[gps-talkusers] Re: Review of Kapten GPS
- From: "Martin Courcelles" <martinfc@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:05:59 -0400
Good review Mike. Glad I went with my gutt feeling and got a Sendero GPS.
Besides, I beta-tested its predecessor. <smile>
Martin
> Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:45:34 -0700
> From: Michael May <MikeMay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "GPS-talkusers-freelists.org" <GPS-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ReplyTo: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [gps-talkusers] Review of Kapten GPS
>
>
>
> Review of Kapten GPS
>
> Saturday 19th September 2009
>
> Overview:
>
> Three blind people and one sighted guide took Kapten for a spin and
> experienced the following:
>
> The main benefits are:
> Price, size, public transit mode, FM radio and MP3 player. Voice
> recognition in quiet environments.
>
> The weaknesses are:
> No look around capability, poor GPS tracking ability, insufficient
> verbal prompting and incorrect route directions
>
> The Kapten GPS unit is at first glance notably simple in its design, a
> small and compact unit with well defined easy to identify buttons. A
> circular key pad towards the top of the unit, encompassing up, down,
> left, right and a centre key referred to as the `K` key. Below which is
> a row of three buttons, dedicated to the features MP3 player, GPS and FM
> Radio, below the centre GPS button is also a telephone key.
> On the left side of the unit near the bottom, is the two mill head phone
> jack socket and on the top right hand edge is the micro USB charger and
> data port. On the right hand side near the top is the volume control.
> There is also a keypad lock switch which is recessed on the top of the
> unit towards the left hand side.
>
>
> Kapten comes complete with every wire and connector you could need, so
> there's no need to run out and buy anything else, which is a nice touch.
>
> Kapten has a built-in GPS receiver which is both good and bad. It is
> good because the unit is small and self contained. It is bad because the
> GPS receiver is outdated soon after the product is released. This may
> account for some of the poor tracking we experienced.
>
> Kapten has a built in compass but we were unable to get it to
> callobrate.
> Features:
>
> In addition to GPS, the Kapten has a built in FM Radio and MP3 player,
> together with the option to link up your blue tooth enabled handset to
> the device in order that you can receive and make calls through it. Note
> that your handset must also support this feature.
> When calculating a route, the Kapten GPS initially requires users to
> select a mode of transit for their journey, this selection can be either
> made by pressing the `K` key at the time of hearing the relevant choice,
> or by verbally indicating a selection when prompted at the end of the
> available list. The choices of transport include four possibilities;
> Pedestrian, Bicycle, Motorcycle and Car.
>
> When selecting any of these, users must then define where they wish to
> travel, the choices include; New address, favourites, last trips,
> contacts, k tags, Points of Interest, visits or public transport.
> Within each option there are a range of further choices to choose from.
> One immediate issue is the lack of possibility to enter a business's
> name or simply an area, for example; When opting to calculate a route to
> a `New Address` the Kapten asks for the city name, when choosing London,
> for example, the unit asks for the street name, which doesn't help
> unless you know the exact address of where you wish to go, like wise
> addresses without street names, for example, tower buildings such as
> Canary Wharf present issues here.
>
> The POI choices are confusing, as there are only a few obvious choices,
> such as Transport and Sports Activities, however restaurants and hotels
> appear nowhere to be found. The option for leisure and culture likewise
> is vague and uninformative as to what fits within it.
> This is where one of the biggest draw backs becomes obvious with the
> Kapten. There is no option to back up a step. If you enter the wrong
> sub-menu and listen to the list of options. You then have to go right
> back to the start of the menu.
>
> Kapten's POI categorizations are confusing to navigate. The range of
> choices include:
>
> Transportation: Airport, Ferry embarkation platform, Railway station,
> Self service bike, public transportation, Public Service.
>
> Leisure and Culture: Tourist attraction, Amusement park, Casino, Cinema,
> Museum, theatre, zoo.
>
> Sports activities include the usual line up of stadiums, ice rinks, golf
> courses, swimming pools etc.
>
> Public Services: Embassy, town council, library, police station,
> exhibition centre, tourist office, hospital.
>
> Useful: Shopping centre, parking garage, rent a car facility, post
> office, camping ground, hotel or motel, pharmacy, ATM, vehicle repair
> facility, petrol, city centre.
>
> As previously stated, the biggest problem is that unless you know where
> to look and the exact name of the type of POI, as defined by Kapten, you
> have little chance of finding it without listening to the entire menu at
> a very slow speed and without being able to speed up the speech.
> During the evaluation period which covered about 2 hours over the 17th
> and 18th of September, and an additional 3 hours of walking around
> London on the 19th, we had great trouble getting the Kapten to identify
> when we went off route. We could walk the opposite direction for
> several hundred yards and Kapten would keep saying to continue ahead in
> spite of the fact that our target turn was now behind us. On the 10 or
> so times we tried this we could not get Kapten to identify that we had
> gone off route and get it to
> recalculate or to alert us that we were off route. GPS coverage was good
> at 5 to 7 satellites according to the unit. This happend in a wide open
> area in the Docklands and also near Hyde Park. When moving around
> London, we had to find a very open location to gather an initial signal
> lock, which took well over ten minutes.
>
> When navigating in pedestrian mode we noted a significant additional
> problem as the Kapten GPS offers very little audible feedback either
> confirming you're on route or indeed off it. Every 300 or so yards the
> unit would repeat the current latest instruction with a reduced
> measurement to the next turn.
>
> On several occasions, we found the Kapten GPS to be confused as to what
> actual street we were on, giving instructions to turn onto the street we
> were in fact on at the time, and at other times informing us to turn
> onto streets which ran parallel with our current route, technically
> impossible.
>
>
> Kapten is meant to be used with a headset microphone. There is a
> microphone in the midst of the cord which you push to talk. The voice
> recognition was quite good in medium to quiet locations. On noisy
> streets, the recognition was poor and the ability to hear the earphone
> was nearly impossible. Although the recognition was generally good, it
> was still a slow process to verbally prompt the unit with the relevant
> information in order to set an address or point of interest, much sloer
> than could be achieved with a keypad or keyboard.
>
> This being said, there's little point in being able to plot a route
> based on voice input, if navigating your route makes little to no sense,
> is easily misleading and is apparently unaware when you deviate from it.
>
>
> Note: an external speaker is provided with Kapten and the built-in
> microphone is not as reliable as the wired microphone. It can be unsafe
> for a blind person to wear headphones when walking.
>
> Another significant draw back to the Kapten GPS was the lack of vicinity
> mode or look about function. Without these features, users are unable to
> adequately understand their environment and location choices.
> This missing Look Around feature is one of Kapten's major drawbacks for
> a person who is blind or visually impaired, not a capability that a
> product designed for the sighted would require. All accessible GPS
> products designed for blind users have some sort of look around
> capability.
> Another major weakness, Kapten does not possess the ability to hear the
> current location. It will announce the distance and direction to your
> next turn in a route but it will not announce the name of the street
> your on or the one you are crossing.
>
>
> Kapten offers no precise turn instruction. While Kapten told us to turn
> on x street, there was no mention as to whether it meant now or in a
> mile.
>
>
> Conclusion:
>
> Although the low price and small size of Kapten makes it appear
> attractive, Kapten offers none of the features that blind and low vision
> users have come to know and require from their GPS devices such as a
> look around mode and reassurance of streets and directions along a
> route.
>
> Kapten's voice prompts are clear during configuration, if not a little
> tedious and slow, but those who wish to be guided through the choices,
> may enjoy this simple user interface in the beginning but perhaps not
> after the novelty wears off.
>
> We have heard so many comments about how well Kapten works, we were
> quite astounded at its poor tracking and lack of correct
> instructions. We kept thinking there must be something we were doing
> wrong but we were all experienced GPS and technology users. We could
> only surmise that Kapten assumes the user can see landmarks and signs to
> augment its minimal amount of verbal announcements. Without access to
> visual information in one's environment, Kapten is best used as an MP3
> player and FM radio and not as a reliable GPS guidance product.
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