GPS Reviews/Wintec and Woxter

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Woxter BT-tracer 100

Woxter BT-tracer 100
Woxter BT-tracer 100

Good things

  • Small and very light
  • Charges via standard mini-A USB
  • Traces can be downloaded with gpsbabel

Bad things

  • Includes crappy windows-only "gtool" software
  • Logging speed/type can be only set with the "gtool" crap, or issuing commands via bluetooth serial chat.

Summary

If you are willing to deal with some crappy software, and don't mind a small trackpoint capacity, the BT tracer 100 is a very good deal.

Wintec WBT-201 (G-Rays 2)

Wintec WBT-201
Wintec WBT-201


Good things

Bad things

  • USB Bridge is not working on FreeBSD yet

Summary Good signal reception, lots of space for waypoints, nice device.

Reading tracks from the Wintec WBT-201 under Linux

First, you need a recent-enough gpsbabel version with support for the WBT-201. Then, don't forget to switch the device on (when on USB, the Power LED will light up even if the device is switched off).

If the device is connected to the USB port, do the following: 

gpsbabel -t -w -r -i wbt -f /dev/ttyUSB0 -o gpx -F track.gpx

When you don't have permissions to use the USB device, do the following: 

sudo gpsbabel -t -w -r -i wbt -f /dev/ttyUSB0 -o gpx -F track.gpx
sudo chown $USER:users track.gpx

This downloads the trackpoints and ways in GPX format from your device and puts them into the file track.gpx. If you have to use sudo, the second line is changing the owner of track.gpx to your normal account.

The following command line throws away bad data (see NMEA#Converting_NMEA_text_dumps_.28with_gpsbabel.29): 

gpsbabel -t -w -r -i wbt -f /dev/ttyUSB0 -o gpx -x discard,hdop=10,vdop=20,hdopandvdop -F $(date +%Y-%m-%d)_track.gpx

Reading tracks from the Wintec WBT-201 under Mac OS

Set up a Bluetooth or USB connection and use HoudahGPS. (Freeware)

Configuration of a WBT-201 for mapping use

I (Colin Marquardt) have configured my Wintec WBT-201 a bit different from the default settings. With this, the traces could almost be converted to OSM data directly, as they do not contain too many data points at higher speeds but collect enough at low speeds.

  • Log Mode: Speed
  • Speed and Logging Frequency:
    • 1-20km/h: 1s
    • 20-60km/h: 3s
    • 60-100km/h: 5s
    • 100-225km/h: 7s

This is tested mainly with car usage, but the settings also work nicely when walking. Further refinement is surely possible. The WBT-201 uses the Antaris 4 chipset, so other units with the same chipset can probably be set up like that as well. Changing the settings is done with the u-center software or TimeMachineX (linked above).

Configuring Wintec/Woxter devices

These devices can be configured "by hand", by starting a bluetooth serial chat and specifying some commands. These commands have been sniffed from the Gtool application working with a BT-tracer 100, and may or may not work with your device - YMMV. 

Configuring sequence:
$PFST,STOP                // Stops real-time NMEA optput
$PFST,FIRMWAREVERSION     // Checks the firmware version
 One of the following:
$PFST,SETLOGGER,1,X       // Log a trackpoint every X seconds
$PFST,SETLOGGER,2,0       // Log a trackpoint when heading changes more than 10 degrees
$PFST,SETLOGGER,3,X       // Log a point every X meters, where X >= 50
$PFST,SETLOGGER,4,0       // Logging every X seconds, where X depends on the current speed
$PFST,START

In order to get the raw data:
$PFST,READLOGGER

In order to get NMEA data:
$PFST,NORMAL

In order to reboot the device:
$PFST,REBOOT,0

Cold start sequence:
$PFST,STOP
$PFST,RESETDATA,$0000
$PFST,START,0000
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