why did old (like 90s/2000s) GPS take up to 15 minutes to get a lock, in giant bulky units, but my running watch gets it in 15 seconds?
In: 3751
Some missing details that I haven’t seen, so I’ll add to them:
First, in addition to using satellite positioning, phones (and watches if they also connect to your phone) can also use cell towers to triangulate position. This was an upgrade made to cell towers in the early 2010s as a response to slow emergency response times (in the US at least). The US government subsidized a large portion of the upgrades. Source: I worked in the cell industry when it was going on.
Second, your phone and watch have accelerometers so they can “cheat” by adding known distance traveled to last good position.
Latest Answers