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GaiaGPS alternatives?


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  • #1333979
    Anton Solovyev
    BPL Member

    @antonsolovyev

    Locale: Colorado, Utah

    Just came back from 6 days hiking the Hayduke 7 and 8. All navigation done with an iPhone/GaiaGPS. I have a 5s with an external case-battery extension. Came back with 55% left in the phone and zero in the extension. Used to navigate/position 10-20 times a day, podcasts for ~10 hours, some Kindle books, a call home, looking at photos of the guidebook pages. Much more efficient navigation than a Garmin GPS with a topo map loaded. Still better than a printed map and a GPS/UTM. We used to run into some navigation issues before, but this time there were no issues, just too simple and obvious. *** The bugs in Gaia are maddening. I so wish we had an open source alternative, so instead of talking to somebody on forums and getting back "well try to convert KML into GPX", I could just go in and fix stuff. Almost makes me want to start my own project… I'll give it a thinking.

    #2236393
    Ken Thompson
    BPL Member

    @here

    Locale: Right there

    Have you contacted Andtew? Many here seem to love that program. I bet Andrew would apprecite constructive criticism . If you can do that

    #2236394
    Peter H
    BPL Member

    @stickler64

    Locale: Sacramento

    Backcountry navigator is another. I have not tried it.

    #2236416
    Matthew / BPL
    Moderator

    @matthewkphx

    I've not found anything better than Gaia. I used MotionX GPS for years which is quite powerful the the interface is profoundly bad. On Gaia I import KML and GPX files by putting them in my Dropbox.com account and then opening those via the Dropbox app and which gives me the option to open in Gaia. I avoid the entire Gaia website that way. It works great for me, I've imported tracks and waypoints without issue.

    #2236429
    Crow
    BPL Member

    @caseyandgina-2

    Terra GPS. Try it for free – the free version only allows you to store 3 map tiles on your device but you can get a good feel for it this way. I have both Gaia and Terra.

    #2238186
    Anton Solovyev
    BPL Member

    @antonsolovyev

    Locale: Colorado, Utah

    "Have you contacted Andtew? Many here seem to love that program." I see to way to file a bug report at GaiaGPS Web site. They have "user ideas" and some vague "feedback", but no bug report form. Tracking bugs implies commitment to support, of course, which probably they don't want to do. I am not going around hunting down the dev (one or many?) to report a bug.

    #2238187
    Billy Ray
    Spectator

    @rosyfinch

    Locale: the mountains

    Last time I checked BackCountry Navigator (BCN) is only for Android. I like it a lot. billy

    #2238192
    Billy Ray
    Spectator

    @rosyfinch

    Locale: the mountains

    If you're not married to the idea of needing to use an iPhone, you could go on eBay and by an unlocked Android phone for 2 to 300.00 (used/and or new older model) and then use BackCountry Navigator. You don't have to use it as a phone… could be your dedicated GPS for backpacking. I have heard that the Samsung Galaxy phone batteries last longer than the iPhone batteries, though I have no experience with this comparison. But the Samsungs also have user replacable batteries so you can take extras… and you can pop in a 64gig microSD chip that will hold a ton of topo maps… another advantage over the iPhone, I believe. And… some models of the Samsung are water and dust proof… namely the S5 and some of the AT&T phones. Something to think about. billy

    #2238194
    Ken Thompson
    BPL Member

    @here

    Locale: Right there

    Andrew's profile here

    #2238196
    Tom D.
    BPL Member

    @dafiremedic

    Locale: Southern California

    I used both Gaia and MyTrails on Android, and now Gaia and MotionX on the iPhone 6. Gaia is just so much better than the others. There is no open source equivalent that I know of, and although it would be nice I wouldn't likely switch anyway. Andrew has been very responsive and emailed me personally to answer questions. Nothing is perfect, and you may be able to help by communicating bugs to Gaia.

    #2238221
    Anton Solovyev
    BPL Member

    @antonsolovyev

    Locale: Colorado, Utah

    Billy, thanks! I am definitely considering using an Android device. I am so impressed with using a phone on several recent trips, that I am prepared to invest time into finding the best device. iPhone lacks in ruggedness; Android offers more HW choices.

    #2238259
    Mario Caceres
    BPL Member

    @mariocaceres

    Locale: San Francisco

    I normally do all my planning at home using caltopo.com. Then generate a GEOTagged PDF File (that is one of the printing options of Caltopo) and upload that PDF file to my PDFMAPS app (this App is free and available for both Iphone and Android).

    #2238263
    Anton Solovyev
    BPL Member

    @antonsolovyev

    Locale: Colorado, Utah

    "I normally do all my planning at home using caltopo.com. Then generate a GEOTagged PDF File (that is one of the printing options of Caltopo) and upload that PDF file to my PDFMAPS app (this App is free and available for both Iphone and Android)." Same here, I use Caltopo, for now to create a KML file of the route (which needs to be a GPX for the silly GaiaGPS to use it!). A GeoPDF viewer is a good idea, I need to try that.

    #2238961
    John S.
    BPL Member

    @jshann

    Oruxmaps is open source. Maprika is used by some Houston hikers for their maps. http://lonestartrail.org/maprika.html http://maprika.com/make-a-map.html Another friend uses trimble outdoors maps (subscription) for mapping.

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