GPS Navigation For Cyclists With The iPhone

Wild and crazy Zeptotools has come up with an ingenious way to incorporate an iPhone’s GPS navigation application and an HMD display with the act of riding a bicycle, creating the first cell phone based bicycle navigation system that I am aware of.   They call this system ARider.

While there are many, many detractors of this system – the folks over at Zeptotools do deserve some credit for putting together a prototype of their idea even if it doesn’t prove to be commercially viable.  One has to admit that what they have done in combining these technologies together is just plain cool and that the world of cell phone navigation, GPS tracking applications, and the iPhone will never be the same.

Zeptotools is an iPhone app developer who has created some very slick, very interesting applications. There current applications include ZeptoPad, ZeptoLiner, IRCon, iShodo, BullCam, Quick Pigeon, and Montblanc Pen. The short video to the right gives a really good impression with the type of stuff that these guys are putting out. Everything about it, the music, the cinematography, and even the way the people are dressed gives you all you need to know to understand what these guys are about. Cool stuff. Chic. Web 2.0. Etc.

ARider does not stray from this feel.  While still in the prototype phase, the design is sleek and appealing.  And even though they use Scotch tape to attach the HMD to the bike helmet it still looks really cool.  Here is a video of the GPS system in action to give a little flavor of what this device actually looks like.  It was put together by the folks at Zeptotools so you know it is going to have a cool music score (which it does).  So here it is:

Pretty cool if you ask me. A working prototype for cycling GPS navigation.

The Detractors

With anything so visionary you are going to get people who want to hate on it. The ARider GPS navigation system is no different. Just take a look at some of these comments about this revolutionary GPS tracking mapping device:

Putting your expensive smart phone on top of your bike helmet seems like a good way to destroy it and possibly yourself too, if you get into an accident, which is in turn made more likely by adding distracting displays to your field of view.

And this one:

Dangerous to your expensive iPhone and useless. The only way this would be slightly useful is if you were in a new, unfamiliar city. Urban cyclists, after a year or so of riding, don’t need a map to tell them how to get around their city. In fact, most of the pertinent information to cycling isn’t on any map, let alone Google. Isn’t cycling wonderful because of the freedom? Why would we want to make it more car-like and stick a HMD in front of us?

And another:

As a cyclist, I must say this is a great way to get badly injured while cycling. It’s bad enough to text while driving, but to be distracted on a bike is insanity.

This pretty much sums up the voices of dissent who are too short sighted to see just how cool this thing is. As a regular bike commuter I think that this devices is incredibly cool and could be extremely useful for a whole host of applications, not just GPS navigation related.

ARider and GPS Tracking

One of the coolest things about this application is that it offers an augmented reality.  Apache helicopter pilots experience the same sort of thing when they pilot their helicopter.  The main machine gun mounted on the underside of the helicopter is controlled by the turning of the head of the gunner.  His vision is completely augmented by his helmet and it does take a lot of training to get used to the effect that this has one’s vision.  But that doesn’t mean that this is bad.

For example, not military personnel say, “That sure seems like a good way to crash a multi-million dollar helicopter and waste all the man hours we spent training that pilot.”  That is just silly.  The fact is that augmented reality is powerful and useful tool for incorporating electronic inputs into our realm of experience.

Bionic Eye GPS TrackingI can imagine something like this but use it in relation to people.  Bionic Eye, an iPhone app, already augments reality with business locations.  What would prevent someone creating an application that works together with a GPS tracking application that will give you an idea of where actual people are in your field of vision?  Now that would be fun, useful, and interesting to use.

You could always know where friends and family are at any given moment with the aid of GPS and an augmented reality.  All you would have to do is look in their general direction and you could get a really cool visual of exactly where they are in relation to you just the photo to the right suggests.

The applications for this technology would be robust.  How easy would it be to keep your kids safe in a theme park if you could get a visual idea of how far away they were at any given moment?  You wouldn’t panic if your child gets lost in a crowd or is briefly separated from you.  All you would need to do is use your GPS tracking augmented reality to come up with an idea of where they are at.

The same is true for Alzheimer suffers, teen drivers, spouses, friends, important assets, and the list goes on and on.

So I think that the work by the folks at Zeptotools is really, really cool and could impact not only the world of GPS navigation for cyclists, but also impact how people begin to interact with their position in a way that is currently only being utilized by the military.  Once GPS tracking augmented reality feasible in the day to day of life I think that it will catch on like wildfire and change the face of GPS tracking forever.

Zeptotools: http://zeptotools.com/

Geomate Jr: A Kids GPS For An Active Child

Geocaching is a great way for kids to ditch their video games and TV for an active outdoor adventure.  Kids need some type of excuse to get outside and play in the great outdoors. A life of video games and TV has led to high levels of obesity in America when combined with a steady diet of processed food. Our children need to exercise if they are to break the cycle, so finding interesting and compelling reasons to get them out the door is something that parents are going to be looking for at every opportunity.

Geocaching combines our children’s love for technology with their need to get outside and DO something.  It is like a real life video game, kids must use an electronic device to find a hidden treasure located somewhere around them.  The device guides them to their location and helps them navigate the world around them.  The can run, or bike, or even walk on their search – all of theses activities are recommended by government orginizations as great ways to improve your child’s health.

But there is one catch with geocaching, the GPS devices traditionally used for it are anything but cheap.  Devices like the Garmin GPS 60CSx Handheld GPS Navigator and the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx Color High-Sensitivity Mapping Handheld GPS run somewhere above $200 a piece. Sure, they are great devices that can be used for way more than just geocaching, but do you really want to bed dropping that much money on a device that will help your kids play?

Savy to this issue, a company and product was create to solve this issue: Geomate.jr.  The product is significantly cheaper than the more traditional geocaching alternatives provide by Garmin and other GPS manufacturers.  Right now, you can get it for about $70 at REI. The only thing that even really comes close to this in terms of price is the Garmin eTrex H Handheld GPS Navigator, which is being sold four about $85.

The Garmin eTrex has received some pretty high praise from its users as a geocaching GPS.  Here is one that I though was particularly telling:

This is my primary Geocaching GPS. The high sensitivity chip has the same strong processing power, and thus signal sensitivity and position resolution, as any of the more expensive units. It gives me excellent accuracy in areas where my older GPS units just give up, even dense forest cover.

If you’re only interested in point to point navigation (geocaching, trail tracks or just finding your way back to the car or the ski chalet), then this unit will do a great job for a no-regrets price.

In my opinion, this is going to be the product that you are going to want to compare the Geomate.jr up against if you begin to seriously consider it as a geocaching tool for your child since the price difference is only about $15.

So, what are the Geomate.jr’s features?

  • Comes preloaded with about 250,000 geocache locations covering all 50 U.S. states
  • Turn the unit on and it will load up the closest geocaching location stored in memory; to find another location simply press the next button and the GPS device will automatically load the next closest cahce
  • Not only does the location of the nearest cache appear, but other important details also are displayed, such as the Geocaching.com ID code, the terrain, difficulty rating, and the size of the cache
  • Has a “Home” waypoint that will assist you in returning to your point of origin
  • Displays compass heading, latitude and longitude
  • You can keep a log of all the caches that you have visted so far so that you don’t do the same cache twice if you don’t want to
  • The ability to add more caches at a point in the future (at an additional cost)
  • Powered for 12 hours on AAA batteries

The features that seem the nicest about the Geomate.jr is that the loading of the geocaches is automatic.  You don’t need to input the coordinates into your device yourself since they already exist within the memory.  This seems idealy suited to kids who might not be familiar with how to input some information into a handhelf GPS navigation device like the Garmin eTrex H Handheld GPS Navigator.

But I also think that this feature is also the biggest drawback to this device.  Without the ability to add your own caches to the device you run the risk of the Geomate.jr running out of caches for your child to go and find.  Do you really want to fork out money for cache updates that you could do for free on the more traditional handheld GPS?  I don’t think I would as long as my child was wise enough to be able to input coordinates into the GPS device themselves.

It is also pretty important to note that none of these devices are going to let you be able to track your kids with GPS.  Instead, they are just there for enterainment purposes.

What do you think, is the Geomate.jr worth buying or would you rather go with the Garmin eTrex H Handheld GPS Navigator?