CoPilot GPS Jacket
by TravRoute
  - December 2002 -
 



click picture to enlarge
 

Jump to:

Intro and where to buy
Specs
Size and appearance
Car Mount
Battery Life and Power Supply
Operation
 Settings
Satellite Reception
Compatibility with mapping/routing software
Conclusion

Revisions


Discuss the contents of this page here




   

click picture to enlarge


Intro and where to buy

The CoPilot GPS Jacket was recently introduced by TravRoute in its line of offerings, taking the place of the Navman sleeve. While the latter was quite a capable solution, it's always a good idea to look at what improvements can be made and what features can be added. This is what TravRoute set out to do, enrolling TransplantComputing  in the process  (they had already been using their CF GPS receiver for their "non-iPaq" bundle) and they're having the  jacket manufactured by EMTAC, the makers of the Bluetooth GPS. While I'm not privy to what they had on their list of improvements and features, I must say I can't think of anything more they could have added in the present state of the technology. There'll be more on these later but here are the main ones: use of the new SiRF IIe/LP chipset (better battery life and sensitivity than IIe chipset), addition of a DC plug, addition of an external antenna connector and driverless (software driver for the sleeve that is) operation..

It is currently available bundled with Pocket CoPilot 3.0 in the US for $349 and Pocket CoPilot 3.5 in Europe for $449. Both bundles are a complete solution with vent mount, in-vehicle power adapter and the US version even comes with an external antenna. I had previously tested the US version of CoPilot and you can read my review here. I was impressed enough to give it the "Best Highway Navigator" GpsPasSion Award!

It will be distributed  as a standalone receiver in Europe under the Emtac name by Itochu in early 2003  (In France, Avesta has a tentative date of January and a tentative price of 329 Euros). In the US, the sleeve  is now  available from TransplantComputing for $250.

Specs:

From the TravRoute site here
More detailed specs found on the Transplant iGPSj preview page: here
The only difference I can think of between the units would be the extra copy protection code included in the CoPilot version to allow the CoPilot software to recognize the GPS.



Size and Appearance: 

The CoPilot GPS Jacket has a rather unusual look  with it's sloped antenna in the back. It's strong enough though that you can rest your sleeved-iPaq on it without having to worry about it. Other than that antenna, it feels very much like any other iPaq sleeve. The finish is a tad less matte and grained than the Navman sleeve so nicks might be bit more visible, but that will just encourage you to take good care of it ;-) As for the size, it's definitely thinner than the Navman, however it seems to me that most of that was achieved by shaving off the mounting rails. As you can see in the "Car mount" section below, I don't think that is necessarily a good thing.


       


These pictures show various views of the CoPilot GPS Jacket next to its SiRF IIe/LP brothers. Note the Holux plugged in the CF slot of the CoPilot GPS Jacket, probably the fist ever picture of a dual GPS!
 

Car Mount

While TravRoute must be credited for including  a universal mounting solution in the box, just about the only area where I feel that the new Jacket is not an improvement over the old one  is the mounting solution out-of-the-box. The good news is that there are ways to fix this, but let me explain the situation. The Jacket uses a mounting solution based on a vent-clip and although quite a few people must find this type of mount convenient judging by the number of models available, I couldn't get it to mount securely in either of our 3 cars (granted they're old so maybe vents are designed differently nowadays, anyone know?). Sadly, I haven't been able to locate any windshield mount that could accommodate this clip either (emails to the manufacturer of the clip remained unanswered).

For a few days, I drove around with the vent mount resting on the Navman windshield mount (see pictures)... not terribly stable, but surprisingly enough it worked... until I removed the sleeved-iPaq at which point it most annoyingly fell apart! .So I checked with Arkon, one of the best known names in the "mounting" business, and asked if they could suggest anything and they did. Sure enough, the iPaq-mount based CM420 sample they sent me, seemed tailor made for the sleeve (see pictures). While I'm on the subject, I noticed that the iPaq-mount worked best with full sleeves (CoPilot, Bluetooth, PC Card, etc...)  and the  Memplug too if you're careful to push it in well. Arkon recommend the side-grip for a naked iPaq or other sleeves.

 

Don't want to spend too much time on the subject, but I feel it's important to have a good mounting solution before you hit the road! I understand that European retailers like Avesta have come up with a windshield based system too.


 Battery Life and Power Supply:  

See the "Battery Life" page for details

Like almost all current PocketPC GPS solutions  it doesn't have its own power supply and will use the one of the PocketPC it is connected to. See the "Battery Life" page for what consequences this has. My tests found that thanks to the use of the SiRF IIe/LP chipset, the CoPilot GPS CF GPS  required far less power than the other GPS receivers, and now even the  old generation of PPC's like the iPaq 36xx can be used fairly comfortably, especially if you turn off the backlight. I'd rate the improvement at between 35 to 45% compared with receivers using the IIe chipset in real life use.

The GPS Jacket can be tweaked quite a bit more using the Crux View utility developed by Emtac and provided with the Bluetooth GPS. It lets you activate  various rates of trickle mode, select WAAS/EGNOS  settings, switch between SiRF and NMEA modes. However, this little utility does not ship with the CoPilot GPS Jacket but has now been made available for download by Emtac (see download section). In any case, being able to access these settings is not at all necessary to make the best of the CoPilot bundle and neither Travroute or Transplant provide support for the Emtac utility, so if anything goes wrong while you use it they won't be able to help you.

On the topic of power supply, the CoPilot GPS Jacket comes with the very convenient small round plug that's seen on many electronic devices (iPaq's 36xx and 37xx for a start). Owners of all iPaq's starting with the 38xx series will probably  be happy to stop using the clumsy adapter they were previously forced to use on long trips.

 

Operation:

No drivers needed to operate the CoPilot GPS Jacket, just slide your iPaq in and you're good to go. This is not the case with the Navman sleeve so that's certainly a nice touch, although you still have to install the CoPilot software of course, so you probably won't notice much of a change when you first install it. However, in the long run, the absence of drivers removes the risk of having them " corrupted" by other programs you install on your PocketPC, something that's been know to happen ;-)

I found the CoPilot GPS Jacket easy to operate in conjunction with the CoPilot software. Other than waiting for the GPS to get a fix, there's really nothing else to do. One thing that CoPilot does, unlike any other program, is that after a long period of interruption (cold reset equivalent) it feeds your last position to the GPS. I'm not exactly sure how this works as the commands that can be sent to the SiRF chipset are rather limited (reset, trickle, WAAS satellites) or whether it's even necessary as the GPS module has that capability built-in. It will typically ask you if you're within 100 miles of X, so if you're not, make sure that you put in your new town.

The CF type II slot comes in convenient to fit in maps and should  work with a Microdrive although there are too many parameters in play (Microdrive model, iPaq model) for thsi to be guaranteed. I couldn't test this for myself as I no longer own one. As you can see from the pictures above, I found that the CF slot was I/O compatible (not rated for that though, so YMMV and don't blame me if your PocketPC blows up as a result ;-)), so that might come in handy if you need to hook up to a Wireless 802.11b network on the fly!

 

Settings:

Unlike all the other GPS receivers using a  SiRF chip, it cannot be controlled by  Leadtek's excellent CE Monitor and naturally the Windows based configuration programs won't be of much help either...Unless you use Crux View (see download section), you're not going to be able to change much to the default configuration. If you absolutely need to switch to SiRF mode, you can do that with TomTom's GPS utility. Now, one would normally do that to use Destinator, but given that the CoPilot GPS Jacket doesn't yet work with Destinator either (more on this later), there's really not much point doing that for now!

With Crux View, you can also activate WAAS and EGNOS and choose the satellites you want to use. For road and street navigation, I remain unconvinced at the usefulness of these WAAS systems, but some the site's visitors have pointed out that they could make a difference when used in flight, where the added level of "comfort" could be crucial and where the absence of obstructions to the signals made their use easier than on land.
 

Satellite Reception and Time to acquire a fix

See this page for detailed timings and comparisons

Updated 01/01/03 - I'm still testing the TTFF speeds of the Sleeve. Up to now, I've found that the TTFF from cold is a tad slower than with  other SiRF receivers but is more consistent, so there's give and take here.

In general, I found the CoPilot GPS Jacket to have good sensitivity even if it's not quite what I'd experienced with other IIe/LP based devices like the Bluetooth GPS and the Holux CF GPS. I was sometimes left without a fix for many a long minute both with CoPilot and Mapopolis and couldn't really understand why by looking at the satellite screens. I also lost the fix while driving on a mountain road under tree cover and couldn't recover it without the external antenna until I drove to a spot where there was clear view of the sky. I didn't have another GPS to compare. I had driven on that road with the Bluetooth GPS a few weeks before and hadn't noticed any loss of position. I'll update this after I drive through the same spot..

When I inquired about this, I was told that this could be due to "RF interference" (the sleeve being in close contact with the iPaq there is RF interference that pollutes the GPS signal). This same explanation was provided by Navman when people complained about TTFF. While that may well be the case, I haven't really noticed this with CF GPSr's that should be even more exposed to RF interference, being "closer" to the iPaq.

Now the CoPilot GPS Jacket does have a trump card and that's the external antenna option. Sure enough, that improved the satellite signal quite a bit and I had no loss of signal with the antenna. While it would be better not to have to use one (cable dangling around), it's still a better solution than being stuck without a fix! One little thing too is that the antenna that came with the sleeve has an angled connector. While this provides for a cleaner set-up than a straight connector, the first few times I tried to remove it, I had to use pliers to remove the antenna, so don't worry if you notice the same thing.

So pending final testing, this is an area where I'm a bit disappointed by the new sleeve. it's not quite as good as what I'd seen with other IIe/LP receivers, so maybe it's not the chipset that's more sensitive after all but rather the design of the Bluetooth GPS and Holux CF GPS that made this remarkable observed sensitivity possible.

 

Compatibility with mapping/routing software:

In my limited testing, I've found the CoPilot GPS Jacket to be compatible with few other programs/utilities than those it's designed for.

Here's a list of programs and utilities, those that worked have a "+" sign the others a "- ":
+ Mapopolis -NMEA /4,800bps
+ PocketMap Navigator  - NMEA /4,800bp
+ TomTom GPS plug-in (used by CityMaps, TomTom Online and TomTom Navigator).
+ OziCE 1.10.7
+ Crux View
+ GPS Viewer (Holux)
-  Pharos Ostia v4
-  Powerloc Destinator 1 and 2
-  Vito SmartMap
-  Vito Navigator
-  Visual GPS
- CE Monitor

Now the good news is that it comes with the excellent CoPilot Navigation Software and the only other non-proprietary programs I would consider using would be Mapopolis (Best City Navigator GpsPasSion Award) and TomTom Navigator in Europe and both of these work! Raster maps programs like OziCE work too.
I'm told that this unusually large list of incompatibilities can be fixed easily by enabling a setting in the software. Now that the sleeve has been released separately I hope there'll be more of an incentive for more software to be made compatible with it.

Conclusion:

Revisions:
12/18/02 - Added compatibility with PocketMap Navigator
01/01/03 - Edits following public release  of Crux View (tweaking utility)
             - Edits for release of sleeve as a standalone unit by Transplant.