Windows 10 sensor model & GPS

[Auspicious]

I have searched in the manual, in the forum, and on the Internet at large. Google Boolean searches are my friend.

Here is what I think I know. Microsoft in their infinite wisdom changed the driver model for some external devices to a sensor model. Applications access data streams differently than through classic serial ports. See https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...957075(v=vs.60) .


If OpenCPN supports this approach I have not found it. A little help?


Microsoft thinks that there are devices that support this model. They seem to be correct. They imply rather strongly that applications have to change to support the sensor input. See https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...4-10a5dbb55bf4 .


I have located one utility so far called GPSReverse (https://www.gpssensordrivers.com/) that maps a sensor input to a virtual COM port. Is this the sort of "workaround" that is referred to in a few threads? Is there a better virtual COM port utility for OpenCPN than GPSReverse.



I have gotten this to work once before on a different machine. I think I loaded an old Windows 7 driver for a Globalsat BU-353-S4. I haven't been able to track down such a driver again.



The friend I am helping is a few hundred miles away but I can log into his machine remotely using Teamviewer and of course use the phone. The machine has factory installed Windows 10 that has been updated. A Globalsat BU-353-W10 GPS puck is installed and shows up in Device Manager as a sensor.



1. How do I get sensor data from the GPS into OpenCPN today?
2. Is support for W10 sensors on the technology roadmap for OpenCPN?


Editorial: Windows 10 is a poor candidate for cruising. Absent this interface problem it takes too much work to stop it from phoning home to Redmond over expensive and low bandwidth connections. Policy editing does not seem (limited experience on my part) to allow filtering security updates from "feature" updates that can break and have broken working systems. Win 7 Pro is the new XP - about as stable and reliable as you can expect from Microsoft. I'm having trouble sourcing it. /rant


I appreciate any help the community can provide helping to fix my friend's interface problem.

[nohal]

https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...th_gnss_sensor

[Bill O]

We've been running the W10 tablet for a couple of years now w/OCPN using the Globalsat BU-353-S4 puck and it sees it no problem. Been a while since the initial set up, but in the device manager your may want to tell it which port it is in.


Bill O.

[rgleason]

1. I have been able to control/prevent Win10 updates when racing with expensive Sat download connections. My Surface Pro 3 remains in largely that state for cruising with no internet connections.


2. Really? Did you really search the manual? Seems like you used google, why not search the wiki itself? Google isn't god.


Start here https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...rted:gps_setup
Follow the steps. If you find something missing let us know.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

I have searched in the manual, in the forum, and on the Internet at large. Google Boolean searches are my friend.

Here is what I think I know. Microsoft in their infinite wisdom changed the driver model for some external devices to a sensor model. Applications access data streams differently than through classic serial ports. See https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...957075(v=vs.60) .


If OpenCPN supports this approach I have not found it. A little help?


Microsoft thinks that there are devices that support this model. They seem to be correct. They imply rather strongly that applications have to change to support the sensor input. See https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...4-10a5dbb55bf4 .


I have located one utility so far called GPSReverse (https://www.gpssensordrivers.com/) that maps a sensor input to a virtual COM port. Is this the sort of "workaround" that is referred to in a few threads? Is there a better virtual COM port utility for OpenCPN than GPSReverse.



I have gotten this to work once before on a different machine. I think I loaded an old Windows 7 driver for a Globalsat BU-353-S4. I haven't been able to track down such a driver again.



The friend I am helping is a few hundred miles away but I can log into his machine remotely using Teamviewer and of course use the phone. The machine has factory installed Windows 10 that has been updated. A Globalsat BU-353-W10 GPS puck is installed and shows up in Device Manager as a sensor.



1. How do I get sensor data from the GPS into OpenCPN today?
2. Is support for W10 sensors on the technology roadmap for OpenCPN?


Editorial: Windows 10 is a poor candidate for cruising. Absent this interface problem it takes too much work to stop it from phoning home to Redmond over expensive and low bandwidth connections. Policy editing does not seem (limited experience on my part) to allow filtering security updates from "feature" updates that can break and have broken working systems. Win 7 Pro is the new XP - about as stable and reliable as you can expect from Microsoft. I'm having trouble sourcing it. /rant


I appreciate any help the community can provide helping to fix my friend's interface problem.

[Auspicious]

I did search the manual in the wiki. The W10 material is all oldish and workaround. I used the search in the wiki and used Google with site: which often works better. Same with the CF forum here. Not just blind searches but a lot of Boolean.



Looking for a solution that is sufficiently robust for offshore passagemaking.



W10 is a pain.

[rgleason]

Sorry that's all the help I can provide. Perhaps change to Linux.
The Window 10 links are not that old and still apply, the concepts are the same.


On second thought, perhaps you can make this clearer. Would you like to be an editor? Then once you figure it out you can change the wiki to be clearer.


Documentation is done largely by the Users here. Volunteers are needed.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Sorry that's all the help I can provide. Perhaps change to Linux.
The Window 10 links are not that old and still apply, the concepts are the same.

Well...

Win 10/8 Tablet and Notebooks Only if your Win 10/8 tablet or notebook has a GNSS Sensor and turning on the GPS in the OS doesn't seem to work, try this program. First make sure to

1. Turn ON Windows Location Service (Settings > Location Privacy Settings)
2. Turn ON the GPS device (Settings > Turn Wireless Devices On or Off)

Beware: Windows can and will use other location services such as WiFi and Cellular if the GPS is not available. This may lead to navigation errors.

... didn't help. Elsewhere there is a vague reference to "other software" for Win10. GPSReverse fills that function of establishing a virtual serial port as an interface for a W10 sensor. At this point my questions are if anyone has used that particular tool AND what tools have people used that are stable.

Originally Posted by rgleason

On second thought, perhaps you can make this clearer. Would you like to be an editor? Then once you figure it out you can change the wiki to be clearer.

Documentation is done largely by the Users here. Volunteers are needed.

Of course. I have to get it working. I peel back the layers of the onion so I can explain WHY a solution does or doesn't work. The whole Microsoft sensor paradigm has been enlightening. I think I understand the appeal to Microsoft as it reduces the complexity of drivers (less tech support calls) and inherently supports sharing of sensors (cool beans) at the expense of breaking a lot of legacy applications.



Just those last two sentences help people understand what is going on. The question then becomes how/when/if OpenCPN should support this new model.



Regardless, writing is not a challenge and I will feed back.


I am already working on a project for Dave that is taking much longer than I anticipated (calendar-time longer, not work-hours longer).

[nohal]

Auspicious...

What exactly is wrong about using GeoLocationTCP (Or anything doing the same thing out there) as suggested as solution to your exact situation everywhere in the OpenCPN manual?
If you have problems reading the text, download it form https://bitbucket.org/petrsimon/geol...tcp/downloads/, install, configure OpenCPN to use it, done.

If you consider this solution not good enough, you will probably have to look for some other chartplotter software that suits your personal needs better.

Pavel

[rgleason]

Auspicious I would like your help from the perspective of a New Windows user!

1. Frequent users suffer a kind of blindness, so we are unable to fix a conceptual/practical hurdle.
2. OpenCPN is open and supports many OS, and many different flavors of OS which leads to a more detailed installation experience for the new user.
3. What we need to know.
   1. What are the steps that you need to take to install your GPS with OpenCPN?
   2. How can we improve your experience with improvements in the documentation, specifically in the GPS "How to" links section?
4. The documentation is only as good as the Users and their contributions. Don't cast aspersion on your fellow users or the programmers. This is a volunteer army.
5. Do you want to be an editor of the wiki? Please PM me your email and user name.

[Auspicious]

Okay we have a solution. Here is where we ended up.


Win8 GNSS sensor should be rewritten. See https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...n8_gnss_sensor . In addition to the material for internal GPS receivers consider:

With Windows 8.x Microsoft changed the interface model for many external devices, including GPS pucks. Instead of showing up as a serial port, most GPS devices appear in a new category called "sensor." Accordingly there is no COM port to which OpenCPN can connect.

If the computer has been upgraded from Win 7 or earlier to Win 8.x or 10 the legacy Win 7 drivers may continue to work. Certainly for fresh installations of Win 10 a USB GPS will show up as a sensor. There are some workarounds. One is to use a product that connects to the Win 10 sensor and generates a virtual COM port OpenCPN for which a connection may be added. One solution that has been demonstrated to work is GPSReverse available at https://www.gpssensordrivers.com/ . Price as of March 2019 is €9.99.



Scrolling up I see another solution (the TCP one) that has worked. I'll dig into that.

Originally Posted by rgleason

Auspicious I would like your help from the perspective of a New Windows user!

I'm happy to help. PMs don't work well for me. Could you drop me a note dave@auspiciousworks.com? Much more timely response as long as I'm not offshore. I am more than happy to help. I'm not a big business but I see enough different equipment run through my lap that I can try a number of configurations.



Thanks for the follow-up.

[rgleason]

Thank you! Aspicious


I will try to rewrite the GNSS Sensor section in the next few days, accordingly, and hope you will review it! It is true that things never stay the same in the computer world, and we rely on users like you to help correct for those changes.


Please keep us appraised about your methodical progress as we would really like to have the most up to date information.


I am sorry that our documentation is out of date on this, and really appreciate your help with any improvements that can be made.


Thank you again!



Rick

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Okay we have a solution. Here is where we ended up.


Win8 GNSS sensor should be rewritten. See https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...n8_gnss_sensor . In addition to the material for internal GPS receivers consider:

With Windows 8.x Microsoft changed the interface model for many external devices, including GPS pucks. Instead of showing up as a serial port, most GPS devices appear in a new category called "sensor." Accordingly there is no COM port to which OpenCPN can connect.

If the computer has been upgraded from Win 7 or earlier to Win 8.x or 10 the legacy Win 7 drivers may continue to work. Certainly for fresh installations of Win 10 a USB GPS will show up as a sensor. There are some workarounds. One is to use a product that connects to the Win 10 sensor and generates a virtual COM port OpenCPN for which a connection may be added. One solution that has been demonstrated to work is GPSReverse available at https://www.gpssensordrivers.com/ . Price as of March 2019 is €9.99.



Scrolling up I see another solution (the TCP one) that has worked. I'll dig into that.









I'm happy to help. PMs don't work well for me. Could you drop me a note dave@auspiciousworks.com? Much more timely response as long as I'm not offshore. I am more than happy to help. I'm not a big business but I see enough different equipment run through my lap that I can try a number of configurations.



Thanks for the follow-up.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by rgleason

I will try to rewrite the GNSS Sensor section in the next few days, accordingly, and hope you will review it!

Hi Rick. I'll do the draft you can review it. It's only a couple of pages. The hard work is organization of the material, not writing it.

My customer called me twice today. He is so happy. Impressed with OpenCPN, happy to get the Globalsat GPS puck working, happy that it is working with other software on his laptop. Just happy. *grin*

Still not a fan of Win10 but it is a reality. *grump*


Oh - I developed a relationship with Globalsat tech support who are very aware of OpenCPN and will send them the solution as well. I'll reach out to the GPSReverse people as well. Information is power when shared.

[chuckr]

We have been using Windows 10 for a while now - a few years - our biggest dislike is the auto updates that we turned off.


We run OpenCPN with a Hamlet Bluetooth gps receiver and I works great - we have it on 3 different machines

[rgleason]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Hi Rick. I'll do the draft you can review it. It's only a couple of pages. The hard work is organization of the material, not writing it.

My customer called me twice today. He is so happy. Impressed with OpenCPN, happy to get the Globalsat GPS puck working, happy that it is working with other software on his laptop. Just happy. *grin*

Still not a fan of Win10 but it is a reality. *grump*


Oh - I developed a relationship with Globalsat tech support who are very aware of OpenCPN and will send them the solution as well. I'll reach out to the GPSReverse people as well. Information is power when shared.

Very much appreciated Auspicious. We look forward to your rewrite and update. You've been made an Editor / Manager as well.

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by chuckr

We have been using Windows 10 for a while now - a few years - our biggest dislike is the auto updates that we turned off.


We run OpenCPN with a Hamlet Bluetooth gps receiver and I works great - we have it on 3 different machines

Any Bluetooth GPS is a better solution than a receiver with cable especially when you have a laptop. No driver needed and Bluetooth is supported by any OS.
I have tried the Hamlet also but found it very poor in receiving quality and its other specs. I use now the XGPS 160 SkyPro Bluetooth GPS Receiver from Dual Electronics.