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the*B*team

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:unsure: still a newbie here, still unsure if I want to spend $30 for membership and another $5-$10 for an app for my android powered phone. What has been your experience using a stand alone gps device, and an app? (I keep thinking this money can be used for the kids, the pets, groceries, etc! always the mom!)

 

But so far I'm having a blast, and love the actual hunt for the cache, and the find is definitely the climax - the nano second after finding the cache, there's the letdown, and the need to be on to the next one! I just wish I had more time to devote to the game, rather than do housework, and go to work. lol

 

thanks for listening!

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If you go with the kids and they have fun, you're spending the money 'on the kids'. :)

 

I prefer the stand alone GPS, but use an App for 'caching on the fly' but often enter the coordinates from the phone into the GPS!

 

 

thanks for the reply, I'm just trying to get a feel for the technical aspects of this game - my kids are a little older, and they think I'm a dork for doing this! I'm still trying to get them interested...but teenagers are a different species altogether! (I was at raf alconbury from '90-'92, would've loved it if this was around then, and was able to log a few overseas caches!)

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I use both. For spur-of-the-moment geocaching, the phone apps are great (I've used GeoBeagle, Groundspeak's Geocaching for Android, and Neongeo). But I use a dedicated handheld unit for longer trips and with rougher terrain, because the phone has very limited battery life with the GPS antenna on, and because the phone is nowhere near as sturdy/waterproof as the dedicated handheld unit. But I still use my phone for paperless data and record keeping, even when I'm using the dedicated handheld unit to navigate from cache to cache.

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Besides the official Groundspeak app ($10), there is also NeonGeo ($5) which I have not personally used but have heard very positive reviews about.

 

Alternatively, there a free app called GeoHunter (a better version of GeoBeagle). It's not very good for spur-of-the-moment caching because in the field it only downloads the GC code and coordinates - no cache info. But if you run Pocket Queries (which you get with a Premium Membership) it is great. That's what I use.

Edited by Joshism
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:unsure: still a newbie here, still unsure if I want to spend $30 for membership and another $5-$10 for an app for my android powered phone. What has been your experience using a stand alone gps device, and an app? (I keep thinking this money can be used for the kids, the pets, groceries, etc! always the mom!)

 

But so far I'm having a blast, and love the actual hunt for the cache, and the find is definitely the climax - the nano second after finding the cache, there's the letdown, and the need to be on to the next one! I just wish I had more time to devote to the game, rather than do housework, and go to work. lol

 

thanks for listening!

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Use an iphone4 and official app. works very well for me. Can always find nearest geo-caches with phone. Only disadvantage battery drawn down is huge. Accuracy is quite good equal to my extrex--which goes have better battery life. The other major disadvantage is lack of satelite signal and then it won't find caches. For that I use Geosphere, easiler for me to manually load caches in and can also use pocket querites to load geo files for when I do not have signal--GPS function still works on phone in this situation. I am still new but that is what works for me.

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Use an iphone4 and official app. works very well for me. Can always find nearest geo-caches with phone. Only disadvantage battery drawn down is huge. Accuracy is quite good equal to my extrex--which goes have better battery life. The other major disadvantage is lack of satelite signal and then it won't find caches. For that I use Geosphere, easiler for me to manually load caches in and can also use pocket querites to load geo files for when I do not have signal--GPS function still works on phone in this situation. I am still new but that is what works for me.

 

thanks for the info - me and technology are like electricity and water - not the best combination! lol

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Besides the official Groundspeak app ($10), there is also NeonGeo ($5) which I have not personally used but have heard very positive reviews about.

 

Alternatively, there a free app called GeoHunter (a better version of GeoBeagle). It's not very good for spur-of-the-moment caching because in the field it only downloads the GC code and coordinates - no cache info. But if you run Pocket Queries (which you get with a Premium Membership) it is great. That's what I use.

 

I did break down and buy neongeo - We'll see how it goes! Thanks for the reply....

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I use both. For spur-of-the-moment geocaching, the phone apps are great (I've used GeoBeagle, Groundspeak's Geocaching for Android, and Neongeo). But I use a dedicated handheld unit for longer trips and with rougher terrain, because the phone has very limited battery life with the GPS antenna on, and because the phone is nowhere near as sturdy/waterproof as the dedicated handheld unit. But I still use my phone for paperless data and record keeping, even when I'm using the dedicated handheld unit to navigate from cache to cache.

 

thanks for the response, I'm starting to get a handle on what I should be using - can't believe how addicted I am, and that I resent the fact that I have to go to work! lol

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Get the app and worry about the PM later. You'll have everything you need on the phone with the app. As you get more into the sport and get a dedicated GPSr then a PM will become much more useful then it is with just the phone.

 

Or get the PM and go with one of the free apps.

 

Thanks for the help, I'm really starting to get a feel for how this is done.

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I'm very new to this. I am using a droid and c:geo combined with GPS Status. So far it seems to be working fine for me. I noticed that no one has mentioned this app. How does it compare to the others?

 

I've heard c:geo violates groundspeaks tos. I don't want to use it just for that reason, I have my eye on geomate gps, and I intend to use that, and someone mentioned neongeo (?) which I've been using. I haven't been able to get out and about looking for caches because work keeps getting in the way ;), but hopefully can get out on my days off this week.

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Neongeo (and other API based programs) apparently have a big limitation for basic (free) members as far as live caching goes. In any 24 hour period, the program can only download the full info for 3 traditional caches. (You may be able to load basic info for more caches by creating .gpx files from .loc files, but the files won't contain the full cache info. (I don't know if this all applies to the official app or not. I don't use android.)

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I'm very new to this. I am using a droid and c:geo combined with GPS Status. So far it seems to be working fine for me. I noticed that no one has mentioned this app. How does it compare to the others?

 

I've heard c:geo violates groundspeaks tos. I don't want to use it just for that reason, I have my eye on geomate gps, and I intend to use that, and someone mentioned neongeo (?) which I've been using. I haven't been able to get out and about looking for caches because work keeps getting in the way ;), but hopefully can get out on my days off this week.

 

I did not know this about c:geo. Very disappointing as the other apps don't look nearly as good.

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been using neon geo for severl weeks now.. any issue i had was taken care of by the developer rather quickly.. he is an individual and not a business with other proiorities. he responds quickly.

 

neongeo is great for getting inthe car and driving if you can stand the data on your bill. traveling it is just awsome. no pocket queries needed unless you go somewhere with no data. i haven't tried it in airplane mode yet. i assume it will handle it quite well.

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Just tried Neongeo. What a waste of $4.26. VERY slow and has a hard time locking on to my position and doesn't offer much in the way of features. Perhaps if I hadn't tried C:geo first I would have been satisfied.

 

Guess my next move is to try the official app.

 

I wholeheartedly agree!!

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been using neon geo for severl weeks now.. any issue i had was taken care of by the developer rather quickly.. he is an individual and not a business with other proiorities. he responds quickly.

 

neongeo is great for getting inthe car and driving if you can stand the data on your bill. traveling it is just awsome. no pocket queries needed unless you go somewhere with no data. i haven't tried it in airplane mode yet. i assume it will handle it quite well.

 

To be honest, I do have neon geo, and c:geo, and use live maps on both all the time; and I do not know what type of data it uses to do that, nor did I know it ate up, what are they called, kilobytes? Now I'm afraid to use it! lol, guess I have to shell out the money for a gps!

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For smartphone Geocaching with maps, you probably would want an unlimited data plan. With my plan, I don't have that option, but I'm able to download maps at home via wifi (or using my computer) and save them on the phone for later use. But I have the issue of using an OS that most developers have abandoned, even though there are lots of these devices out there. (Which means there probably will never be an official Geocaching app for my phone.)

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Just tried Neongeo. What a waste of $4.26. VERY slow and has a hard time locking on to my position and doesn't offer much in the way of features.
Did you try posting to the Neongeo forum? The developer has been very good about responding to issues (and implementing requested features), and there are a number of expert users who often help answer questions and diagnose problems.

 

I've never seen an issue with Neongeo not locking in on my location, except when I didn't have a fix and nothing else (not even Google Maps) would lock onto my location either. But there was something in the forums recently about a fix for updating the location when there isn't a GPS ("fine location") lock.

 

Personally, I've been impressed by the feature set, but some of them are not implemented in the same way I've seen them implemented in other apps. The forum and wiki can be very helpful.

 

I've heard that there were plans to re-write C:Geo to use the API, but I don't know if there has been any progress on that.
It has been discussed on the c:geo developer site, but the ticket to switch to the geocaching.com API (vs continuing to scrape the geocaching.com site) was recently closed, and there doesn't seem to be any movement towards using the API right now.

 

For smartphone Geocaching with maps, you probably would want an unlimited data plan. With my plan, I don't have that option, but I'm able to download maps at home via wifi (or using my computer) and save them on the phone for later use.
A lot depends on how (and how much) you use your phone. I have an "unlimited" data plan, but I've never gotten anywhere close to reaching 1GB/month, even with geocaching and email and Google Navigate and the web browser and so on.

 

And FWIW, Neongeo also supports offline maps. I haven't used the feature myself, but I know that others use it a lot.

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