Tom Tom Devices
TomTom is a Dutch multinational developer and creator of location technology and consumer electronics. TomTom Devices run Linux, so they have best requisites for being used together with OSM. It is possible to port Linux software to run on these tiny little devices. They have touchscreen, framebuffer-driven full coloured screens, USB, bluetooth, a very sensitive and accurate GPS receiver (nmea driver), Serial (RS232), SDCARD slot, 32,64 MBytes RAM, 512MB up to 2 GB FLASH HD. 500 MHz ARM processor. The battery lasts for about 3 hours. The Navigation software is proprietary closed software and the map file format is unknown. At the moment it is not possible to use OSM data with the original software. Navit has been ported to the TomTom devices, gosmore has not yet been ported. There is a good Tracklogger available to collect tracks, which can be uploaded to OSM. Also games, a media player, altimeter, planetarium etc. have already been ported.
List of available open source software:
TTconsole, TTTracklog, TTview, TTsky, TomPlayer, ov2proc, X11-Basic
Model variants
| feature | TomTom One | TomTom One 2nd Edition | TomTom One 3rd Edition | TomTom Rider | Tomtom Go 920 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expandable memory via SD-cards | YES | YES | NO | YES | YES |
| RDS-TMC receiver | NO | NO | YES | ||
| bluetooth | NO | NO | NO | YES | |
| waterproof | NO | NO | NO | YES |
Bluetooth NMEA devices
Or you can also use the Bluetooth receiver as an external logger with some other device. I use the TomTom receiver with my Windows Mobile smartphone to log the tracks with the great shareware GPSDash program. The smartphone has a 1GB SD card so I only have to care about battery life.
TomTom and PDA
TomTom Wireless GPS (9821x)
Original (?) TomTom Bluetooth GPS receiver, supplied as part of the TomTom PDA kits.
Features
- SiRF Star II + SiRF XTrac (http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/xtracornoxtrac.php)
- trackpoints: 0 pts (no memory)
- connection: Bluetooth
- battery: 3.7V 600mAh Li-ion
- external antenna connection
- 5V 2A DC input
- 2 lights, blue/red = blue - bluetooth link, blue flashing - no bluetooth link, red - low battery, green = green flashing - GPS lock, sending NMEA data
- 1 button
- Odd 3rd connector on rear
Good Things
- Battery life seems to be 8+ hrs (not checked)
- Can use some Kodak camera chargers to charge it
- SiRF XTrak allows it to maintain signal in difficult conditions
- Small
- Lightweight
- Has a metal plate and built in magnets for dash mounting
- Works nicely with Cetus on the palm
- Survives being dropped quite well
Bad Things
- A few times I'm guessing I've pressed the power button and accidentally switched it on, or it's not switched off after I've held the button down for what seems like ages... end result... when I want to use it the battery is flat.
- Non replaceable battery, well, it's accessible, so if you can find one, you could replace it by opening it up.
- Sometimes it does just seem to make stuff up, it might claim a lots of sats lock, it might claim HDOP of <1.0, but you look at the traces later and some/all of the track might be 100s of meters out.
- It really does need to be level, top facing upwards, if it's not, it makes stuff up even more.
- Built in magnets, erm, don't put it in the same pocket as your wallet if you have any cards you'd like to use without shop assistants treating you like you've stolen them.
See also: TomTom (for tracklog software etc...)