GR-231 Power Saving Mode?

wibbly · Frequent Visitor Joined: Dec 20, 2003 Posts: 315

Actaully got to look at the manual, which claims over 16hrs battery life in "Power Saving" mode.

What is this mode (does it still trcak in this mode)?
How do I put it in this mode?
Does this mode integrate with TTN3?

John

DavidW · Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2004 11:46 am Post subject:

Assuming a SiRF chipset, it's probably talking about trickle mode.

There's various flavours of trickle mode - the more aggressive the power saving, the more functionality is lost. Even the least aggressive trickle settings lose SBAS functionality. The most aggressive ones drop to producing updated fixes at longer intervals than the usual one second.

Switching to trickle mode is not entirely straightforward; there's not many programs that will do it. I would expect it to affect your GPS performance to a greater or lesser extent (just how much is something you'd have to test), and don't really see the value of it for in-car navigation, especially as external power from the vehicle should be available.

David

Mapwalker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 04, 2004 Posts: 35

Xtrac does not sppport the energy saving trickle mode of ST SiRF receivers!

DavidW · Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2004 10:13 pm Post subject:

I agree; I don't believe there's any support for trickle mode in Xtrac firmware. If the GPS is Xtrac, I'm stumped!

David

wibbly · Frequent Visitor Joined: Dec 20, 2003 Posts: 315

Well, as it's a GR-231, it's supposed to be XT2. And power saving is mentioned in the spec.

Oh well... Of only cursory interest if most software like TT can't exploit it anyway.

J

lbendlin · Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2004 2:15 pm Post subject:

The software (like TT) doesn't know about the power save mode, and it doesn't care - all it waits for are positions from the receiver, no matter how and when they were acquired.

It's more a usage pattern question. Power save really only makes sense for outdoors / city walk use. I've been using it very successfully on the bicycle with the iPAQ GPS jacket - extended the iPAQ's battery life quite a bit.
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