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Detect GPS chip used

Hilbert Setter shared this question 6 years ago
Answered

Hello,

I have read that a new more accurate GPS chip is coming to smartphones in 2018

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/design/superaccurate-gps-chips-coming-to-smartphones-in-2018

So I wondered how I can find out which GPS chip is included in my current smartphone: is this something Locus can detect and show?

Thanks!

Replies (6)

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Hmm, it seems tricky. hw utilities list chips for CPU, graphics and all sensors, but not for GPS.

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Hi guys,

as I know ( and as I searched for a while ), developers cannot simply get this information. If, then it should be probably only possible with root access and some linux application that should detect hardware configuration more precisely. Good luck!

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I just wonder how is then possible one can get a detailed info on not rooted device for the rest of hardware ?

Perhaps GPS modul is logically more distant and cannot be queried, or the info for the rest is hardwired in firmware.

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Hmm, for sensors exists API from Google that allows to get information which sensor is in device ( not surprising ), but also some additional information about sensors like ( version, vendor, ... ). As a dev, you work directly with sensors, so access here is to almost everything.

In case of GPS, work on side of devs is really limited and access here is only to some high level functions ( simply to just a location-listener ), that return already computed results and as a developer, you have no chance to get more about "what was before location was computed" ( this has changed little bit in new Android 8, where seems to be given more powerful access to raw received GPS data, nice.

So at least, this is what I know :).

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Thanks a lot for your answer.

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This is not an answer but a very interesting info. It seems that the smartphones (flagships) GPS accuracy will be much better in the very close future (2018), arround 30 cm ! In can confirm that no hardware detection app can give some information about the embedded GNNS (i.e. the GPS chip). I own a Samsung Galaxy S8+, with Galileo support but I have not a better accuracy when comparing to the Samsung S7 (no Galileo support):

https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/gnss-gps-socs/bcm47755


best regards

sl91

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