Reviewed By	Darren Griffin
Review Date	7th September 2011
Manufacturer	Bad Elf
RRP	$99.00
9

If you own an iPhone 2G, iPod Touch or an iPad Wi-Fi only then you'll already know that GPS is not available to you and you can't use any navigation applications. Unless you have this rather neat GPS dongle from US company Bad Elf.

I followed the early development of this product with keen interest back in the days before Apple had graced it's iPhone with an internal GPS receiver. It was clear way back then that the designers were keen to produce a quality product and whilst time has marched on, and iPhones do now have GPS, there is still a large target market for this solution.

The device itself is little bigger than the 30-way connector to which it is designed to attach and is a teeny 27mm x 33mm x 10mm in size, it has a microUSB socket on it's bottom and an adjacent status LED and is designed (and very importantly Apple approved) to plug in via the Apple 30-way sync connector.

Bad Elf have chosen an MTK chipset that supports SBA/WAAS/EGNOS/MSAS and it also supports A-GPS.

The microUSB socket allows the connected device to be charged whilst the GPS dongle is in use as well as synced if necessary and a small detachable lanyard allows it to be attached to your key ring when not in use.

Also included is a high quality 6ft long USB - microUSB cable. Bad Elf advise that you should leave the dongle connected to your computer via this cable overnight to ensure the internal rechargeable battery is fully charged, This battery provides power to the the memory that stores GPS data and speeds up first fix.

In Use

As soon as the dongle is connected to your iOS device you will be prompted to download the free Bad Elf app from the App Store. The app, once installed, ensures that you have the latest A-GPS data (which speeds up satellite lock times) and also, helpfully, checks for updated firmware, a nice touch. It's all very slick and well thought out.

Once you're updated, launch a GPS enabled application and you will see the status LED on the dongle illuminate as follows:

Because the receiver is Apple approved, when connected, it intercepts GPS communication to any location aware application seamlessly. As far as the application is concerned, the dongle is invisible and the GPS data is presented in the same manner as if it had come from an internal GPS. This means it should work with any GPS app (some caveats apply in respect of those apps that expect a data connection - see below).

For those iOS owners with a non-GPS equipped device who are looking to add GPS, Bad Elf's dongle works perfectly. Whilst it won't be the answer for anyone wishing to use apps such as Google Maps that require access to mobile data, you can always use a MiFi or other mobile data terminal if you wished. I tested the dongle with Garmin, TomTom, NDrive and Memory-Map on an iPod Touch and all worked perfectly.

But this dongle also has benefits for owners of 3G, 3GS, iPad 1 and 2 and even the latest iPhone4 models as, in testing, it proved to be much more sensitive than the internal receives in existing products, particularly so in the case of the 3G and 3GS whose receivers have been notoriously insensitive. It was very fast to acquire a first fix, often doing so in less than 20secs and rarely more than 30 even when performing a cold start.

The flip side is that, as with all GPS devices, they are power hungry and so you should not expect to use this for more than a few hours unless you have some form of external power, either via power in your vehicle or an external battery pack. My iPhone4 managed 3hrs constant use running MotionX GPS with the Bad Elf GPS attached and pulling in map data over 3G. With careful use, WiFi/3G off and backlight reduced this could easily be stretched out to >4hrs.

At $99 it's a reasonable option for anyone who wants GPS support for their device without the expense of upgrading to a GPS equipped device.

Bad Elf GPS App Screenshots