Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

I have been doing some more stability testing of running 'Mapper' with tracking enabled and other applications to see what can cause the N900 to go into a death spiral where your only option is to pull out the battery to restart.

Here is what I have found to date:
Mapper with tracking by itself is fine for at least several hours.

Mapper with tracking and MfE is fine for at least several hours.

Mapper with tracking, MfE and browser can cause problems. Heavy sites can make the response time of the N900 drop noticeably. Additional applications or flash sites can really slow the N900 down and I suspect this is when the N900 is likely to go into the death spiral.

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

don't know if it's directly relevant or not, but during a recent walk (battery fully charged before setting off) I had tracking enabled on maep,with nokia messaging running for push gmail, the built in media player for music, with occasional use of the camera plus the odd SMS. I stopped media player after a while, and later on when I stopped for a coffee I realised the n900 had switched itself off. It wa totally dead & unresponsive - it would not power on again until after I took out the battery - when I put it back in, the phone booted up fine again.

That was the first time I'd used the tracking feature, so I assumed it was probably a bit buggy, but perhaps my lock up was the same as your 'death spiral'? I tred to reproduce the problem but I walked for another hour with tracking+music+push email+camera+calls/SMS+email send/receive (I even did a bit of youTube to stress it!) and it refused to break again. Total duration of that walk ewas about 3 hours, the lockup happened after ~1 hour. As far as I'm aware it didn't hang in response to any action by me, it just died in the background. My n900 hasn't got much from extras-testing/devel and has never needed a battery removal before or since.

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

Thanks fella,

I've done a bit of testing myself and tried to maximise battery life by turning pretty much everything off (even the little wiggle you get when you press the screen), still not getting a full day.

I might look at the Proporta USB turbocharger as the 3400mAh should last two full recharges or maybe even the Solar Monkey Explorer - though with the sun as it is in the UK I'm not too hopeful of free energy to keep me going all day.

JS

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

It could be the GPS driver or common library used by both applications. I am not sure if tracking has anything to do with it.

All we can do is more testing to see if we can work out the common factors.

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

Based on three hours of tracking I did today with AGPS disabled, running MfE and 3G enabled, I used about 25% of the battery capacity. This is based on using battery-eye, not the little battery guide at the top which is useless.

Now the device never obtains full charge (100%), it only ever gets to 95% on battery-eye and I don't know what the bottom of the range is. Also you need to be able to save the tracking file. Let us assume you need to switch batteries with 10% remaining. That gives you a working capacity of 85%. This gives you a working time of 10 hours. This will still need to be verified and I am sure many other factors will come into play.

I really don't recommend the solar chargers for charging phones or some have an internal battery that is then used to charge the phone. Most of these require 10 or 12 hours of full sun to charge their internal battery. You cannot even get this on a clear day in summer in Australia, because full sun is not what you get in morning or late afternoon. At best you would get 8 hours. This all assumes you are angling the panel at the sun correctly, there is no cloud, your not walking under trees etc.

For the weight and cost you are better to just buy several of the 3rd party batteries and charge them up before going.

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

This is kinda nonsense. While it is true that you won't be able to charge the phone, you will be able to run the phone from the sun. I've done it before on a 12 hour drive from GA to NJ. I ran my 800 off of direct sunlight for the entire trip (i have a convertible).

And yes, you can get 12 hours of sunlight in the summer.

Now for walking about in the woods? Different set of circumstances.

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

Two very small feature requests:

When saving a tracking to file, if the file exists it does not warn you that it is going to over write the existing file. (I just happened to over write yesterday's tracking. This time it was not important, but it could have been)

When you have enabled tracking it is probably because you want to log where you have been, but you can easily close Mapper by mistake and it does not prompt you that you have tracking enabled and it will stop tracking if you close Mapper.

These are just two house keeping features, but it will really make Mapper more robust.

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

I had used the old *-mapper program on the N810 and it was quite nifty. Except when the routing engine went off line :( I donated to the previous developer several times as it was such a killer app for me.

Tonight was the first time I tried the new version of mapper. I tried the alpha version and it crashed. But this most recent version worked. And not only did it work, but it impressed me! The pop ups for turns were very cool, and the intergrated distance left, etc was just awesome. Sure there are niggling features I'd like to see and all. But whats most important? I put in an address, told it to auto-update and it kept updating and got me to my destination with very minimal effort.

Thanks again, and I'll be donating marty :) And yes, integrating with the new e-speak instead of flite would be quite cool as well. But hey, for now I'm just happy with real turn by turn directions that work.

:D

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

Just donated 10 EUR to Mardy through About button in Mapper.

Keep up the good work Mardy!

Bjorn.

Re: [Maemo 5] Maemo Mapper - Where are the N900 threads?
 

I need some help with downloading some map tiles for Japan.

How do I do this?

I am currently in Australia.