[gpsd-users] RFC: GPSD on Linux Laptop with Android GPS Source

[Tom Hardy]

I'm a taxi driver, and the laptop mounts in the car and tethers by 
BT to the Android phone.  It also has a USB connection.  Very nice, 
but how does the laptop  get gps?  A couple of ways so far, using a 
couple of Android apps:

_GPS2Net_

Here, I enable USB debugging on the Android, and on the laptop run 
'adb forward tcp:6000 tcp:6000' followed by 'gpsd -n tcp://
localhost:6000'.  It is prone to failure upon bumping the USB cable, 
and has to be set up after a resume from suspension.

-GPS2Bluetooth_

Run 'rfcomm connect /dev/rfcomm1 a8:7c:01:7e:70:38 5', that is, 
'rfcomm connect <your chosen dev> <mac addr> <channel>', followed by 
'gpsd -n -N -b -D5 /dev/rfcomm1'.  This appears to be quite stable, 
and survives suspend/resume, or having the phone wander out of range 
for a bit, though I have to tickle gpsd  to get it going again, 
i.e., in KDE Marble I disable/reenable position tracking via gpsd.

Question:  What is this tickling whereof I speak?

You might need a couple of discovery tools for the above:  'hcitool 
scan' to find discoverable mac addresses, and 'sdptool browse <mac>' 
to get the channel.

I've also got ntpd's SHM driver working, and have connected other 
apps to the local gpsd.  Xgps output looks a bit funny; no 
satellites selected, no EPX, EPY, EPS, EPD, but EPV and EPC are 
present with funny readings.

Why is that?

I've looked a bit at Android's 'ShareGPS' which appears to be quite 
flexible, but the free version only supports WiFi broadcast of your 
gps position.  It does however offer a set of systemd service 
scripts which appear to be adaptable at http://www.jillybunch.com/
sharegps/downloads/bt-gps.tar.gz  See also http://
www.jillybunch.com/sharegps/nmea-bluetooth-linux.html , or ShareGPS 
homepage http://www.jillybunch.com/sharegps/index.html .

Comments?  Thank You.

-- 
Tom Hardy <address@hidden>