PureBasic Forum

There are many personal GPS devices in the market today, mostly for security & tracking, but many of these consumer products either utilise SMS as the mode of communications, or require the OEMs' apps or web-services to track them.

Has anyone here had any experience with programmable GPS/GSM devices that can be set-up to transmit their GPS data to our own cloud servers? These are SIM-enabled devices, so data-connectivity is available; but the device must be able to use it and initiate http posts. And, of course, we should be able to program in our own URLs to receive these call-home posts.

Any nudge in the right direction is appreciated. Thank you.

It's been almost 25 years since I read out a GPS module with QBasic and made simple navigational calculations.

The data was then transferred via the NMEA protocol. Whether this still has a meaning today or also applies to today's mobile devices, I can't say. But maybe a googling approach.

Most GPS devices communicate with the host through NMEA file transmission, which is a simple text file format.
So you have to find a device you can program on. Cut the text file and send it via the web.
Arduino and Raspberry do that, but PB doesn't work there. However their programming is easy.

Thank you for your answers. I'm sure that deciphering the transmitted data would be another challenge, according to the formats utilised by the various devices.

However, the task at hand is locating an affordable OEM one that would allow data transmission to our servers; most are preset to call-home to the manufacturers' servers with no customisable options. Since this is for a fleet management project, retail consumer equipment would not be cost-effective. But so far, all those sub-$10 units with TCP/UDP functionality have no options to set the server IP address.

If anyone could assist with a link to such a source, that'd be really great.

Thanks again for your kind answers.

I once wrote some code to decipher the messages from GlobalStar's satellite trackers. They send a 10byte hex message which took some figuring out.

It's not difficult to find trackers like this Dyegoo range on Aliexpress some of which (e.g. this one) allow you to reprogram the server it should send its messages to by sending it a specially formatted SMS. You can also ask for its current location using the same method.

Hi weavster, and thank you for the links. The price is great and the specs seem on point. These Chinese manufacturers aren't very clear with their product descriptions, and most devices with the TCP option usually point only to the OEM portals. I'll definitely give this one a look.

The deciphering phase of this sounds a little daunting. From what I've managed to gather, it utilises some sort of binary or hex format, as you'd mentioned. But I've had no experience with such whatsoever. So I'll take your advice and try to figure it out.

Thanks again; I'm truly obliged.

I don't think these particular models do send cryptic responses, if you look at example 5 in the product description it shows how you request its current location and how it responds (666666 is the default password):

request:
where,666666#

response:
Lat:N23.117475,Lon:E114.418433,Course:0.00,Speed:0.5204,DateTime:12-07-02 21:05:43

As you can see it's just plain simple csv

i test now the neo6 gps from arduino,
using tinygpsplus library, see lat long, sats, vel, altitude, (distance to any coord) angle to coord, n s w o, errors, time from signals, and more,
i send data, to the com, and read its in my pc, and make track, but not is easy.

never use gsm shield, but is posible configure it with arduino , uno , or arduino mini, and arduino gsm(i remember a variant from arduino with gsm and gps, )