Gaming With GPS On Your Smartphone

Barence writes "If your handset doesn't get you out and about, tramping through mud, climbing around and hunting for hidden treasure, then something needs an upgrade. The iPhone, Blackberry's Storm and Bold lines, and many Symbian and Android handsets, now sport GPS, which makes your smartphone the ticket to join a global movement of outdoor games. These are outbound challenges that pit teams and solo players against themselves and each other in the search for hidden treasure, undiscovered landmarks, and hidden spots all over the world. This article delves into several of the best smartphone-friendly real-world games, each of which is a bridge between the online and offline worlds."

You mean 4 things....

[rat7307]

Travel bugs are a part of Geocaching, not some separate game. (To be even more specific, travel bugs are a part of geocaching.com's version of geocaching.....)

Love geocaching, not too sure about geodashing though, it's a bit too random for me!

GPS is old!

[Mad Merlin]

Phones with GPS are by no means a new phenomenon at all. Even the RAZR has GPS, and it's rapidly approaching 6 years old now.

Re:GPS is old!

[dfm3]

GPS is nothing new in phones, but sadly end-user access to GPS functionality is still being hindered by many phone manufacturers. My current phone ( a G'zOne [amazon.com]) has a GPS receiver, but it's only useful for E911 purposes unless I buy an extra subscription for some sort of mapping service. Even then I still couldn't use the phone as a basic GPS receiver due to software limitations.

Geocaching

[Anonymous Coward]

My family has been geocaching for about 10 years. I've tried it about 10 times with a smartphone and found the GPS to be less than accurate enough for that use. At times, the phone GPS would tell me to head in an opposite direction from where the cache actually was located and getting within 20-50 ft was my only expectation. Well, they fail on that too.

A $120 Garmin hiking GPS that my sister uses was always more accurate. It seemed to point directly into the location and was always within 20ft of the cache. It could be that Garmin is what most GeoCachers use, so any errors are similar. I dunno.

I'm not trying to bash smartphone GPSes - mine works PERFECTLY for driving. Perhaps there are different settings when you move under 5 mph that need to be enabled to limit the drift?

Ok, I lied, I don't have a smart phone. I have a Nokia N800 with a GoPass GPT800 Bluetooth GPS Receiver SiRF Star III bluetooth GPS tethered to it. I've tethered other GPS receivers and had similar results.