question

gs-nz avatar image
gs-nz asked

improved GPS location map on VRM Portal

Would you consider improving the GPS location widget on the VRM portal? The GPS tracking is something that is currently not very well promoted/advertised by Victron, but it's one of the most powerful add-on features after all the energy solutions are in place.

Background: I have a RV kitted with Victron gear. A GPSr device is plugged in to VenusOS, and it tracks the location of the RV, and the current location (real time and historical) can been viewed on VRM. I frequently rent out the RV to others and always disclose the GPS tracking, and give them guest VRM access, and encourage them to share that with their friends/family. It's definitely a very useful function and my customers absolutely love it.

Request: A few improvements would be very desirable and hopefully be very useful to others:

* in the widget, display the current coordinates, and link them to an external map for the location - so that the coordinates can be used for things like directions, or to see them on a different map, like OSM, Bing, or even geocaching.com - I personally like geohack - it allows the user to select which service to use them with eg. https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?language=en&params=-36.818800;175.085231

* display a warning note next to the location details, if data is older than, say 1 hour (eg. "last updated 5 hours ago") - most users don't understand they have to look at the top of the page for this, and without this info they might not comprehend that this location is not current

* on the existing embedded google map (both in-widget, and full-screen), allow switching between satellite/terrain/norma mapsl (a lot of remote locations we've been to in the RV, google maps show just plain blank map, unless fully zoomed out, which then becomes meaningless)

* lastly, give an option for a direct link to the current location / map only - friends and family usually don't care about the rest of the setup - perhaps use a large token in the URL, that can be reset easily in VRM, to bypass the password for this.


Thanks for considering the above feedback.

VRM
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3 Answers
mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) answered ·

Hi gs_nz; thanks for the ideas! I like them.

I've listed this question to our internal issue tracker. As usual I can't make any promises on if we do it; how we'll do it; or even a time line for this; sorry for that.

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Teun Lassche avatar image
Teun Lassche answered ·

Just stumbled upon this. I can confirm that the following improvements have already been carried out:

  1. in the widget, display the current coordinates
  2. display a warning note next to the location details, if data is old
  3. on the existing embedded google map (both in-widget, and full-screen), allow switching between terrain modes
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joe-d avatar image
joe-d answered ·

I seem to have a problem with location "gaps" in my GPS data. I have a memory card in my Venus (32GB) but when i get home from a trip and I download the data for the period of the trip, I only see segments of the route that I took (i.e. there are gaps in data). I would think the Venus system would periodically monitor and store my GPS location to the memory card which i can recall later?

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