Emtac Trine Datalogger

Dave · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 12:24 pm Post subject: Emtac Trine Datalogger

Emtac has announced the release of their new Bluetooth "Trine" GPS Receiver with a replaceable 10-hour battery and the ability to wirelessly and simultaneously link to three other Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as PDAs, laptops and mobile telephones. Earlier versions of the EMTAC Bluetooth GPS receiver featured a six-hour battery and could only wirelessly link to one other device.

By sending GPS position data over Bluetooth, you can position the receiver for the best possible reception all without wires. The internal lithium ion battery powers the GPS for at least 10 hours, saving your PDA or Laptop's battery. Recharging takes only an hour with the included AC charger. Now you can be truly mobile.

Features include:-
- Longer operation time by using Replaceable / Rechargeable Li-ion battery
- 24K records Data Log function provides flexible applications
- Muilti-Link supports four iPAQ PPC2003 PDAs
- A true wire-less GPS receiver using Bluetooth? Technology
- Easy for use and hand free carrying style designs
- Low power consumption with battery
- Embedded high sensitivity active antenna
- LED lights clearly indicate GPS / Bluetooth / Power status

In the box:-
- EMTAC Trine Bluetooth GPS reciever
- 5V AC charger
- Leather Case
- Manual

See this thread for more discussions.

JohnMiller · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 07, 2003 Posts: 6

Looked great! :D

Anyone who already tested it? I would happy to learn much about this Trine.

Question

Could it link with my O2 XDAII and another PDA or Notebook?

Question

Really at the same time?

Question

Does Emtac support for programming the logger?

Idea

If so, there might be a lot of interesting applications can be done.

John

RichardUpton · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 08, 2003 Posts: 2

Trine? I am using the Emtac's BT GPS now, for over one years, it is a very good GPS gadget. Who know it uses a standard type battery or?Anyway, will get one to try.

Robocop · Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:52 am Post subject: Trine in the U.K.

I can see the new Trine for sale on U.S. websites, but not on any U.K. ones.
Has anyone found one for sale over here yet or is it too early?

ajdelore · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2004 Posts: 16

I've just got my Trine this morning. It's my first GPS, so I can't say much about how it compares to others.

As far as multiple connections go, looking at the device in my bluetooth manager shows it has four serial ports available.

According to the documentation there are some limitations to what devices support multiple connections, but right now I've got the unit sitting in my office window and I have a position fix in Fugawi on both my Palm Tungsten T-2 and on my WinXP desktop.

I'm going out tonight to try it out.

Regards,
Anthony

Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

AMG_Roadster · Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 3:52 am Post subject:

Let us know what you think of the Trine. I am debating on getting the trine or the older Emtac. How many Sats are you getting? Where did you purchase your Trine from?

ajdelore · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2004 Posts: 16

I took the Trine out last night to check it out. I went for a 17K hike and located a geocache atop a nearby mountain.

My setup consisted of this:
- Trine in its Otterbox hanging around my neck
- Palm Tungsten T-2 in Otterbox carried in hand
- Fugawi navigation software w/ 1:50,000 topo maps loaded

Again, I'm new to GPS, but I'll answer questions as best I can. I'll keep posting more as I learn more about the unit.

1. Where did I get it?

I got my Trine from Transplant GPS -- www.transplantcomputing.com. It cost USD $279 with the WAAS firmware upgrade. It comes with a nice little slip case for your belt loop and a universal AC charger.

I also bought the otterbox (HIGHLY recommended -- get one of these for EVERYTHING that you own) and the car charging cable to charge the GPS and my Palm at the same time.

2. Accuracy / number of sattelites.

Sitting here in my office, I'm getting a fix from 3-4 satellites looking out the window. The unit is registering 11 satellites right now. I'm not sure how many I was able to get last night -- I didn't check.

Walking I never lost the fix, even walking up a mountain, through trees, and with the unit bumping and twisting around my neck. In fact, I've not had any point yet where I haven't gotten a fix. Fixes from the car were also 100%.

Part of this may be due to the fact that where I live (Yukon) is sparsely populated, so I expect I would have very little electromagnetic interference.

The unit was able to guide me accurately to within 2m of the geocache.

I did drop the Bluetooth connection once. Sadly, Fugawi won't reconnect it automatically, instead it gives you a dialog box that you need to click OK before it reconnects. I lost some track data this way.

Once I get the datalogger mastered, it would make more sense to use that for track recording -- then I'm not worried about the BT connection as much, as I can always re-establish it when I want to look at the map.

3. Datalogger

The Datalogger is accessible via a BT serial port. Emtac supplies a rudimentary program for Windows to access the unit, and also a manual listing the various commands and outputs.

Not very user-friendly -- you need to be pretty savvy, or else have software that supports it.

I was able to connect to the datalogger from the Palm using BTSerial Pro and issue some commands. If I saved common commands as graffiti shortcuts, it would probbably be relatively easy to get data dumps. You'd have to manually cut and paste them into a memo. Again, not very elegant -- it would be nice to have a Palm application.

Multiple connections are nice here, as you can be logged in to the datalogger and connected to the GPS on different BT serial ports.

Regards,
Anthony

AMG_Roadster · Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:21 am Post subject:

Anthony -- Thanks for the update. I was hoping you found a fantastic deal on the Trine. I am still debating it vs. the older Emtac.

Fieldgeek · Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:05 am Post subject:

I just got mine yesterday and ran into a small issue with it...

Here is what I am using:
Emtac Trine
HP Ipaq 4155 w/ Pocket PC 2003
Dell D600

I connect the Trine to the laptop and it works wonderfully, I can connect to either of the four available ports on the Trine.

I connect the Trine to the IPAQ, I can connect to any of the four ports however... after pairing the devices and all that wonderful stuff, the bluetooth connection drops in 1 second and loses the connection all together in ten. Humm...

So I connected the Trine to the laptop, connection was stable, then I connected the IPAQ to it also and the connection held and was stable??? So I am just a little confused at the moment, however, while I was using it it picked up satellites right away and started kicking out data. I'll play more later... Pocket PC Bluetooth blah...

Cheers,
Peter

Fieldgeek · Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 5:23 am Post subject:

Still no luck for me getting the IPAQ 4155 to work. Oh well. I will just use the laptop for now until I can figure something out for the IPAQ. So forget the hike and it is time to do a drive with the Trine!

DavidW · Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 4:57 pm Post subject:

As a matter of interest, what Bluetooth software are you using on the Dell Latitude D600? There's a D600 under my fingers right now that I'm using to get rid of the final nits in the configuration - great laptop!

Dell have recently released A05 Bluetooth code (look on support.dell.com under TrueMobile 300 Bluetooth), which is the new Widcomm 3.0 stack, implementing the latest Bluetooth 1.2 specification. Be aware - it takes an age to install (probably ten minutes), as it has to reflash the firmware on the BC02 Bluetooth card. Do not interrupt it - if you do, you'll probably land up with a dead Bluetooth card, which is a pain to change in a D600 (you've got to take most of the laptop apart to get to it).

I noticed quite a few bugs in my iPAQ 3970's Bluetooth code compared to the A05 Dell code. My 3970 has the Pocket PC 2003 upgrade, so it's a Widcomm 1.4 stack, but the fairly early build 58. I suspect that there'll be no further upgrades for the 3970. Sad

David

Fieldgeek · Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:03 am Post subject:

It appears that I am working off of Dell revision A02 for the Bluetooth software with 1.4.1.3 for a Widcomm driver version on the D600. My firm packages these drivers to massive amounts of machine builds so we don't upgrade this stuff much unless there is some huge problem. I will probably upgrade my Bluetooth drivers soon for BT 1.2 support, just to do some evaluation. I'll post when I do that.

As for my IPAQ I have a version 1.4.1, Build 74 Driver. I am hoping the Pocket PC 2003 SE update comes out soon for these things as I am hoping there will be some updated drivers, but from what I can tell it is most likely a problem with the Trine, so I am hoping possibly for an update to firmware from them too! Time to keep trolling the fourms in hope though!

Thank you for letting me know about the Dell update! I usually don't keep up on Dell updates as I had a C600 that went through like 20 BIOS revisions from them, it was funny in some ways.

Peter

Fieldgeek · Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 12:14 pm Post subject:

Well, I am not so sure if it a problem with one or the other... or both.
IPAQ 4155 + Trine does not work.
Dell D600 + Trine works.
Dell D600 + IPAQ 4155 + Trine works.

But as I move the laptop out of range of the Trine, the IPAQ 4155 loses its connection when the laptopt disconnects from the Trine so... HP or Emtac problem? That means only one thing; I need more devices to play with!

ajdelore · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2004 Posts: 16

It is curious that you are having problems with the IPAQ.

Based on the fact that the documentation (what little there is) that comes with the unit only talks about IPAQs, I would think that would be the one system they had tested it with. Palm or other PocketPC devices get no mention at all.

I've been having great results using it my TT2. I was having problems maintaining the Bluetooth connection, but I deleted BtToggle (software that automatically turns BT on and off) and they went away.

I also switched from Fugawi palm software to PathAway. Wow... It's like night and day. PathAway is way faster, way more powerful...

Have you done much with the datalogger yet?

Fieldgeek · Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 2:17 am Post subject:

I have not gotten a chance to take my laptop out much with this thing. Next weekend I will be driving quite a bit so I will hook it up and see what it does. I can't test it much where I am at work, I get two satelites (I work in downtown Chicago Illinois, too many big building and steel).

Actually, the problem is with my IPAQ and the Trine is the fact that I like both and having both work for me is too good to be true. Technology and me have a mutual hate for each other. I can command it sometimes but it lets me know who is in charge.

Yes, I am going to e-mail Emtacs tech support people and see if they have anything to say along with HP. Or I can just take my Trine to a store and test the different IPAQs and copy the BT stack from one that works and hack it apart to work on mine. Who knows, I can dream can't I?

Cheers,
Peter

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