Technology - how soon before we get a mobile phone with gps and piste map?

:PJust looking at all the new mobile phones coming out that now have GPS built in.
What we need now is a ski resort to embrace the technology and provide a piste map that you can store in your phone as they do with road maps and bingo - no more fannying around with bits of paper which never fold up properly or blow away in the wind half way up the chairlift on your first day in a new resort, thus guaranteeing you have to return to the base via a black run mogul field / or air ambulance.

I think the screens are too small.
I wouldn't fancy dropping my phone. )
however has anybody tried this nokia GPS tracker whilst skiing?
http://research.nokia.com/research/projects/SportsTracker/index.html

I just memorise the map :D

I've just had an idea. Get your compact digital camera and photo an old piste map then see if you can read it with the scrolling and zoom features.

Personally, I think that the problem is with the perspective views used in all Alpine skimaps. In the bigger areas they simply don't work, and I can't understand why, when you MTB/walk an area in summer you happily use a conventional contour map and then, in the winter have this crazy squashed-perpective thing.
In fact I have done a plan version of the 4 valleys ski area but more as an armchair introduction for someone new to the place. A proper cartographer could do something which is ten times better than my effort and 100 times better than the standard perspective map.
I think that a plan contour map would work well with a PDA with SatNav, but you'd need a suitable notation for piste, off-piste, lifts etc.
Anyone interested in starting up a company?

Llew wrote:I think the screens are too small.
I wouldn't fancy dropping my phone. )
however has anybody tried this nokia GPS tracker whilst skiing?
http://research.nokia.com/research/projects/SportsTracker/index.html

Yeah, I used it last week around Avoriaz on my N80 paired with a Bluetooth GPS.

Works quite well, even tracking altitude. It's quite neat in that it auto pauses when you're stationary and tracks as you move. Though it can't work out when you're on a ski lift! :mrgreen:. Still, you can manually pause or just let it track the lift as well.

You can attach photos you've taken with the camera or upload photos later. Though the photos aren't GPS tagged, but I think there's a Nokia beta for GPS tagging of photos also.

Battery life is drained faster using it, but that may be because I don't have built-in GPS and I'm using Bluetooth. Built-in models may be better although I hear the GPS reception isn't so great.

No heart rate monitor although the software appears to have space for it in the stats.

These are the ones I did. Once uploaded to the web site the tracks are plotted against Google Maps, and you can switch to satellite view. It would be nice to have piste runs marked though.

http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60858
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60857
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60856
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60855
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60853
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60852
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60851
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60850
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60849
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60848
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60847
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=60846
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=56972

If you register you can customise your account and get the values in something other than metric and a few more frills. It's quite surprising how fast you are going sometimes!


As for navigating with a phone, there's not much point whilst moving I guess, but it would be very handy to have piste maps and use GPS to mark your current position rather than fumbling for a torn up piste map. Planning routes is feasible and even voice navigation to tell you when to take a turning, though I can imagine that will be very hard to build the information behind it given the nature of ski slopes and the way conditions change!

Screen sizes are small on these phones, but the resolution is good. I use my N80 for car navigation just fine and the GPS + sub is cheaper than a TomTom. Though again, it's voice navigation that's mainly useful. Looking at the screen is less necessary for navigation.

Laminated Piste Map. Works wonders. all Weather.

Nokia N95 that I have uses in built gps. Sups battery power like you would not believe. The battery is bad enough as it is any way (24 hours....)

Carry a solar power pack with you. Job done!

Iceman wrote:Carry a solar power pack with you. Job done!

Was thinking that. Slap it on your helmet(!) :mrgreen:

I used it on my N95 with external GPS receiver and was working fab. There is one of my runs, trying to see whats the max speed for the run. pretty sure that can be done quicker but my balls are not that big and was late afternoon and my legs was nacked.

http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=64617