BluetoothGPS

Howto connect a bluetooth GPS module to Nokia 770

Note: some applications (such as Maemo Mapper) can access your bluetooth GPS without performing these steps.

For this to work you need to be root. HowDoiBecomeRoot.

Follow these steps:

1 . Using xterm, scan for remote BT devices:

#!plain
# hcitool scan

2 . Copy the adress of the newly found BT GPS receiver. (looks like xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx)

3 . Start the serial protocol over BT :

#!plain
# rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
  1. After that, your BT GPS should get connected to everytime /dev/rfcomm0 is opened. You can check this by doing:
#!plain
# cat /dev/rfcomm0

This should give NMEA GPS output.

To do all this programmatically without root privileges, the easiest way is probably to use the D-BUS interface provided by btcond: http://www.maemo.org/platform/docs/osso-gwconnect.html To bind a device node you would call the rfcomm_bind method with two arguments: the BT address and "SPP" (identifier for Serial Port Profile). The rfcomm_bind method reply contains the newly created device node as a string. Note that the GPS needs to have a running SDP server for this to work (at least the Nokia Bluetooth GPS device has a SDP server: http://www.europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,,63967,00.html). If your GPS does not have one, then the btcond API cannot currently be used. You can check if you device has SDP server by running

# sdp-query -s SPP <GPS bt address>

from the command line. If the device has SDP server the command should output something like:

r|SPP|1

TODO: * get gpsd running * write a nice GUI ( GpsDrive ? )

* get some nice maps (google maps/earth) this is most costly request to implement - think twice 'cause geodata is most expensive part to obtain! AndriyTymchenko

CategoryBluetooth