[Vibrant General] kobesabi:
* This involves setting up connection via bluetooth to external GPS sensor. If you already know about this, just skip this post. No flaming needed

If not and still frustrate with GPS accuracy with all the latest ROMs, then read on.

I'm just posting so late researcher and newbies are aware of this quick and easy option too instead of the soldering or other alteration that involves open up the physical device. I've been using it for almost 2 years but did not have time to read around much so did not know about this option until recently. I'm slow...I know...lol

Recently, I've been researching for better solid GPS solution and how to cut down battery drain on ICS & JellyBean and ran into a video that involve using external bluetooth. (I did tried the Corrected GPS hardware fix, didn't really help...)

Anyway, I found several external sensors out there, but the ones that are cheap and small are $12 TomTom MKII or $25 Globesat BT-368i at ebay/amazon.

I thought globesat has more capability and longer rechargeable battery life (10+) so I got the Globesat. But MKii probably will do just fine.

Vibrant built-in GPS sensor works great for Froyo, but so-so or OK for GB, ICS, JB, CM7, CM9, or CM10.

When the built-in works, it has all kind of restriction such as does not work after CPU goes into deep sleep or you must do full lock immediately after reboot and before deep sleep & cannot toggle the gps off again.

So any solution that work ON/OFF on demand that is locks quickly with accuracy of within 30ft is perfect to me. You need accuracy of 30 ft or less or else google map or some other program will jump around on locking where you are and give false/wierd direction.

Fortunately, the option of using external GPS sensor via bluetooth is available in most Android and does the job well. I use GPS almost daily to check if there is traffic jam or other quicker alternative detour so the external bluetooth is always available in my car is perfect.

Not only that, it can save your battery too.

I gained about 5 hrs of battery time with Wifi & GPS off most of the time. I get even more battery time when I put the phone on Airplane mode and use GPS exclusively via bluetooth - meaning only bluetooth enable. I don't know how to explain it but I noticed it does. I guess the external sensor does most of the work and just relay minimal data to it and built-in radio/wifi/gps not running so it saves ton of battery.

So far, the coolest thing that worked now is I got more battery out of the phone under ICS or JellyBean ROM (not using built-in gps with wifi off) under Airplane mode and offline turn-by-turn navigation (google maps & Sygic) that still work with external sensor via bluetooth. In essence, that is like having the traditional garmin or tomtom gps anywhere you go as long as you have map available stored locally on your phone (aka offline). Sygic allows you to buy entire US map or the world and put it on your phone for offline navigation. Google maps allow only 6 offline map where each map is around 70-82mb or less. I got entire Orange county in my offline map and can use external gps to pinpoint where i am. The only sucky thing with google maps is you have to get the turn by turn navigation first then you can toggle gps off. Sygic does not rely on built-in gps enable in order for it to work. This is all great the next time I go to Yellowstone National park, since cell signal there sucks for T-mobile. With the external gps, you can put it on your hat and go hiking and still get gps to work wether you use online or offline Google maps, Sygic, Locus, or Orux....

To get your device able to use external GPS sensor via bluetooth, all you have to do is:

1) buy the bluetooth GPS sensor

2) download & install Bluetooth GPS app on android market ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=googoo.android.btgps&hl=en ) by Googoo Android

3) run it, checkmarked "Enable Mock GPS Provider", click Connect

4) go to device Settings, checkmarked "allow mock locations" or equivalent.

5) that's all...use any map software online or offline kind.

The lock I got with this is within 1 second and accuracy of around 6-15ft (on globalsat BT-368i)

You can use this device during hiking to save your cell battery.

You can also use it with mac, pc, windows phone, laptop, tablets that do not have gps sensor built-in with it...all for $12-25...worth it