PinePhone GPS ?

[Luke]

GPS is a part of the modem, so if you toggle the modem privacy switch you'll also disconnect the GPS.

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Will it be possible to turn off the cell service in the software  ? ?
  SO the GPS could be powered without cell service..?

  Just wondering....

You can turn it off in software (Linux) of course. Or you can shut down the entire modem physically.

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 AND  still operate the GPS  ?
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After shutting down the modem? no.

[33YN2]

GPS is a part of the modem, so if you toggle the modem privacy switch you'll also disconnect the GPS.

*
Will it be possible to turn off the cell service in the software  ? ?
  SO the GPS could be powered without cell service..?

  Just wondering....

You can turn it off in software (Linux) of course. Or you can shut down the entire modem physically.

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 AND  still operate the GPS  ?
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Yes. But the software shutting off the cellular part would only affect the software running on the phone, not actually the modem. Basically, all it would do is cause the software to think there is no cellular hardware, and it can only see the GPS data.

[bcnaz]

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IF you only want to use the GPS...
if you happen to be extremely rural, the phone will run maximum power to the modem attempting to stay connected to a tower.
.. . (some, including myself would like to use the GPS without using the modem)

[Corfromleuven]

I'am not an engineer, but I try to understand why it matters that GPS and Cellular Network Chips should be two separate things on the hardware level. I mean by this that it would be better to have two separate hardware kill switches, on for each of these functionalities. The basics I learned from the discussion until now is that a GPS in theory is a signal receiver and a cellular network modem can both receive and send signals. If these functionalities are inseparable from each other this means that no matter what you do on the Linux software level, as long as the unit receives power from the battery, potentially the modem can have access to incoming GPS signals. I presume (but I am by no means sure about this) that nor the hardware of the GPS or modem chips are entirely open source and that the firmware running them is neither completely open source (meaning they could run proprietary blobs). If this is the case the hardware combination GPS/modem seems unwise in terms of privacy. Whenever you use your smartphone properly in an urban environment, you will use mobile data to let your apps update news, feeds, message or whatever. This means that potentially, the software in these apps will always have access to your geo-position, even if you don't want this, because the GPS will be working whenever the modem handling your mobile data will be working. The recent articles in the NY times (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019...phone.html ) are only talking about the fact that apps track you and send data to the highest bidder in our perpetually ongoing Brave New World reality show. What they don't talk about is how this kind of tracking is enabled by this kind of hardware combinations in current smartphones. If we really want a different breed of phone running linux, I feel this should be a concern to all of us.

[MartijnBraam]

You can make the modem not register to a network in hardware, then you only use GPS and have less power usage. I'm not sure if any of the environments expose that option yet though.

[ozymandium]

Does anyone have a spec sheet for this with model numbers and perhaps links to the interface docs? I'd like to figure out if we can separate the modem and GNSS receiver in software.

[retlw]

According to schematics http://files.pine64.org/doc/PinePhone/Pi...ematic.pdf
GSM/GPS combo is Quectel EG25-G https://www.quectel.com/product/eg25g.htm
Here is hardware design docs: https://www.quectel.com/UploadImage/Down...n_V1.2.pdf
AT command set: https://www.quectel.com/UploadImage/Down...l_V1.0.pdf

[ozymandium]

Hmm, so the public info sheets available from Quectel in that page don't give GNSS receiver part numbers, or even the manufacturer, for that matter. There are links to two pages that indicate they contain GNSS specs, but they're behind a login screen. Anyone have access to these, or are they NDA'd?

It should be possible to communicate directly with the GNSS receiver using it's manufacturer-specific protocol in order to do things like turn off the receiver while keeping the modem on. The hard part would probably be just configuring the Quectel chip to talk over the correct pins.

Turning off the cell modem but keeping GNSS on may be trickier.

[wibble]

https://sixfab.com/wp-content/uploads/20...l_V1.1.pdf

Of the commands listed in the doc above, all that I've tried have worked as expected.
Osmocom have a fair bit of info about some of the Quectel devices from reverse engineering them.

https://projects.osmocom.org/projects/qu...ki/Quectel