Smartphone GPS Usage Beyond Traditional Land Motor Vehicle Mapping

Hi there, until today, I don't think there's enough market for
people using offline map on the sea, mostly they use dedicated gps or online map which is very expensive for the sea or air, which uses satellite internet option. for google offline, it's very hard to scope the path you go and download offline map, especially google map on the sea not reliable, not like on the ground. Hope this help

When you are serious about navigation, cell tower data is never used. All of the following are standalone and get a fix from the satellites.

The smallest, least expensive marine chartplotter:

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/63603

Used on oceangoing ships:

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/518936

Aviation handheld GPS:

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/520775

dobs108

I use Wartsila iSailor for marine charts, and Topo Maps Canada for topographic maps offline on my iPhone.

Both are excellent, and iSailor has marine maps available for most of the world. The only thing is, as others have said, I would never trust a smartphone for critical navigation.

Many automotive Garmin devices can accept topo maps on microSD cards, and there are libraries of free topo maps available. The only way to find out for sure is to try it and see if they load. I have put the Canada Topo map from my eTrex onto all my Nuvi auto devices, and they work fine. (Most are not routable on an automotive device though.)

I haven't tried the topo maps on my DriveSmart yet. Auto devices don't really make good devices for outdoors navigation anyway though because they are not weatherproof and battery life is very short.

Thank you for the replies.

This is NOT for serious, critical navigation. I simply want to be able to use my smartphone, without the need for data, where I can download a nautical chart ahead of time and use the smartphone GPS to display where in the world we are, like on a future cruise!

The aviation sectional charts would be pretty much the same deal. It would be interesting to use the GPS aboard the airliner and have sectional charts downloaded that would show where we are.

I have Garmin's BlueChart app on both my iPad mini and smartphone. I bought it for an Alaskan cruise in 2017. You pay for and download the charts you want and no data is required. There is no cell service anyway in most of the Alaskan waters. Cruise ships have on board WiFi but it is quite expensive.

Unfortunately, Garmin recently discontinued BlueChart so I'm going to try Navionics on my next cruise or airline trip.

https://www.navionics.com/usa/apps/navionics-boating

I think the most obvious problem with this whole sceneario is that in order to use those downloaded maps you need a GPS/Location signal on your cell phone. If you don;'t have cell phone service it's all for naught.

If you on a crusie, they sometimes have a monitor that diaplays your location.

Personally I turn off my devices and just enjoy the cruise, or flight without all the electronic obsession.

Most smart phones use A-GPS (augmented GPS) using both the cell tower signals and the GPS satellite signals to determine location. Using the cell towers can speed up the process to get a lock or fix from the GPS satellites. But once your location is locked in, most smart phones can track your location with the GPS chip alone when the cell signal is lost … the same way your dedicated GPS devices do it. So most apps that have on-board maps will work just fine on a smart phone even when you don't have a cell signal.

Interesting that, with the acquisition of Navionics by Garmin, they have FINALLY expanded Canada coverage. I had to avoid Garmin chartplotters for my boat until now. It's been many years in the waiting, I will tell you.

That Novionics app looks really good, especially now that Wartsila iSailor has gone to a subscription service as well.

I have a Samsung S8+. For my GO-TO GPS I use HERE Offline Maps loaded in my phone. I have all North and Central America plus Columbia SA and the whole Caribbean.

I use this for all my Amtrak around the USA and VIA in Canada plus my cruises, Los Angles to Fort Lauderdale through the Panama Canal. But HERE Maps does not save the track log of the trip for later viewing.

For that I use a tracking app on my phone called GPX-VIEWER Pro ($5.82). It tracks every where I go and saves the trip track log in .GPX or .KLM format. Which then can be viewed in Garmin MapSource or BaseCamp or Google Earth. They also have very detailed downloadable maps of the world for offline usage. I have North and Central America and Caribbean Isles loaded on my phone.