Surge GPS + jet plane ride

[georgehamilton]

I've known for a while that if I get a window seat on a plane, I can start a GPS app on my phone, & if I hold the phone to the window, it will get a GPS fix. Once this is done, the fix will hold if the phone is less than 12" from the widow. Neat to know speed & elevation in route. No danger to plane as phone is in airplane mode (all transmitters off). GPS is receiver only.

Then I tried engaging GPS on the Surge next to the window & eventually got a fix (slower to get a fix than phone). The speed shown on the Surge slowly went up, & seemed to max out at about 55 mph, pretty fast for a bicycle ride. I'm sure the Surge designers never anticipated an owner starting a track while at 35 K feet. Fun to experiment though.

[AngelaMa]

Hello @georgehamilton, It's great to see that you've visited the Fitbit Community!  Thanks for sharing your experiment with the Surge's GPS on a jet plane ride. I would love to see the graphs for the "ride" 

Thanks for stopping by, see you around!

[HeliosJim]

Along these lines, is it possible to get raw data from the GPS? For example, the time, position and speed of each individual reading?

[georgehamilton]

Angela: I happen to have a screen shot off the phone of the flight profile, not sure how to post a pix as a reply.

[AngelaMa]

Hello @georgehamilton, hope you are having a very active day! 🙂 I'm not sure if you can post a screenshot from a mobile device. My advise is, if possible use the computer to upload it.  @HeliosJim currently it is not possible to get GPS raw data. 

Catch you later! 

[georgehamilton]

Pix of GPS flight profile, altitude in feet on Y axis, distance in miles on X axis.  Started GPS app on smartphone (in airplane mode), hold up to window, GPS sytems gets a fix.  Then can hold phone up to 12" away from window, and still maintain GPS fix.

[UsedLips]

I, too, put the Surge into Bike mode on a recent flight and saw the GPS come online. And like you saw, the speed was about 60 m.p.h. and the distance from Boston to Chicago measured about 26 miles.

These measures were disappointing. What I thought would be a fun experiment turned out to be a let down.

[georgehamilton]

I expect the designers decided not to accommodate plane travel, but it was a fun experiment anyhow.