SIM card or no SIM card

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Wapping

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A question please.

Does a phone know a person’s position better if it has an active SIM card installed? I have a dumb Samsung S10 phone (in other words one without an active SIM card in it) which I use only on my 1600 when using BMW’s Connected app. I am doing this only because an Android phone maintains its WiFi link to the bike, absolutely reliably. This is in contrast to my otherwise very good iPhones, which do not.

I have noticed that the Connected app will sometimes lose the bike’s position. I can’t tell if this is because:

A. The S10 phone, without an active SIM card, isn’t very good at keeping a tab on its position.

B. A weakness within the BMW Connected app itself.

C. The phone being housed in the dedicated cubbyhole on my 2022 1600 GT. I guess I can check this by moving where I put the phone but housing it in the cubbyhole is useful, as it can be kept powered there.

I am well aware that even modern Garmin GPS devices can lose or inaccurately display a bike’s position, if they lose a good sight of a sufficient number of satellites; there is a spot only 200 yards from my house where this happens quite regularly. But the drop out on the dumb Samsung S10 phone was much more frequent. I know this as I was running my XT and the BMW Connected app together. The XT held its position very reliably, whilst the S10 phone / BMWcConnected combination did not.

Thank you for any advice.
 
if it has an active SIM card installed

It should, yes.

Over-semplification: it's like multi-band GPS: the connection to the cellular network is generally another data point that can be used to determine its position.
 
Thank you, Emilio. I had guessed that was the answer but wanted to check. It doesn’t surprise me, as a bike moving at only 30 miles an hour is shifting its position (moment to moment) very significantly, at 44 foot per second.

I don’t very often want or need to take phone calls when riding a motorcycle. Nor do particularly want to keep swapping the SIM card out of my iPhone into the S10 and then back again.

At the risk of hijacking my own thread; what is the ‘best’ SIM card package that bods recommend, having in mind that:

A. I probably don’t want to use the S10 as a phone very often.

B. The S10’s use as a navigation device would be say 80% in the EU and say, 20% here in the UK.

C. I want something that will keep a better fix on my position.

D. I like the BMW Connected app / 1600 GT package. The app has its foibles but on the whole it is pretty good.

Thank you.
 
FWIW, and I’m not sure of the relevance to your query, I have been running my navigation app (PE) on a series of elderly iPhones - currently an iPhone 6S Plus - and all of them without a SIM card. They have never had a problem acquiring satellites or otherwise maintaining an accurate position
 
I may be wrong but, its more dependant on the app you're using i believe. If the app requires just GPS updates it'll work fine. If it requires the phone to update using the cell network as well it'll drop out more frequently.
 
Thank you, Emilio. I had guessed that was the answer but wanted to check. It doesn’t surprise me, as a bike moving at only 30 miles an hour is shifting its position (moment to moment) very significantly, at 44 foot per second.

I don’t very often want or need to take phone calls when riding a motorcycle. Nor do particularly want to keep swapping the SIM card out of my iPhone into the S10 and then back again.

At the risk of hijacking my own thread; what is the ‘best’ SIM card package that bods recommend, having in mind that:

A. I probably don’t want to use the S10 as a phone very often.

B. The S10’s use as a navigation device would be say 80% in the EU and say, 20% here in the UK.

C. I want something that will keep a better fix on my position.

D. I like the BMW Connected app / 1600 GT package. The app has its foibles but on the whole it is pretty good.

Thank you.

I have a similar situation,

I have my everyday phone which is for calls, apps ( spotty / kindle ) and thats it. - Giffgaff golden goodybag - £10pcm and i get 15 gig of data unlimited calls & texts + 1 extra gig of data fallback

My tablet which i use for Nav & Netfilx/ Prime & surfing also needs a Sim otherwise mapping is all offline & i cant log onto the wireless network for data either .
£6 1gb unlimited calls & texts £8 3gb UL calls & texts

Logic would dictate

One Giffgaff account , with two Sims registered , and one monthly payment depending on what level want

Except You cant do that on GiffGaff, it's one sim one account

So i have

Primary account & number - Golden goody bag £10pcm

Nav account & number - Std Goody bag £6pm and when i go away, at the month end preceding any trip i change it to a golden GB for £10, once i'm back i drop it back to £6.

You do have to make 1 call every 5.5 months to the second sim just to keep the number active , but a reminder on the main phone does that

Also Giffgaff to Giffgaff calls are free, and they have locked there tarrifs until the end of 2023
 
Richard, you might want to consider using a data only sim card maybe?
It would still connect to the network, saves you having another phone number. :)

There will be some users with better knowledge of these systems than me that can give you better advice.


Another route could be to use an external GPS receiver for the Android phone. Even without a SIM you might get a better fix through GPS alone.
There are several on the market. They are usually necessary for some type of applications like laptimers, etc. They also have a faster refresh rate usually.






I am well aware that even modern Garmin GPS devices can lose or inaccurately display a bike’s position

Even between modern and "less modern".
My GPSMap 64s, but also my previous - very old - 60csx, would get a fairly accurate GPS fix in locations where the XT normally fails magnificently. :)
 
Thank you all for your help and comments, very appreciated.

I think it will be worthwhile me trying a data only SIM card, maybe on a week or even a moth trial. The detailed BMW Connect maps are fully installed on the S10, coming across via WiFi between the S10 and the bike’s TFT screen. That connection is very reliable. This means that I don’t need any data use, dragging maps across. All I need it for is for a reliable positional fix. Data only SIM cards are not hugely expensive, so I’ll shop around a bit.

I am new to all this phone / navigation app malarkey, having been a big Garmin fan for years. I am though very wary of using just one phone for all my calls, emails, entire life needs AND as a GPS device. I did drop my iPhone when I was using it in the BMW Connect cradle on my 850, smashing its screen in the process. Had I been away, I might well have been stuffed. Having the spare S10 (navigation only) phone works well, if I can get it to reliably show my position.
 
Go to https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheap-mobile-finder/sim-only/ and have a look for the current deals.

I have a SIM from Lebara for under a fiver a month. 3GB of data a month as well as texts & calls that are rarely used. It's a rolling 30 day deal so you could switch it on and off as needed. Lebara piggy backs onto Vodafone in the UK and offers free EU roaming, and a few other countries. Includes 5G althogh my Moto phone is only 4G.

This deal is currently available for 24p a month for the first 6 months which seems to be a no brainer as a trial for you.

I just got back from a trip to the Pyrenees. The Lebara connection worked perfectly in France and Spain. It didn't work for very long in the Picos but that was more to do with leaving my phone on the topbox lid and riding off. One very smashed Moto G10, although I did find the phone and recover the SIM, which is now working fine in a G31 replacement!
 
Excellent, Wessie, thank you.

I am off to Luxembourg in a couple of weeks, so having the Lebara SIM to trial will be very handy. If it works and gives a reliable positional fix, great. If it doesn’t, it’ll be 24p to find out and back to the drawing board. I have my XT plumbed into my 1600 anyway, so a back-up is in place, no matter what.

Lebara I see advertised on the tube a lot. I had, I must confess, only associated them with cheap calls to the dark continent.
 
Can you not hotspot your SIMless Andoid phone to the iPhone in your pocket to maintain the positional integrity you are looking for?
 
To give you an idea of data usage -

i stream Spottify every day for approx 11 hrs a day 5 days a week


I have a warning set at 8gb , out of my 15 limit

occasionally i will get a message saying i have 2gb left (of my 8gb limit) around the 26th of the month its a rolling 1 - 30th contract


on the tabnav, i went to Portsoy & back with live traffic & data enabled within copilot + mapping

i think i used 256mb or so lol

just be aware for data charges abroad,

you cant often see what you use, and the costs can be horrific
 
I think i tried thism i=and i cant remember why if failed

i think it was the simless unit kept trying to take over calls etc from the simmed unit so when you got a call

it was allays trying to answer the call then killing it because there was no sim lol


i might have another try this afternoon ;)
 
It epends on what you Mean by fix

If your phone / tablet has a Gps module, it will be glonass or similar,

So it will lock onto 3/4 out of the 15 positional satellites its needs to give a 3d co ordinate fix

The reason they then use the sim card is

To all intents and purposes gPS is line of sight, so if the GPS unit can see a satellite, it will try to obtain a fix


Stick it in a hole / mountains/ tunnel , and no light of site - no gps fix


To overcome this phone manufacturers said

"hey lets use the cell tower as a secondary fix , they are xx apart, and they log a simcard into the towers network / range and out when it leaves"

perfect :) ... erm no

As you know if your in a poor reception area , you cant get a signal , then you cant get a cell tower fix either

And the solution to that ....

The DVD disc in your cars GPS , so it monitors the line of sight GPS the cell tower locations ,

And should you enter the Mont Blanc tunnel, it contnues to log your position, via the mapping on the disc

leave the tunnel and Line of sight & cell tower come into play again ..

None are perfect, unfortunately
 
That would be dead reckoning.
I have never encountered any consumer gps device (Garmin or vehicle OEM) that do that in longer tunnels, even if keeping constant speed or devices being equipped with inertial systems (or closer relatives to that).

But we are wildly off topic :)
 
The Lebara SIM card (as suggested by Wessie) has arrived. It seems to work, in as much as I can make a call with it. My thanks to him for the suggestion.

I’ll hopefully test it out at the weekend, to see if it enables my S10 phone to track the bike’s position more reliably. Then to Luxembourg in a couple of weeks.
 
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