Getting GPS working again on the Vibrant w/ CM7 nightlies

I love CyanogenMod and I thank all of them for their hard work that they do for basically nothing except the “thrill”. I have been using that since the very first version on my HTC ADP1. Then I bought the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant from T-Mobile and CM was not available for the device. I stuck with the “Stock” Samsung TouchWiz UI that I made some tweaks to here and there to get a better experience for myself. I did things like rooting the device, adding the CarDock, removing the crap software that I don’t ever use, removed the “WorldClock” and added the stock Alarm Clock and other things here and there.

The GPS on this device has always been a topic of discussion, as there were issues with it from launch. It would take up to 10 minutes or more, to get a lock, and once you got the lock, you would probably lose it. There were people much smarter then me that found ways to make the GPS usable on the Stock TouchWiz UI.

After some time, Team Whiskey released the Bionix ROM. This was/is a ROM still based off the TouchWiz version of Android at its core, but was a better experience as it included functionality that was not in stock TouchWiz, and it didn’t include the bloatware. The biggest thing that Team Whiskey brought to the Vibrant with Bionix was Voodoo. Now, I know they did not create Voodoo, and other ROMs had support too, but I am just babbling about what Bionix did for me. I ran this ROM for some time, and a mod that I created that brought the Gingerbread keyboard with working the hepatic feedback to FroYo ROM is even included in the distribution. But there was still something missing for me.

I believe, at least for me, that the Vanilla Android is a better user experience, and the CM modifications, is that experience, plus more for your “die-hard” android users. I would go to the CyanogenMod website often to see if there was any developments on getting a build of CM running on the Vibrant. Now, you may read this and say “It ran on the Vibrant for a while”, and that is true, but the steps needed to install it on the device was a pain in the ass, not to mention that there were a lot of things that were not working. These are the things that kept me on Bionix. Then the CM team that work on the Vibrant (and other Galaxy S devices too) got the install process to be a lot less of a pain. At that time, I decided to give it a try, and I knew that GPS, among some other bugs existed.

Then shortly after I started flashing these unofficial builds of CM, the nightlies started. At the time of this post, they have over 75 nightlies, but there are still some issues with it, including GPS. Which brings me to the actual title of this post. I found this thread over on XDA by stricklyrude27. He put together a set of scripts and files and steps that were created by other people (see thread for their credit) and placed them in to a single update.zip package.

I am running CM7.1-N76 with the GPSFix v1.4 and GPS works great. I get a lock in just a couple of seconds. If you are running CM7 on your Vibrant, head over to the thread and give it a try, at least until an official CM7 solution comes about.

Thank you to all that contribute to the CyanogenMod and especially to the SGS Team, also thanks to all that were involved in getting this fix working too. The android community is great and love that just about always, a solution to any issue is found.

Logitech Revue and Acoustic Research XSight Touch

Yesterday was a good gadget day for me. Both my Logitech Revue and Acoustic Research XSight Touch arrived in the mail.

So far I like the Revue. $99 is a much better price for that device, I don't know if I would have been too happy if I paid the $249 for it. What I really want is ADB access to it, or I would settle for the Android Market. It needs "more" apps. My TV has more apps then the Revue, but I really like Chrome and the Logitech Media Player (I think its just a DLNA client). It works well, I watched a couple videos streamed from my PC to the Revue and used TVersity to do the transcoding.

The Netflix app is what you would expect, actually, it is the exact same app that is on my Vizio TV. The gallery app will pull down your images from Picasa.

I also like the Queue, but I will probably use it more for NetCasts like TWiT and TWiG. The Queue does fall a little short when it comes to searching for NetCasts. There is no way to manually type in the RSS feed in the Queue, and some that I searched for, like TWiG, would only give me the audio feed. You can get around this limitation by opening up Chrome and visit the NetCast site and select the RSS icon in the Search bar, or open the RSS feed directly if it is available. This will open up the Queue subscription option screen.

I am very eager for the Market to come to the Revue. I can’t wait to start writing Android applications for this and other Google TV enabled devices.

I still have a lot of playing around to do with the Revue, but so far, I am of the opinion that it is well worth the $99. If you don't have one, and thought about getting one before, I say go get it now.

 

That brings me to the AR XSight Touch Universal Remote. I got the XSight Touch off Woot.com when they had it on there about a week or so ago. It was a good deal, they retailed for about $250, but Amazon has them now for about $75. Woot had them for $40 with shipping.

The remote will control up to 18 different devices and has a 2.2" Color LCD touch display. It has built in 433 MHz RF but requires an accessory to make use of that. The buttons are back-lit and are easy to see in the dark. The remote as an accelerometer of some sort, as it will automatically turn on the display and key lights when the device is picked up. It comes with a lithium-ion battery and a dock for charging the remote. The remote can "learn" from other IR remotes, programmed via the remote itself, or you can program it using an online tool with a huge collection of devices in their database.

Setup was pretty easy, I did one device from the remote, and 2 more from the website. The website tool did seem a little slow, but I hope it was because all the "wooters" were trying to setup their devices. The website saves your configuration so if the remote loses its configuration, it can be easily restored. You can also setup "key macros" so you can easily turn on/off a range of devices with one key press. It can even control some home automation stuff, like security systems, lighting, etc. I have mine set up to control my Vizio TV, Xfinity HD Cablebox and Xbox 360.

Overall, I am happy with the XSight, and I will be using that as my main remote for the TV/Cable, and the Revue keyboard will be when I want to actually make use of the Google TV functionality.

Logitech Revue w/ Google TV - http://amzn.to/pulB7a
XSight Touch Universal Remote - http://amzn.to/oFHrNE