Lately, I’ve been playing with my nice new shiny Nokia N95 phone. It’s got tuns of features in a smaller body than my old N91 so I’m really enjoying messing around with it. I could call it experimenting or researching but fuck it. I’m enjoying it too much to call it something as serious or boring as research. The first thing I did was throw on about 6 Gigs of music. That took a while by the way; I usually keep all my music in Wav format because I hate the sound of compressed music so I hat to do loads of conversion before copying it all across. On the up side though, I found a CD that I’d copied to the N91 but later forgot about that I’m really enjoying. It’s from a group called Téada. I’ve no idea who they are or when I bought their CD but I like it! Anyway, it’s great not to be restricted by the same old 4 Gig of stuff for a change. I know I could have put other music onto the N91 but I was lazy! Converting music takes time and its more hastle than I wanted. Plus, the N91 was starting to see the end during the last four or five months so I knew that I was going to have to update sooner than later.
The one feature that I was looking forward to using was the integrated GPS receiver in conjunction with the Way finder GPS application. Way Finder Access is an adapted version of this software that provides information in textual format as apposed to the standard map form. Basically that means it’s much more accessible to someone like my self who doesn’t particularly like maps as my screen reader won’t read them. It took a good while to get it working but finally, after leaving the phone on a windowsill for about an hour it found my position and displayed some local road names and points of interests. However, everything was not as straight forward as I’d anticipated. I took it outside and got into the car but before I could drive off I had to wait for the GPS to connect. Five minutes later, still nothing. Ten minutes. Still nothing! I was getting a bit frustrated at this point so I just left it and did what I needed to do. Later though I was more successful so I took it for a quick strole. Although I’m from Drogheda, a lot of road names still escape me. In fact, scratch that, most road names escape me. I can direct you to almost anywhere in the town however give me a road name and I’ll give you a clueless Darragh. So, it was nice to hear the phone chat away telling me where I was as I walked. I gave it a very simple route first though to see how it worked. I also took the cane with me as I didn’t want the dog to suffer while I got use to navigating with this additional mobility aid. To conclude, I was very happy with how that went.
When I tried the system in Dublin, I was completely out of luck. The stupid thing wouldn’t get a lock at all! It was disappointing as I really wanted to get an idea of what points of interest it had in its database around here. Although I know the area reasonably well, I was hoping it would expand my awareness of what’s around me and allow me to more confidently venture out to other areas. That wasn’t to be though as it seems that the limited efficiency of the N95’s GPS receiver couldn’t handle the built up environment of Dublin. Once I got a lock when I left the phone at the window for two hours in the office but as usual, when I ventured outside it lost it and wouldn’t re-establish it again.
Last night, while staying in Crumlin, I finally got a good lock and found a few points of interest. I plotted a route from Stanaway to the Stat oil Garage on the Crumlin Road. The GPS said it was about a mile and a half away. That was perfect as I assumed it would give me plenty of opportunity to test its direction around corners etc.
I walked out of Devenish, onto Stanaway and it immediately kicked in and told me to take a left onto Sun drive. It said a hundred and twenty feet but it was much more like four hundred. For some reason, I always operate best with feet and inches instead of Meters. I’ve no idea why. Anyway, I turned left onto Sun drive and after a few seconds it told me to turn left after 0.2 miles onto Cloher road. This certainly wasn’t 0.2 miles away but I followed its directions. Fortunately, there were no crossings between Stanaway and Cloher road on the right so it was an easy road to find. Plus, I kind of know the name of that road so I was reasonably confident that I was going the right way. Oh, I should say that I know this area reasonably well but I had no idea where the Crumlin road was or where the destination was either. So, I was completely reliant on the directions the GPS was providing. I turned onto Cloher road and it said that I should turn left after 0.5 miles. Problem was, there were a lot of left turns before that so frequently I had to walk left, verify the road I was on with the where am I function then turn back onto cloher road and keep walking. The problem with that method was that frequently, the where am I function would just tell me that I was in Dublin! How helpful was that! Now, granted, I could look at the cross roads page of the software but that really confused me. Mainly because I am still learning about how it expects to orientate its user. After crossing a very busy road with no crossing I went over a bridge that I recognised as a bridge over the canal. Immediately, it told me to turn left. I know that was impossible though because I know someone who use to live down that road and it’s a dead end down that direction. I kept walking and it told me to turn left again. When I turned at the next left though it told me that I was off course and it tried to reroute me. Again, it told me to go back onto Cloher road and go straight so I did! Across another busy road with no structured crossing or lights over another bridge. At this point the instructions it was giving me made absolutely no sense so I decided to turn around and retrace my steps back to the house.
When I got back, I was told that the second bridge I crossed was Dolphins Bridge. From what I gather, it’s an area to be avoided. Especially late in the evening as there are a lot of problems there at the moment with gangs and drugs. Glad I didn’t know that at the time! I stood for about five minutes trying to figure out what the GPS was telling me at that bridge where I‘m told they regularly deel right under.
I’m hoping that the main problem with this is the internal GPS receiver in the N95. It didn’t seem to be able to track my position well. That left turn it told me to take was actually the left before the bridge over the canal. When I got closer to the turn it should have told me but it gave me very little indication where it was.
Another problem I found was with the software. When you go off course and it tries to reroute you back the way you came it doesn’t tell you to turn around. It’s very disorientating. It also took a very long time to realise that I was off course but again, I’m hoping that’s down to the internal receiver in the N95.
One feature I’d like to see in Way Finder Access is assurance that when you reach a turn during a route it tells you to go straight or right. Some kind of reinforced instruction to allow you to be confident that the way you’re going is the right way. I’d also like the screen reader to customise its key map while in Way finder so you could determine the street you’re walking on by just hitting one key.
Over all, I like way Finder Access and I’m really hoping that the problems I’ve experienced are related to the integrated GPS as for it’s advertise functionality, it’s by far the cheapest GPS solution on the market for Visually impaired users. The Trekker, Humanware and Freedom Scientific solutions are much much more expensive and they necessitate that you carry much more hardware around with you. One aspect that attracts me to Way Finder Access is that at most you need your phone, a GPS receiver and a speaker / headset.
If you’ve had any experience with Way Finder access I’d really like to hear from you. I’m thinking of purchasing an external Bluetooth receiver and the licence for the application but I don’t want to go in blind. Excuse the pun. I want to be fully aware of the benefits and pitfalls of this application in comparison to the competition.