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gpspassion
93394 Posts |
 Posted - 18 févr. 2007 : 12:57:55
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UPDATED20070528GLOBALSAT GH-615B WATCH - REVIEWED
SiRFstarIII, Mouse GPS, IPX7, 66,000 Points
After last year's GH-601 watch first shown at the CES show that had an excellent battery life (18+ hours) but came short in a few areas (form factor, limited memory, slow interface), Globalsat are back with the GH-615 watch :
- nicer and more compact casing
- taller screen with a better display
- faster interface
- 66,000 points (about 18 hours of continuous logging).
UPDATED 20070529 : software and firmware upgrades, more details here
PICTURE GALLERY
  
Compared to the Garmin Forerunner 205
  
Small connector in the back for the PC USB Cable
Encounter with the Suunto X9 watch in Chamonix
FIELD TESTING
GENERAL COMMENTS
After several days of testing on the runs, the GH615B proved to be a valuable tool with better dynamic response than the Forerunner 205 that seems to have more aggressive filtering, a typical example would be the speed that is updated faster on the 615B. While pretty large, it's possible to wear it throughout the day at least when you're in the mountains ;-)
The SiRFstarIII GPS module performs as expected with tracking in all outdoor environments including under heavy tree cover, as well as many indoor environments. In fact having a powerful chipset is especially useful in devices where the antenna has to be made as small as possible. Users of the Suunto X9 watch who struggle to get and maintain a fix will be appreciative of this.
ACCURATE TRACKS
Good news compared with the GH-601 that tended to inflate travelled distance measurements (probably not enough filtering of the "micro-movements"), the 615B now gives accurate measurements similar to those of the FR-205 and can be seen below the tracks are very similar
GREEN : GH615 - RED : FR205
 
REDUCED BATTERY LIFE
Battery life is no longer the 18 hours of the GH-601 unfortunately, I need to do some controlled testing, but it seems consistent with its 11 hour rating UPDATE #1 : well maybe not, I wore the 615 today and it turned itself off after about 8h45' of logging, with most of it indoors, so that might explain the difference, will test again. UPDATE #2 : confirmed a battery life of just under 9h hours in normal reception condition outside. The FR-205 has a battery life of 10h30 minutes.
THE PC SOFTWARE
The GH615 comes with "Globalsat GH615 PC Utility" that lets you access the data recorded in the field and analyze it with some graphs :
Viewing a track in Google Maps
Using the GH615 as a "mouse GPS"
The waypoint menu - with a waypoint recorded on the GH-615
Unfortunately, I was not able to create waypoints with the PC sofware for uploading
The various export formats that are available
WISHLIST
Here is a list of items to add/fix to improve the usability of the GH615. It has been sent to Globalsat and they are looking into it.
- GPX export lacks time and altitude information so its use is going to be limited (no importing into motionbased or sporttracks or picture geocoding) - hopefully this can be fixed in the PC software
- Unlike the Forerunner there is no lap option so to split tracks you have to stop the current recording and save it. A bit difficult to do while excercising
- Creating waypoints in the PC Utility and uploading them to the GH-615
- Editing of tracks in the PC Utility to remove unwanted parts
- One advantage over the Forerunner is the separate time/date screen, that allow it to be used as a watch, unfortunately if you turn off the GPS to save on battery life, the time is no longer updated. Maintaining time information would be useful - UPDATED 20070329 - fixed with the latest v1.03 firmware
Questions, comments ? |
Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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aston4
285 Posts |
Posted - 05 mars 2007 : 15:36:28
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Such low battery life turns me off for its use in backwoods hiking. If it was a few weeks, I'd buy one, but less than a day I have no use for. I think this may be a technology that still is in its infancy.
Calculators in the 1970's only had a 2 hour battery life. Solar powered ones now last indefinitely. |
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gpspassion
93394 Posts |
Posted - 05 mars 2007 : 15:47:54
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| The 9 hour battery life is a disapointment indeed, especially when last year's GH-601 managed 18 hours, likely with a bigger battery and it had less memory too. I wonder if they might still be using the SiRFIII chipset instead of the LP version or even better the LT version used on the Garmin GPS10x to great effect (28 hours of battery life compared with the standard 11 hours with a 1100mAh battery). |
Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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gpspassion
93394 Posts |
Posted - 29 mars 2007 : 11:42:37
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| Just an update to mention that with the latest v1.03 firmware, the clock remains active if the GPS is turned off to save on battery life. I've been using it as a standard watch for about 24 hours now. |
Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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admin_0
1 Posts |
Posted - 17 avr. 2007 : 15:58:58
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I bought one last week, the firmware pre-installed is 1.03 but when the GPS is stopped you can't use the Globalsat GH-615 as asimple watch...
If anybody knows how to solve this problem... |
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sjutton
2 Posts |
Posted - 01 mai 2007 : 12:07:32
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Does anyone konw where can you buy one of these units?
I'm working in Eastern Europe and I'd like to try one.
sjutton |
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barkingmad
United Kingdom
15 Posts |
Posted - 15 mai 2007 : 12:07:51
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| Anyone seen these for sale in the UK yet? |
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barkingmad
United Kingdom
15 Posts |
Posted - 16 mai 2007 : 16:51:45
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Does it charge using the USB cable?
How long does it take to charge? |
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hol1
Denmark
10 Posts |
Posted - 17 mai 2007 : 09:32:22
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[SNIP]
It takes around an hour and a half |
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sjutton
2 Posts |
Posted - 20 mai 2007 : 06:25:56
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The unit can now be bought on Ebay in the US for about 140 + shipping. So right now, the price is comparable to the Forerunner 205.
However, the fact that the unit does not interface with Sporttracks (with time and distance) and doesn't have the ability to take splits on the run (I use the "lap pace" option on the 205 always) is a big negative.
Hopefully, either the price will drop or (better yet) they will add the training features that are missing. I'd love to have a back-up option for the Forerunner 205 since I've had to send the watch back twice due to problems.
Thanks for the good review and keep us updated!!!
Steve |
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gpspassion
93394 Posts |
Posted - 20 mai 2007 : 22:23:16
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| Yes, the lack of splits and even more so of altitude data in the GPX export are a problem. The latter should be fixable via the PC application, but I checked again yesterday and there is no update available for download. |
Discounts and Assistance/Réductions et Assistance (Club GpsPasSion) / Où commencer? |
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Speigei
17 Posts |
Posted - 23 mai 2007 : 01:10:06
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Because I was very disappointed by the software supplied by Globalsat in terms of data export, I wrote a simple application which improves on the following:
- customizable export formats (ships with gpx and csv)
- elevation data can be exported
- datetime of trackpoint can be exported
- upload of waypoints
The project homepage is located at http://code.google.com/p/gh615/.
A windows beta build can be downloaded here http://code.google.com/p/gh615/downloads/list, other platforms may use the python sources: http://gh615.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/globalsat/src/
I'd like to say that I consider this application semi-stable, meaning the operations work most of the time, but there are cases when the gh615 sends crap data and the utility crashes. Just restart the tool and try again.
I'd love to hear your feedback and please don't hesistate to post bug reports or feature requests at the project page. Thanks.
Till |
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Bartman_x50v
42 Posts |
Posted - 23 mai 2007 : 11:11:29
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Hi
when i try to open the application: gh615_console.exe i recive an error.:
quote:
Impossible find access point _except_handler4_common error in the dinamic link msvcrt.dll
what is wrong? |
Edited by - Bartman_x50v on 23 mai 2007 12:54:13 |
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Speigei
17 Posts |
Posted - 24 mai 2007 : 17:20:01
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after googling the error message it seems this is a incompatbility between the vista msvcrt.dll and the xp msvcrt.dll.
I compiled the exe using vista, my guess is you are using xp (or earlier). I'll try recompiling using xp on the weekend, until then you could try out the python sources.
In the future, please post bug reports at the project site as it was not my intention to hijack this thread.
Cheerios, |
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gpspassion
93394 Posts |
Posted - 26 mai 2007 : 17:43:53
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| Not hijacking anything and since you started posting, might as well keep us updated ;-) Will try the app this week-end. Will also give another try to the new PC app that GS sent me, altitude is now present in he GPX but seems to be divided by ten :-( |
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Bartman_x50v
42 Posts |
Posted - 26 mai 2007 : 18:01:10
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Hi GPSPassion
please can you send me this program ;)
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[TOPIC] Globalsat GH-615 GPS Watch - REVIEWED
