INTRODUCTION
Getting from one place
to another requires three things: You have to
know where you are, which way you're facing, and how
to get from where you are to where you want to be.
Having been blessed with a nearly inerrant sense of
direction, I've never had a problem with the second
one and I've used mapping software on my Pocket PC
since there was such a thing to deal with the third.
The first (knowing where I am) has been an issue at
times. That's where a GPS unit makes itself most
useful. By itself, the GPS unit can tell you
where you are, which direction you're moving, how fast
you're going, and even how far above sea-level you
happen to be.
The ANYCOM GP-600 GPS provides all that functionality in a
compact, highly portable unit which connects to your
Pocket PC, without wires, using Bluetooth.
WHAT'S HOT
Bluetooth connecting
offers several advantages for GPS: First, you
won't need to find the right cables to connect your
Pocket PC to the GPS unit. That can be quite an
exercise. Second, you can place the GPS unit
where it gets optimum reception and place your Pocket
PC where you can optimally read the screen even if
those spots are up to three feet away from each other.
ANYCOM GP-600 GPS with
Pocket PC for size comparison
(click the image above for the full-sized picture)
The GP-600 is also very small (only 3.6" tall, 3.2" wide, and 0.88" deep). It fits easily into a shirt pocket. It also has three indicator lights: The top light shows batter charge level. The middle light shows whether you've acquired GPS satellite signals. The bottom light shows whether the Bluetooth radio is on and whether it's connected. Most other GPS units don't offer that level of feedback without software.
SETUP
What comes in the
box? (clockwise from top left)
manual, software CD-ROM, car adapter (powers both GPS
and PPC), AC adapter (both 220 and 110 volt), ANYCOM
GP-600
The ANYCOM GP-600 comes with everything you see above. Preparing it for use involves three things: First you should charge the GP-600's internal battery. Second you need to set up the link between the GP-600 and your Pocket PC. Third, you should install ANYCOM's support software for the GP-600.
Charging the Battery
The ANYCOM GP-600 has an internal, rechargeable battery. The unit can run off of the AC adapter or the car adapter without charging the battery, but, if you want to use it away from a power source, you'll need to charge up the battery. The AC adapter or the car adapter plug into the GP-600 on the left side, just below the status lights (see the picture below).
Right side of GP-600 showing the power
connector
The AC adapter comes prepared to handle either 220-volt (European) or 110-volt (US) power. There's a small adapter that you place over the 220-volt plug to convert it to a 110-volt plug.
Setting up the Bluetooth Connection
Setting up the Bluetooth Connection may differ slightly, depending on which Pocket PC you have. The following will show how it looks on the hp 2215 iPAQ. Before you set up the connection, your GPS unit should be fully charged and turned on. You'll also have to make sure the unit is turned on using the switch on front.
ANYCOM GP-600 top view
showing the switch to turn the unit on
The Bluetooth connection to the GP-600 is done via the Serial Port (emulation) profile. The Bluetooth software on your Pocket PC doesn't actually "know" that it's talking to a GPS unit. As far as Bluetooth is concerned, it's just some serial port profile supporting device. The specifics of working with GPS are handled by the support software. Since you're not working with a specialized Bluetooth profile, you'll begin by "browsing" or "exploring" the device.
Bluetooth connection --
first select explore/browse
When you start browsing, you may find more than one Bluetooth device present. The one you want to select is the ANYCOM GP-600 XXXX like the one shown below.
Bluetooth connection --
next select the MW-140BT
Once you've selected the GPS unit, you'll see something like the screen shown below. The only profile that the GP-600 supports is Serial Port emulation, so select it and press next.
Bluetooth connection --
select the Serial Port profile
That completes the Bluetooth connection setup.
From now on, your Pocket PC will recognize a serial
connection to the ANYCOM GP-600 and you can use that
connection in any software that allows
serially-connected GPS units. If you have more
than one Bluetooth serial device, you'll get a dialog
box asking which you want to connect to each time you
start up the software. Just select the GP-600
and you'll be all set.
One other thing you will need to know for using the GP-600
with other software is the COM port number that the
Bluetooth radio uses for emulation. On an iPAQ,
go to Settings|Connections|Bluetooth|Serial Port (tab)
and note the Outbound COM port number. Your
software will want to know that in order to connect to
the GPS unit.
Bluetooth connection --
note the Outbound COM Port number
the CD-ROM
The CD-ROM that comes with the GP-600 provides a minimal set of utility software for Pocket PCs, Palm handhelds, and Windows laptop or desktop systems. The CD-ROM does not autostart. Depending on your system settings, it may open to show the list of files as shown below:
ANYCOM GP-600 Support
Software
The CD-ROM that I received for this review has Quick
Connection Guides (in the PDA Connection folder) for
both Pocket PC and Palm handhelds. Oddly, the
Pocket PC quick installation guide was in English and
the Palm guide installation guide was in German.
There is also a an electronic copy of the manual that
comes with the GP-600 with sections in English,
German, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portugese. All of the documentation is in Adobe Acrobat format so
ANYCOM includes the Adobe reader software for the
desktop as well.
For software, there is a small application, called Satellite
Viewer that shows you which of the various GPS
satellites the GPS unit can "see" and how good the
signal is from each one. Finally there is the
ANYCOM Blue GP-600 program. This program simply
copies the appropriate manuals and PDF reader to your
desktop system for easy reference.
PRODUCT FEATURES
Hardware
ANYCOM GP-600 GPS (front
view)
The ANYCOM GP-600 GPS combines a SysOnChip SiRF Star
He/LP 12 channel GPS receiver with a Bluetooth serial
port emulator operating at up to 38,400b/s. For
those that can't read GPS technicalese, what it means
is that the GP-600 can lock onto up to 12 GPS
satellites at a time and communicate using either SiRF
(binary) or NMEA (text codes) over a Bluetooth serial
connection that can transfer about 2400 characters per
second.
The GP-600 also has a built-in ceramic patch antenna,
but it's also capable of using an optional add-on
antenna for improved reception.
The unit comes with a 220-volt/110-volt AC adapter and
a car adapter with a Y-connector so you can power both
your Pocket PC and the GP-600 from one car power
outlet. It comes with minimal mounting hardware
which is basically a set of sticky-tape/velcro
patches.
Software (Satellite Viewer)
The only software that's included with the ANYCOM GP-600 is a "Satallite Viewer." The program connects to the GPS satellites and shows you three different views of the information they're providing. The menu below shows all three.
ANYCOM's Satellite
Viewer program -- view options
The first view, called "Satellite View," is shown below.
ANYCOM's Satellite
Viewer program (Satellite view)
The Satellite View shows all GPS satellites within
range of the GPS receiver as well as their positions
in the sky. The blue color indicates a good
signal. The red color indicates a weak signal.
The "Navigation View" (shown below) puts the information the
GPS satellites send together to provide your speed,
latitude, longitude, altitude, and the date and time.
(UTC is Universal Time Coordinated. It's the
same as Greenwich Mean Time or the time at Time Zone
0.)
ANYCOM's Satellite
Viewer program (Navigation view)
The final view isn't useful for the end-user, but can be quite useful for developers working on GPS products. The "Developers View" shows the raw code coming from the GPS unit. With that, a developer can look at how his or her program is interpreting the data stream to find errors in their coding.
ANYCOM's Satellite
Viewer program (Developers view)
You've probably noticed the "Tools" menu in the screen shots above. The Tools menu provides access to the GPS hardware and settings. You can connect or disconnect to the GPS unit and you can change the Port Setting so that the program is looking at the right Bluetooth serial port.
ANYCOM's Satellite
Viewer program -- view options
You can also send the GP-600 a set of commands. The first pane in the Command dialog (shown below) lets you initialize the GP-600. This is useful if you've turned off your Pocket PC and it's having trouble re-negotiating the Bluetooth connection or in other situations where Pocket PC or GPS unit have become "confused." Unfortunately, the documentation doesn't tell you what the difference between Hot, Warm, Cold, and Factory Starts are. In my testing, I never had to use anything other than a Warm Start.
ANYCOM's Satellite
Viewer program (Initialize functions)
Tapping on the "NMEA" tab gives you the pane shown below. It allows you to set certain parameters that effect how the NMEA coding is generated. Unfortunately (again) there is no documentation about what these values do.
ANYCOM's Satellite
Viewer program (NMEA settings)
The final "SiRF" tab of the Command dialog gives you the pane shown below. The only SiRF option is to change the Baudrate (speed of transmission). The GP-600 hardware is able to determine the other serial parameters that are being used by your Pocket PC's Bluetooth serial port.
ANYCOM's Satellite
Viewer program (SiRF settings)
Software (using the GP-600 with other GPS programs)
You're probably asking yourself "How well does this GPS unit work with other software?". Well, since the GP-600 doesn't come with any mapping software, I'm not going to highlight any particular program here. However, I will say that I tested it with both NavMan SmartST and Pharos Ostia software. Once the GP-600 locked onto the GPS satellites it performed very well. I had no problems using it with either program.
HELP SUPPORT
The printed manual that comes
with the GP-600 is a bit on the terse side.
However ANYCOM does provide a nice Quick Start
connection guide on the CD-ROM that should get you
connected via Bluetooth. The software, while
fairly self-explanatory, doesn't have any help at all.
The only real problem with that is understanding what
the difference between a "Hot Start" and a "Warm
Start" and what the various SiRF and NMEA
settings mean. More documentation would have
been greatly appreciated.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
The ANYCOM GP-600 GPS
supports both NMEA and SiRF GPS protocols. Any
software that works with either of these should work
with the GP-600. I was able to use it with both
the NavMan and Pharos software. The GP-600
supports Bluetooth 1.1 specifications and uses the
Serial Port (emulation) profile to connect. That
should allow you to use the unit with virtually any
Bluetooth-enabled Pocket PC or laptop.
Ironically, the one device I had difficulty connecting
the GP-600 to was also an ANYCOM product. It was
extremely difficult to connect the GP-600 to my ANYCOM
BT2000 Compact Flash card. That's not a fault of
the GP-600 though. The BT2000 doesn't use a
standard driver or approach to Bluetooth on the Pocket
PC.
The Satellite Viewer software that ANYCOM provides with the
GP-600 uses only 140KB of program memory to run and
takes up 193KB of storage.
BUGS AND WISHES
My only real issue with the GP-600 was the time it
took for it to lock-on to the GPS satellites.
I'm used to a maximum time of about three minutes.
The GP-600 took nearly eight. That's nothing if
you're taking a trip across two states, but it's not
good when you just want to shoot across town to a
place you've never been.
The next issue could be a plus or a minus depending on your
situation. The CP-600 doesn't come with any
mapping software at all. As a plus, that means
you can select which software you'd like to use with
the unit. As a minus, you'll have to make an
additional purchase before you can use the GP-600 for
anything other than a fancy compass/altimeter/velocitometer.
One final issue with the GP-600 is the rechargeable battery.
It's a Li-ion battery so it doesn't have "memory"
problems, but, like all Li-ion batteries, it does have
a lifespan of about 3 years. It's also built
in so you'll have to send it the GPS unit back to
ANYCOM for a replacement when it does go. If
they made it a user-replaceable battery, it would save
shipping costs for the user. Other companies use
AAA-sized alkaline batteries for this reason.
PURCHASING
You can purchase the ANYCOM GP-600 GPS
at the pocketnow Store for $249.95 (US).
Stand-alone mapping software will cost around $100
additional. If you buy the NavMan Bluetooth GPS
unit and software together, however, you'll spend
about $319.95. That makes the GP-600 not
particularly a bargain.
PROS
- Small and light
- Connects wirelessly via Bluetooth
- Power, GPS signal, and BT connection status lights
CONS
- Non-user-replaceable battery
- Takes a long time to connect to GPS satellites
- No mapping software provided
- No help files or explanatory documentation provided
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
I'm impressed by the
size of the GP-600. It's actually noticeably
thinner than the NavMan GPS unit. I'm also
impressed with the amount of information you can get
simply by looking at the lights on the front of the
GP-600. However, I wasn't impressed by the time
it took to lock-in the GPS satellites. It took
more than twice the time to lock-in compared to the
NavMan. With that in mind, I can't truly recommend the
product. If your needs are such that the 8
minutes to lock isn't an issue, the ANYCOM GP-600 is a
great unit. If you're often pressed for time,
look elsewhere.
