Garmin GLO with Foreflight

[mooniac58]

Hey all,

 

I just bought a new iPad mini 64GB with cell/gps built in - however knowing how unreliable the built in GPS is I decided to get a Garmin GLO bluetooth GPS for a good solid, always on GPS signal.

 

Once I borrowed another bluetooth GPS from a buddy and it showed up in the Foreflight "Devices" area.  I have the GLO paired to the iPad and it shows up fine in the iOS Settings/Bluetooth area - but it does not appear in ForeFlight in the devices area.

 

I am hoping that the GLO just works differently in that perhaps it works more integrated with the iPad and does not require ForeFlight to talk to it directly???

 

Because there is no way to shut off the iPad built in GPS I really cannot test/prove that the GLO is the source of the GPS signal.

 

Does anyone have a GLO with ForeFlight to confirm if this is normal?

 

 

[OR75]

i actually found the ipad internal gps to be very reliable.

[mooniac58]

I have used two different full sized iPads in the cockpit with built in GPS (an iPad 1 and iPad 3) and while the GPS works ok I fly routinely at 10,000-12,500 and it does not always find a signal or can take a couple minutes which is not acceptable if you are in a bind.

 

The real difference I noticed with using an external gps versus the internal is that when I would shut off my iPad and turn it back on with the internal it instantly had a signal again and with the internal it was like it had shut off the gps to save power (logical) but it had to re-acquire satellites again and you had to wait a while for it to lock on again.  Plus many times during a flight I would see my accuracy go from 5m to 50m or worse and then eventually come back to 5m - with the external GPS it was always at 5m.

[Cris]

Go to settings on the ipad and use airplane mode which shuts down wi- fi cell and GPS. See if Foreflight gets its signal from the external GPS.

[FloridaMan]

I have done a lot of testing with the iPhone 4S GPS. Altitude readings are often off by thousands of feet, especially in climb and descent. 

[RJBrown]

My Ipad1 and my Garmin 395 always agree. I see little difference between the two. The Garmin has a antennae on the glareshield and the Ipad is usually on the pass seat or my knee. Altitudes agree with each other but not always the Altimeter. Sometimes high or low but never more than 400'. I always figured that would be the altimeter setting. 

[OR75]

5m most of the time, 50m occasionally without an external antenna is what I get when the ipad is on the yoke, passenger seat or even the floor of the passenger seat.

I use the ipad for overall situational awareness and infomation (airspace, airports info, etc ...). I do not  rely on it for an ILS.

Not sure how many satellites the ipad monitors. I doubt it monitors more than a handfull. If it did the battery will drain very quick. (the GNS430 monitors 12). no RAIM either.  

[flyby201]

There has been a lot of discussion recently on the GNS-480 group on yahoo about this.  There were several posts yesterday which said that Garmin's GLO will not work with Foreflight.  It only works with Garmin Pilot app.  For Foreflight you need Sporty's Stratus, Dual's product or Bad Elf.  I don't know as I have no experience to speak from, just relaying what I have read. 

[M20E-1964]

I had a Dual GPS and it broke in 2 months. I've been using the iPad internal GPS for 1000 mile x-country flights.  Not one single problem.

[FloridaMan]

My Ipad1 and my Garmin 395 always agree. I see little difference between the two. The Garmin has a antennae on the glareshield and the Ipad is usually on the pass seat or my knee. Altitudes agree with each other but not always the Altimeter. Sometimes high or low but never more than 400'. I always figured that would be the altimeter setting. 

 

I'm sure this is the case enroute and is what I've observed as well. I've taken hundreds of thousands of data samples with multiple iOS devices and the discernable discrepancy is during descent and especially in the pattern. I have a feeling that the iOS devices use some sort of averaging algorithm that is not cut out for significant changes in altitude. 

 

In the iOS software frameworks, the location stuff reports speed and altitude in meters as well as a value for vertical precision and horizontal precision. The precision reported by the device vs. what I've observed and recorded has been off by as much as 2000-3000 ft at times. I've noticed it primarily in the vicinity of airports because I know their field elevation and the altitudes that I would be at in my airplane. 

[danb35]

Go to settings on the ipad and use airplane mode which shuts down wi- fi cell and GPS. See if Foreflight gets its signal from the external GPS.

That also shuts down the Bluetooth, so there's no way for Foreflight (or anything else on the iPad) to get a signal from anything external.

[bd32322]

If foreflight software is not meant to work with the garmin device .. It just wont work. Not that there is a technical reason for this .. Its just that one or both companies have decided not to play with each other. Similarly i dont like how adsb receivers are now tied to a particular company's software. Having said that .. I have had no issues with the ipad gps at the altitudes i fly .. 7500 to 11500. I have even received good and continuous signals at 37000 from an airline window seat .. However it took some time to lock on and the ipad has to be really close to the window .. Because of no clear view of the sky from the tiny windows.

[mooniac58]

I have done a lot of research and I do think the GLO works with ForeFlight and everything because it actually works on the OS level, the ipad completely replaces the GPS signal from the GLO with its own internal one.  There are a lot of people running GLO/ForeFlight with iPads that are wifi only so it definitely is compatible.  Other GPS units actually require the app to support it, such as the BadElf, Dual, etc.

 

I have been able to do some testing in my house and I am pretty sure it is working ok.  For example without the GLO connected if I shut off the iPad in ForeFlight and then turn it back on say 5 minutes later it takes 20secs or more to get a GPS signal again.  If the GLO is connected it is about 2-3 seconds.

 

I even paired the GLO to my Android Galaxy S3 and it really helped the GPS acquire times on that.