Background tracking with Screen off (background services ??)

[cycling celcia]

I ish to track my journey when I am cycling for the whole day, so need
the screen to be turned off to ensure the battery lasts/stop pressing
buttons accidentally

I need to take a data-point probably every 30secs.

I am assuming this is the The Background Services options ?

But only seems to give a shortest option of 5mins..

How can I change this to a shorter time, eg 30secs as 5mins I will
have travelled quite a distance so will have a very poor track. Is
there the possibility of a user-specified custom time option

The software is pretty useless to me without this option - many other
applications seem to offer this facility, it seems to be quite an
omission.

[Pavol Zibrita]

You probably mean the positioning interval. Well, it is a list, default is 5 minutes, just
scroll up to 30 seconds...

Regards,
Pavol

[cycling celcia]

Hi

So the "positioning interval" is what the Background services will use
when the phone screen is turned off ?

What are the times settings for within the Background Services menu
then (the smallest step is 5mins here ) ?

I have HTC Desire, so this background logging will happen every 30sec
when I push the power button to turn off the screen ?

regards

David

[Pavol Zibrita]

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 4:07 PM, cycling celcia <dvi...@dvines.plus.com> wrote:

Hi

So the "positioning interval" is what the Background services will use
when the phone screen is turned off  ?

I think yes.
 

What are the times settings for within the Background Services menu
then (the smallest step is 5mins here ) ?

Menu->Settings->Background service->Positioning interval-> you can select here 30 seconds.
5 minutes is default, it is NOT the smallest step.
 

I have HTC Desire, so this background logging will happen every 30sec
when I push the power button to turn off the screen ?

Position is checked according the interval you select.
You probably still need to set
menu->settings->track->track interval
to customize how the gpx track is created
If I understand this correctly.
 

Regards,
Pavol

[Horst Müller]

May I jump in here? I have two questions:

1.) In background service menu: What's the difference between "positioning interval" and "waiting time"?

2.) In position logging menu: When I set the logging interval to 1 second, it stores a waypoint only every 2 seconds. If I set it to 2 seconds, it records waypoints every 3 seconds. Is it a bug or did I anything wrong?

Regards

Horst

2011/9/9 Pavol Zibrita <pavol....@gmail.com>

[Pavol Zibrita]

Hi!

   Positioning interval is how often the OsmAnd should store possition. Currently, this settings colides a litte with the track loggin and loggin interval. Because,
loggin interval specifies how often the position can be stored. So in general currently best settings is possitioning interval == tracking interval. ( I will ask Victor how
this was ment).

   Waiting time is the time OsmAnd waits for GPS lock within checking the interval. Example. You select positioning/tracking interval to 5 minutes - you want every 5 minits
and location update. And waiting time in 30seconds. OsmAnd starts searching for location and if the GPS service (or network) is not locked within 30 seconds, searching for
possition is turned off. In next 5 minutes, the Osmand again starts for searchin a possition, etc, etc.. So Low waiting time can cause that the Locations are not updated. Is osmand
gets lock and location, it will turn off the search for position again and will start again in the position interval. Unless positioning interval is 0. This is to save battery, so that GPS
is running only when needed.

  The best settings for waiting time is the avarege time you know your GPS takes to be locked. Or waiting time >= positioning interval.

The 2.) is .. a small bug. The location service is asked to return a location every second, so there will be currently always +1 second to stored location. This can be fixed.

Regards,
Pavol

[Andras Kiszely]

Dear Pavol, i tried this settings, but the track has not been logged.
Is anything else in the settings what can be wrong?
The tracking has to work in every usage mode (bike, pedestrian, car,
default...) i tried to use bike, it works, but the pedestrian wasnt.
Is there any association between waiting time and pos. interval and
the logging time?
I tried with 5 minpos. interval, 90 sec waitin time and 15 sec logging
interval by walk in bike mode, but nothing logged. Whats wrong?

Regards
Andras

[Pavol Zibrita]

Hi Andras!

  Each application mode has its own settings. So when you change application mode be sure to check the settings.
  Try to increase the waiting time.90 seconds could be small for gps to get fix. Try 2 minutes or so. Also check tracking interval and that tracking is on. Tracking interval should be same as positioning interval for best results.

Regards,
Pavol

[Andras Kiszely]

Hi, i tried id, but nothing change.
With bike mode, 15 sec traking, 2 min positioning and 300 sec waiting
time - result is bad...
The tracking works only unlocked screen. (On the same trip the
endomondo works).
Is possible, that the speed can affect tracking (walking at bike
mode)? :) I can imagine...

Any idea?
Andras

On szept. 20, 08:01, Pavol Zibrita <pavol.zibr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Andras!
>
>   Each application mode has its own settings. So when you change application
> mode be sure to check the settings.
>   Try to increase the waiting time.90 seconds could be small for gps to get
> fix. Try 2 minutes or so. Also check tracking interval and that tracking is
> on. Tracking interval should be same as positioning interval for best
> results.
>
> Regards,
> Pavol

[Kiszely András]

I can'T imagine ;)

--
Member of PPG, http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/andraskiszely

[Victor Shcherb]

1. If background service is actually running you should see icon in notification even if you go to 'Home'. Check it.

If it is no notification than background service failed to run, try again.

2. 15 sec traking - means nothing because it will run only every 2 minutes.

Try to setup  0 minutes positioning in that case it should write continuously. You can easily check that if you go to Home screen and always see that GPS is running (not switching off). Background service requires GPS and when it runs it will enable GPS positioning.

Unfortunately I don't know how exactly it can be reproduced. If you will be able to make it runnable or not, please, describe in what scenario it doesn't work. But please try to make it workable first.

Victor

2011/9/20 Kiszely András <kiszely...@gmail.com>

--
Best Regards,

Victor

[Pavol Zibrita]

Victor, shouldn't be the tracking interval and positioning interval actually one setting?

Also, what about putting the backround service inside the trakcing in settings, it makes sense I think.

Regards,
Pavol

[Victor Shcherb]

I agree to move settings but in that case probably will nobody will find that feature :) 

Be aware make it one setting! They can be both used for example you unlock screen and monitoring at special place with more precise rate.

Victor

2011/9/20 Pavol Zibrita <pavol....@gmail.com>

--
Best Regards,

Victor

[Pavol Zibrita]

I see. But the problem is in vice versa. When you select positioning interval small, like 1 second and tracking interval big, like 5 minutes...
than the positioning interval has no effect.
There is some rule like: positioning interval >= tracking interval
that is not visible by default.
Also the waiting time is a little tricky setting. In general,
the waiting time make sense if: waiting time < positioning interval.
This is another rule, which is not obvious from the settings, I think.

Regrads,
Pavol

[Kiszely András]

Victor, thx, it works...

Two small things: first, the hungarian translation is false, the 'Use background service" has been translated to a text which means "route planning", i will contact the translator.

Second: How is possible, that without background service, while im on my bike, the tracking works...? :)

And one more thing: Can i save the downloaded maps, exl. google maps? I should be very nice function, i dont have 3g everywhere. Or can i save them from google?

Andras

[Pavol Zibrita]

To save map tiles from OsmAnd:

1. Select the google maps layer
2. Zoom to the region you want to download
3. Press and hold the screen to get popup menu
4. Select download map, specify zoom levels. This will pre-download the tiles. Note, it can be quite lot of data,
do it on wifi or so.

Or, you can use offline vector maps. Just download your region Settings->Offline data->Download and then use
vector layer on map view.

PS: regarding translation, create github account and you can adjust the translation using the github web.
Click edit file. We will than merge it. https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand/blob/master/OsmAnd/res/values-hu/strings.xml

Regards,
Pavol

2011/9/21 Kiszely András <kiszely...@gmail.com>

[szimszon]

I changed now the Hungarian translation: https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand/pull/73/files

I'll be glad if you could possibly help me with the translation...

[Kiszely András]

Thx, ok.

I found an another way too: Google Map Buddy: It can save all tiles from gmap :)

Andras

[Kiszely András]

Thank you, i will contact.

András

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:20 AM, szimszon <szim...@gmail.com> wrote:

I changed now the Hungarian translation: https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand/pull/73/files

I'll be glad if you could possibly help me with the translation...

[Robert Grant]

Background tracking works for me in both pedestrian and bicycle modes. 0 second position interval is not working, however. Tracking interval set at 30, waiting 5 minutes.

iMO background service should allow both tracking and navigating with screen off.

[Victor Shcherb]

Background service do both things tracking and navigation however navigation with big delay could not have big sense.

I've also struggled some problems with 0 second position interval settings, if you know exact way how to reproduce it please ope an issue.

Best Regards,

Victor

2011/9/21 Robert Grant <rgran...@gmail.com>

--
Best Regards,

Victor