category: Arizona, EZ-1000, GPS Navigation, Garmin Integration, Google Earth, People Tracking, Skiing — rdonat @ 10:14 pm

I took my boys (7 & 9) skiing (snowboarding they correct me every time…) up to Flagstaff AZ this weekend.

I brought my Garmin Edge 705 (a Garmin for bikes, basically) & put it in my coat pocket to get a really good feel for where we went during the weekend. It logs every 10 seconds for eventual upload (vs. once a minute in real time for the EZ-1000 I brought along as well).

Garmin EDGE 705

They are really nice, and we don’t sell them — I bought mine at the bike shop. [We do sell Garmin's for vehicles and can integrate them with our GPSI-4000 GPS tracking solution though...]

The Garmin is an optimist, and thinks I ran up all those hills & burned 5248 calories in the process (had I brought the wireless heart monitor it would have known better):

Garmin's interpretation of my Skiing with my kids

This is a great image of GPS Insight vs. Garmin (bear in mind we are an “ACTIVE” tracking system whereas the Garmin is “PASSIVE” and needs you to upload the data eventually):

GPS Insight vs. Garmin for ski tracking

The “pins” are EZ-1000 points [every minute while in cell coverage, which is spotty on the mountain]. The yellow circles are Garmin points (a LOT more of them).

Here is the Garmin unit track of where we went (and where I remembered to turn the unit on…):

Skiing at Snowbowl in Flagstaff AZ

It’s nice to have that for sports usage. But if you want to track your vehicles in real time, that’s not an option — you need an active tracking solution like GPS Insight. Both are great products — just for entirely different needs.

And here are my cold kids. Lots of snow this weekend, and way colder than they’re used to living in the desert.

Rob's kids in their cold-weather snowboarding attire

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

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Aug 16 2009

Live Garmin Dispatch Demo (REALLY FAST DISPATCH!)

Category: GPS Navigation, GPSI-4000, Garmin Integration — rdonat @ 12:41 pm

This is a quick camera video I took to show just how fast messages make it to the GPS Insight Navigation solution using Garmin.

I simulate a dispatch event using an SMS text message from my iPhone, which sends both a “dispatched stop” (to GPS Insight Headquarters) in the form “gps rob dis headq” (which is short for “dispatch GPS Insight Headquarters”). Then I send a text message using “gps rob gm hi there”and “gm” is short for “Garmin Message.” You can see it takes literally less than a second to receive the message, and about 2-3 seconds to receive the dispatch (the “lag” is due to the text messaging infrastructure but 2-3 seconds is pretty good regardless).

Here is the video, and below it, I will show how a customer would “typically” send a message or next stop to a driver.

Here is the message I sent back using the Garmin in the demo (visible here in the Garmin message history):

There is another Garmin demonstration here for a more thorough look at how the Garmin Integration with GPS Insight works. This video is to really show the solution “in action” to illustrate how quick and powerful it is for dispatch oriented organizations.

Thanks,

Rob.

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Jun 14 2009

Camelback Mountain hike helped by GPS Insight

Category: Arizona, EZ-1000, GPS Insight Employees, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, Garmin Integration, Google Earth, Landmarks, cell phone capabilities — rdonat @ 9:32 pm

I decided to hike Camelback Mountain today — I’ll try to make this short (shorter than the 1 1/2 hour hike up & down the toughest mountain I’ve done in the Valley).

I couldn’t remember where to go so I looked it up on the internet & then dispatched myself via my Garmin from my PC:

Then I created a landmark as well, while I was at it (note I put the “route me here” address where it should go, but then I outlined the whole mountain) :

Then I routed myself there with my Garmin by wirelessly dispatching my vehicle’s Garmin to that location:

Turns out it was the wrong entrance — I go to the other one typically, so I drove around aimlessly finding that, plus the REI sports place where I bought a new water backpack (called a Camelbak, coincidentally…) .

Running an efficiency report, I ran 58% more time and 20% more miles (since the miles I went extra were on surface streets, not highways, this makes sense):

Here is my driving around aimlessly, wasting time & fuel (green dots, vs. blue “optimal path”):

Then I get to Camelback, and send a couple SMS notes when I start, get to the top, then get back to the bottom:

Here is my track of the 1 1/2 hour climb to the top and back (using an EZ-1000 at 10 second updates):

Here is an iPhone picture of me at the top, mapping both my iPhone GPS location (blue) and the EZ-1000 location (red pin):

But here is the good part:

Toward the bottom:

And at the top:

I’m a little sore after the 1 1/2 hour long trek up & back down, but the view is worth it.

And I even wore a GPS Insight hat…

Rob.

Comments (1)

May 30 2009

Rob gets a speeding ticket — GPS Insight proves the speeding activity unfortunately…

Category: Arizona, Driver Accountability, EZ-1000, GPS Insight Employees, GPS Navigation, GPSI-4000, Garmin Integration, Google Earth, Identifying and eliminating speeding, Mapping, Routing, cell phone capabilities — rdonat @ 1:41 pm

So yesterday I took my 9 year old son, a friend and his son to the Diamondbacks game (they lost…). Thanks to Mike Greco at bluemedia for the tickets…

On the way home, after dealing with the 101 being closed (Arizona doesn’t know how to work on roads without closing them entirely), yours truly got pulled over 2 miles from home after punching it to make a stale yellow light. In my defense, there was no one around (except the police officer apparently, who I never saw).

Anyway, I got pulled over shortly thereafter and was informed I did 67 through the light in a 50. Oops.

I haven’t had a ticket for 15 years, so there goes that streak.

I got home shortly thereafter & guess what, he was right.

My GPSI-4000, which takes speed samples once a second, got me doing 68.

Here’s a picture which pretty much tells it all:

Here is my idle stop while receiving the ticket:

I pulled over near a community’s entrance to get over from traffic:

I brought an EZ-1000 with me for my son to hold on to at the game in case I lost him, & it was set for 10 second updates.

It got me at 67 MPH going through the light too (and shows I immediately slowed down):

So, the moral of the story is: I was speeding. It was literally for just a few seconds to catch a yellow light rather than slam on the brakes and wake the kids up (that’s my story), but both the police AND my GPSI-4000/EZ-1000 caught me. FYI, the GO-3000 is equally accurate, and our 3500 lineup checks speed every 20 seconds, so it catches speeding, just not the rapid up & down speeding like I exhibited yesterday — it got me at 62 MPH. To put it in perspective, many of our competeitors check speed once every 5 minutes and don’t report max speed — just instantaneous. We report max, instantaneous, and average, and this is detailed in several “speeding” related blog articles.

On a less depressing note, we had a nice time at the ballgame, and stopped at Alice Cooper’s Cooperstown before which we tracked on the EZ-1000. I landmarked it while I was there by sending a text message of: ‘gps rob 1000k landmark cooperstown’ so now it shows up here like this:

A quick landmark report shows we were there for 41 minutes:

41 much more worthwhile minutes than sitting on the side of the road waiting for a ticket 2 miles away from home.

I’ll let you know how traffic school works out.

Now that I think about it, had I been using my new Garmin routing capability I would have been directed to take the shorter path home after getting detoured, and would have avoided this ticket altogether… Grr…

Never mind all those other light green speeding dots where thankfully there weren’t any police or speed cameras.

Rob.

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Mar 21 2009

GPS Humor… (and connected GPS navigation devices)

Category: GPS Navigation, GPSI-4000, Garmin Integration, Humor — rdonat @ 8:31 pm

I don’t come across much GPS humor, but this was in The Onion today (The Onion is a great satirical newspaper originally from University of Wisconsin – Madison). In case you don’t remember, Kenny Loggins sang “The Danger Zone” as the theme song to Top Gun back in the ’80s sometime:

http://www.theonion.com/conttent/radio_news/50596

In late April, 2009, we introduced support for Garmin integration with GPS Insight, which allows dispatch to now send drivers’ Garmins their next stop(s) as well as send and receive messages to and from a Garmin connected to a GPS Insight GPSI-4000 tracking device.

Here is a demo of that. It is a huge advancement for the GPS Insight product and is invaluable to companies who need to send orders/pickups to their drivers throughout the day. We also support sending and receiving text messages and driver/job statuses using a Garmin as well.
Rob.

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Mar 14 2009

GPS Insight helps get Ryan to his friend’s birthday party…

Category: GPS Insight Employees, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, Google Earth, Package Tracking — rdonat @ 1:47 pm

Cast:

Lost Driver: Rob’s beautiful wife Kristi

Dispatch: Rob at his desk on a beautiful Saturday afternoon

Important Delivery: birthday present

Happy Customer: Birthday boy

Pretend this is a business scenario — this happens hundreds of times a day with our product for our customers.

My 6 year old is heading to a birthday party with my wife driving. The address is new and doesn’t show up on her navigation built into the car.

I’m at work & she called and asked me for directions.

Since I’m sitting at my desk, and we usually have our account pulled up, it took me about 15 seconds to tell her how to get there.

Just type in the address in Google Earth (this works on our browser map as well, I just happen to like Google Earth more).

Right click it and choose “Get Directions To.” Then either click or right click her car and choose “Get Directions From.”:

So then the directions come up:

And I explain to her how to wind over to the new street address (clearly a new subdivision since the aerial photo shows it as dirt)

Then I watch as she takes a wrong turn anyway… (It’s not like I follow directions well either). I’m able to call her & explain she needed to take a left, not a right.

Then she’s back on track, and gets to the address.

But then she stops there for 4 minutes, & moves somewhere else?

Why? I’m guessing the party is at the subdivision clubhouse. Turn on Street Maps, & confirm that’s the case:

Or maybe they’re having it in the park, who knows? I’ll find out later. Meanwhile I am getting caught up at work on a Saturday. It only took 30 seconds to find and get directions to my wife, & another 30 to call her back & help in the maze of this new area. Unfortunately it takes me longer than that to document this good example for the blog, but it’s done now, & I’m only 40 minutes farther away from getting out of the office on this beautiful day in Scottsdale. I wish I had taken Ryan to the party instead!

This should illustrate the real time dispatch assistance you can give using GPS Insight though — call our sales or support for more info at 866-GPS-4321.

Rob.

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