View topic - Using smart phones and tablets as GPS devices on canoe trips

I used the App Canada Maps by Atlogis on a recent trip. I bought the Pro version for $11.99 and used it with my Samsung S7. I kept the S7 in a Sealline mobile phone case that allows you to use the touch screen without opening the case. I then kept that in my pelican case along with my camera equipment. I did find myself taking the phone out of the Sealline case frequently because it was much easier to manipulate the screen without the case on.

I cached the Toporama, Canmatrix and ESRI Satellite layers to a magnification level of 14 (very high resolution) prior to the trip. This amounted to about 1 GB of map layers. You can't cache the Bing or Google layers because of licensing restrictions. Prior to the trip I emailed myself a KML (Google Earth) file of our route including way points and river notes and imported them into the program.

I kept the phone in flight mode when it was on. But, most the time after verifying my location or marking a way point I would turn the phone off. I managed to get about 1 week out of the battery. I brought along a 13 000 mah battery bank that would allow me to completely recharge the battery 3-4 times. I marked way points for campsites and lunch spots with +/- 5 metres of accuracy. On one 6 hour hike I turned on tracking and it worked flawlessly at following us and recorded the track, elevation gain/loss, speed etc.. That did chew through the battery a bit.

All in all I was very impressed. I can't see myself ever buying an dedicated GPS again.

Yet another question for you geeks---I have combed thru this thread and did some Googling but could not find what version(s) of the Android OS I would need to run Gaia.

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

Andriod 4.1 or newer as of 2018-07, according to the Gaia GPS website. (See screenshot below.)

You can also just go to the google play store on whatever Android device you have and try to download it. It won't allow you to download unless the app is compatible with your device's version of Android.