Freerunner in real world
Helge Hafting
helge.hafting at hist.no
Wed Sep 16 16:34:30 CEST 2009
Michael Pilgermann wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> last weekend I went for a small cycling tour and I thought, with gps in my Freerunner and track load capabilities of tangogps there is no need anymore for physical maps - I took the Freerunner with me.
>
> I was really impressed, how smoothly the whole thing was working. No problems with the GPS; no problems with tangogps either.
> However, two small problems:
> - I could not attach the phone properly to my bike; had to put it in a front bag and this was somehow a pain;
I bought a generic phone holder for cars. They are adjustable to fit
many phones, so you can find one that fits the FR.
It wasn't that hard to attach the holder to the bike. It was meant to be
glued to the car window, I glued it to the gearshifter cover on the
bike. And secured it with cable ties, in case the glue doesn't hold.
> - The power capacity was just enough to bring me from A to B; another (longer) trip might result in troubles / me getting lost :(
>
If you can't find a battery, get a generic "USB power supply". The FR is
fortunately not the only phone that is charged via USB. So there are
many generic USB chargers around. I would not be surprised if you can
find one that contains plain AA batteries. Such devices certainly exists
for nokia and ericsson phones.
You can save power by letting the display turn off - just tap it when
you actually need to see the map. Lower backlight intensity at night
also saves power.
> So my question: has anybody got any experiences with
> - attaching a Freerunner to a bike (maybe even incl. sun protection)
The sun is tricky - polarized sunglasses may remove reflected light
though. The same problem exists in boats, have a look at sun covers for
boat instruments. Might need some work though.
Helge Hafting
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