PDA Designed for the Great Outdoors

Paul Bawon writes "A company in UK called Node has developed the world's first consumer PDA designed for use specifically in outdoor environments. The device is fully waterproof to 3 meters, has a 8 hour battery life, built in DGPS receiver and 1 Gig of storage. Bluetooth and WiFi come as standard as does a touch screen and either a PocketPC or Linux operating system. I bumped into them at a tourism conference in Edinburgh where they were demo'ing the unit and I was impressed. It's smaller than a standard postcard."

Interesting...

[solive1]

It's a nice concept. It looks like it can handle being shaken up a bit on the trails and dropped without hurting much. Only things I wonder about are how sturdy it is internally and how scratch-resistant the screen is. By the way... first post.

Nice

[L3on]

A very nice product, although 8 hour battery life is somewhat lacking for a GPS. Garmin has a similar product: http://www.garmin.com/products/iQue3200/ but it's not as beefy. I still don't understand why you need to check your email and appointments out on the trail...

Applications?

[samtihen]

Wow. I think that is pretty cool. It is obviously a bit bigger than what you would expect from a PDA, but it might have interesting applications for forest rangers or nautical police.

What?! Why are the batteries dead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok! Whose been playing Tetris on the gps unit again?!

Some things shouldn't be combined together, especially if you have to depend on it.

In outdoors

[Anonymous Coward]

PDA designed for use specifically in outdoor environments

That's a funny way of saying outside - anyone want to turn on the babble fish translator from earlier today to read what I am actually saying.
Technically correct, I guess, since you go inside the door to go in doors; therefore you would go in to the out door to go outside (or is it out the in door). Thus you are never out of anything but inside of something be it indoors or inoutdoors.

Cluster and GPS

[diginux]

I wonder if it would be possible to cluster 3 units together using the bluetooth or WiFi, then using the GPS on each one to use the differential algorithms to triangulate the position like more expensive professional GPS products do.

Re:Field charger?

[BridgeGarth]

The item's site seems to state that it is designed as an aid for visitors. ie. it seems to me it is designed as a kind of electronic, position aware, guidebook for tourist sites. Not a device geared towards hiking, etc. The 6 hour battery life would therefore seem quite adequate.

Another application for this product

[StalinsNotDead]

The military might be interested in these rugged PDA's.

Re:no karma no whore

[LiquidCoooled]

Sounds like its perfect for using full Windows XP.

Wireless networking - someone across the street 0wnz you.

400mhz xscale powered computing - I'm sure I bought a 3.20ghz machine?

Incredible low reflection screen - playing doom 3, 16.7million shades of black.

Ultra long battery life - up to 6 hours - flat battery = reboot automatically :) time saving measure.

Rubber easy grip design - for smashing it against a wall when it crashes - AGAIN!

Changeable colours - choose from 265 - see, told you Windows gives you more.

Easy clean screen and casing - after pr0n browsing.

Robust durable casing maximising protection - see Rubber Grip above.

Changeable necklace strap, assists devise care - so the linux/mac owners can avoid you.

Auto load software - for an example, just take a look at this picture.

Hidden restart -button - Windows will reboot itself for you - again, time saving.

Water proof casing - see the pr0n browsing.

Simple charge options either dock or individual charge - weekly or monthyl automatic withdrawals, dollars only.

Expandable memory option - will remember the exact expletive used last time it crashed.

Advertising and branding space on rear of deviseLight weight casing design - Where do you want it to land today?

Lockable casing design - to match your padded cell.

Landscape screen - look, more pretty pictures.

Touch screen - interactive pr0n!!!

Linux on PDAs

[Realistic_Dragon]

Linux on a PDA is one of the few things that mistifies me. Having had and used a Zaurus for a very long time I am frankly shocked by how good the interface is, especially when you consider that it's taken a long time for the desktop version to aquire half as much polish.

It's vastly easier to navigate through than the PocketPC version, and more flexible than the Palm version - possibly because it was designed as one entity (in qtopia) than being a bunch of disparate parts like desktop Linux.

Anyway, it's a great choice, with the new PIM apps finally rounding out the package - mplayer, kismet, nethack... what else do you need on a pda? :o)

(Incidently with this model you should be able to install kismet with GPS support so that it automatically logs the location of wireless networks as you war{travel} - much easier than having another unit plugged into the serial port!)

Re:Interesting...

[bhtooefr]

Well, I know that I had a serial touchpad that required a ground, not just pressure. If something that was grounded touched it, it registered a touch. If it wasn't grounded, it didn't know about it. So no rubber-soled shoes ;-)

People are grounded. Raindrops and falling leaves aren't. Unfortunately, stray branches (unless they are falling, in which case you've got more to worry about than it messing with your screen anyway) ARE grounded.

Re:no karma no whore

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, perfect except that XScale uses a post-ARM instruction set and XP is only available for x86, itanic, and x86-64 (pending).

No, there are plenty like you. And plenty not.

[raygundan]

If that's your favorite part, you can enjoy your favorite part of backpacking by simply hiding all your clocks, gadgets, and computers and hanging out in your house. You'll save money on gear and travel time, and you won't have to hang your food in midair to prevent the animals from eating it.

It's cheaper, and those of us who backpack for reasons besides an inability to think of another way to get away from clocks will have less crowded trails to deal with.

People who backpack to "get away" baffle me-- I backpack to get somewhere I want to be, not to hide from my wristwatch. If it's dark and raining, and I'm stuck in my tent-- I'll be loving the 10-hour battery on my GBA.

Re:Excessive features?

[haroldK]

Or you go to a large museum and you borrow one to get a map of all the attractions and maybe some accompanying text/voice info on whatever exhibit you're nearest to.

Actually, when the Smithsonian was touring in '97 (may have been '96 or '98), they had Newtons to do this job. It was a pretty neat way of getting people through with more info than was on the placcards without having to have tour guides. There was both audio and text.

Re:Interesting...

[TheStruuus]

I have used these [raytheon.com] which have been around for a while (a repacked IPAQ).
I'm not sure if >$1000 counts as consumer, but anyone can buy them. They have a touchscreen that is scratch resistant, but obviously not scratch-proof.

Re:What the heck kind of camping is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent all day hiking and taking digital pix. At night, I downloaded them to a laptop. When we drove to another hiking site, I charged batteries using an inverter. I hiked a mountain with a digital camera and tripod on my back. It was the only way my wife would ever see what it looked like at the top!

Still lived in a tent, cooked and ate outdoors, and spent most of the time climbing hills and smiling at porcupines, woodpeckers and other fauna.

Re:Field charger?

[Lumpy]

I modified a motorola freeplay cellphone charger to charge my Sharp Zaurus while in the Wild. it works great, and coupled with a roll-up solar panel I have on the top of my pack I can charge it or the AA batteries I have for my GPS and LED flashlights.

I find that if I disable the backlight and do all my journal entries and photographs in the daytime the zaurus can easily go 2 days without needing a battery top-off. My magellan Gold gps on the other hand eat's batteries like there is no tommorow.

A backpacker that is clever enough can make what he/she needs for computing in the wild easily. and certianly light enough.

as for durability, the zaurus is quite durable if you are sane with it. I do not need to have it out in my hand while mountian climbing or most situations. Ususally it only comes out of the pack when we set up camp or if I really need to write something or empty a CF card from the camera (I have a pair of 1gig SD cards for holding photos from a week vacation.) at a lunch break or stop.

and at the price diference I can keep a case of new SL-5600's to replace broken ones for the price of one of these.

Re:Excessive features?

[HalfStarted]

While the node explorer is cool... the Garmin Rino 130 is a much more useful device:

• 12-channel, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver
• Transmit power: 1 watt on high power (for GMRS channels), .5 watt for low power (FRS channels)
• Transmit distance: up to 2 miles using FRS, up to 5 miles with GMRS
• 14 FRS channels, 8 GMRS channels, and 8 GMRS repeater channels
• 38 sub-audible squelch codes per transmission channel for semi-private radio communications
• Electronic compass displays accurate heading while standing still
• Barometric sensor with automatic pressure trend recording
• Detects up to 7 NOAA weather channels with weather alert tones
• External voice activation (VOX)
• Waterproof to IPX-7 standards (immersible in one meter of water for up to 30 minutes)
• Ergonomic design for one-handed operation, with Call and Press-To-Talk (PTT) and Page mode buttons on the side,
• Power/Backlighting button on top, Volume and Zoom buttons on front, and center Thumb Stick
• Unique Thumb Stick for channel selection and volume adjustment in FRS/GMRS mode, and quick map panning, enter and selection functions in GPS mode
• Sends and receives GPS location using FRS channels and shows them on the map
• Stores up to 500 way points, with graphic identification and 20 reversible routes
• Robust track log: 10,000 track points and up to 20 saved tracks to retrace user's path or companion's path via location-reporting feature
• Trip computer with speed tracking, sunrise/sunset read out, trip time, and trip distance
• Includes a polling feature which allows a user to manually request GPS location information from other Rino units
• Sends and receives short text notes for quiet communication
• Built-in base map for North and South America
• 24-MB internal memory for loading MapSource detail, including U.S. Topo 24K, U.S. Topo, Recreational Lakes, BlueChart®, and MetroGuide®.
• Battery life of 14 hours (typical use) on three AA alkaline batteries
• Backlit display
• More than 10 position formats and over 100 map datums
• Multiple grid formats including MGRS and Loran TD

Rino 130 for a geek that loves the outdoors
Node Explorer for a geek that needs to be distracted from the outdoors.

Oh... anyone that has uses GMRS/FRS/HAM radio knows that local topology and vegetation can have a huge impact on the range of .5 and 1 watt units (in some cases cutting down miles to hundreds of yards). Bluetooth, even WiFi, will not do a whole lot to keep you in touch if you are separated... those protocols will stop working about the same time you lose site of your buddy if not sooner.

Re:Another application for this product

[tminusnetwork]

This is good advice for engineers: I was talking with a US Army Lt. just before he shipped off to Iraq and his #1 complaint was the ruggedness of the equipment. He had just recieved the latest handheld GPS reciever and was testing it for his troops, by testing, I mean running over it with a Hummwv. Surprisingly, it survived the first couple of times before the screen failed. This lieutenant told it to me this way: "You take any one of my soldiers, put them in a padded room with a steel ball, and one of two things is going to happen; they're going to eat it...or break it...Whatever works in the lab has to work after being run over, pushed into three feet of mud, washed clean with diesel, shoved into somebody's webgear, and thrown repeatedly through the air in a game of pickup football with the local villiage kids. THAT's the mindset you engineers need to have when you build this sh*t." It's not that these guys are dumb with equipment, just the opposite, but when you are pushing your way through a rubble filled street taking fire, the last thing you are worried about is protecting that PDA strapped to your belt. This conversation changed the way I thought. It's not all that much more expensive to waterproof and impact resistance a device, if you consider that BEFORE you start the design. Skip the written parameters, build it to LAST. My $.0025 worth.

Re:Is it just me?

[TheWizardOfCheese]

Or do people ususally go the the great outdoors to get away from this kind of stuff

It's just you. Most people avoid actual contact with the great outdoors, but still want the aura of ruggedness and independence that comes with it. The same people who love SUV's will love SUPDA's.

Re:Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about: "Its footprint is smaller than a standard postcard."