WMMiniGPS Review – tryout

I’ve been looking for a way to standardise the way I record my training runs. I’ve used mapmyrun.com, and for the London Marathon a few years back I used my wristwatch, checking off mile markers that I’d identified previously on Google Maps.

They both worked reasonably well, but in this age of mobile-phone-does-everything-ness, couldn’t I use my Windows Mobile HTC TYTN II with in-built GPS to track my runs?

Well – yes, and no. I’ve found a great app to datalog the GPS data as I travel – basically, exactly what’s needed. WMMiniGPS is a satisfyingly lightweight app that just logs your GPS feed – that’s all you need, and that’s all it does. It also exports to .GPX and .KML for Google Earth, which is really useful. The screen shows real-time GPS info, including speed and position. Fantastic.

And here’s my run on Google Earth. Looks good, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s just a track – I can’t see any way of drilling down into the data points to read speed and position – I suspect the export simplifies it to just Lat/Long coordinates, and loses the rest. So – my hopes of harnessing whatever statistical analysis tools that are out there for measuring average speed, speed over distance, etc. could be dashed. I’ll have to investigate further.

The other thing is that, of course, you need to leave your mobile on while you’re logging the course – so a change of settings to disable my auto sleep mode, and lock the touchscreen before setting off, were necessary.

Still – potentially, a very useful, simple app; simple, effective, DoesWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Try it out!