xGPS - GPS for iPhone / iPod touch

A small post to summarize the work done until now. Because of some legal problems we have delayed the opening of the orders. But now we will focus all our efforts to be able to accept orders on the 31th of July. The final product photos and videos will be presented on this date too.

On the software side we have solved a lot of bug and have quite finished the driving directions support.

Many have asked the following questions:

- Will this software be compatible with firmware 2.0 ? Yes it will be.

- Will the software be on the AppStore: No. Because of the very restrictive conditions of use of the Apple SDK. Moreover the serial port is not accessible anymore on non-jail-broken devices.

- Will the software be free: Yes.

- To which countries are you shipping: Worldwide.

- Does driving directions work in my country ? Check on Google Maps. If it works on Google Maps, it will work in xGPS.

Thank you for your interest in the project.

After the lot of emails we have received, we have decided to clear up the situation about the price of the hardware.

Unfortunately it means bad news because price of GPS modules are really high. That’s not our fault :-).

By adding all the components prices we get a total price of 70$, including the production of the device.

However this price doesn’t include the box. It is our current problem. We cannot find a good box for this device. Our goal is to add maximum 5$ for the box.

We are currently in touch with some GPS Module suppliers to get reduction with some bulk buy. It means that we will not start any shipping until a minimum of 30 orders have been placed.

To summarize, the total hardware xGPS module will cost 75$ for now (or 70$ without a case). We hope we can reduce a little bit the price. The package will include the xGPS Module, compatible with iPhone and iPod touch, and the xGPS software usable even if there is no Internet connection.

An important thing to know is that the firmware of the module can be updated through the iPhone / iPod touch. Hence it is possible to make it compatible with other software solution if a special protocol is needed.

We haven’t yet a precise date about the start of the shipping but we can expect a shipping date on the end of July. We will ship these modules worldwide.

For those who are interested in buying the xGPS module after having read these information, we ask them to register themselves with the form below. It is only a pre-order. It is here just to give us a precise idea of how many units have to be produced. When the sufficient amount of pre-orders requests will be received, we will contact you to confirm your order. You will have then the possibility to cancel it.

Pre-Orders are now closed. Orders will be opened next week (18-07-2008).

We are proud to announce you that the final version of the hardware has been finished and is fully working. It is based on the same hardware as the first prototype and work flawlessly.

The following main hardware is used:

• EM408 SirfIII 20 Channels GPS Module from USGlobalSat. (You can buy it from Sparkfun or directly from USGlobalSat)
• Microchip PIC18F25J10 clocked at 20Mhz. (Available here)

All other parts are standard (with the exception of the dock connector which you can buy from Ridax).

As told in the last post, the overall system seek the following:

As we can see, when the GPS module is disabled, it doesn’t seek any current (5 mA is really nothing…). We haven’t done any battery life test now but it should not decrease a lot the iPhone / iPod autonomy.

We provide the full schematic and the PCB used to built the xGPS module.

• xGPS Module schematic
• xGPS Module PCB - All Layouts and xGPS Module PCB - Only the TOP and BOTTOM layers

We are proposing to sell these GPS module for the iPhone / iPod touch if there are many demands. If you are interested, feel free to contact us here: http://www.xwaves.net/?inc=contact.

We are now focusing our work on the software side of the project to be able to use the GPS without any Internet connection.

After two months the project has been launched here are some fresh news.

The first hand-made prototype has been done and is successfully working. The hardware is based on a Sirf-III chipset connected to a Microchip microcontroller. The overall system is connected to iPhone / iPod touch through the serial port. The client application on the iPhone / iPod touch can activate / deactivate the GPS to reduce power consumption when it is not needed. The actual power consumption in use is about 82mA. When the GPS is not activated the power consumption is 7mA. Some work is in progress to reduce the latter.

Here is a photo of the current draft prootype:

The client application update the user position each second and display on the Map application. Unfortunatly it means that user should be connected to the Internet because at each update a request will be sent to the Map servers.

The next parts of the project are:

• Produce the PCB of the current prototype (work in progress…)
• Create an application with local maps (like the PSP Maps application) to be able to use the GPS without Internet connection. The map would be downloaded from Google maps and then stored on the iPod / iPhone for further use.

Any help about the last part is really appreciated. If you feel capable to develop a part of it, fell free to try and send results using the Contact page of the Xwaves main website (http://www.xwaves.net/).

Here is a little presentation video of the current project state: