petee_c

Looking for advice on android based GPS lap timers. I have heard about Harry's GPS laptimer, and probably going to spend the $30cdn for that one. This will be running on my phone which is a LG G3 with 64gb Micro SD card for storage of any video I take. It will also be plugged to a USB charger while running and suction cup'd to the windscreen. I also plan to gopro the even with a go pro suction cup'd inside the car on hte rear wind deflector on my 2001 Boxster S.

The LG G3 is a phone from 2014, but should meet the requirments of what's needed for Harry's to work. I am hoping it can record video too...

Brake fluid flushed this week, and brand new manual tranny fluid.

CosmosMpower

Get an AIM solo and be done with it. If you insist on running a phone based system get an external bluetooth gps puck with a higher refresh rate.

Scooby921

Harry's is decent. Other options I've see people use are Track Addict and Race Chrono. In all of these you are limited to the speed of your phones sensors unless you add external sensors as suggested above. Your GPS data will be 1Hz on the phone or you can do 10Hz with an XGPS160. You'll get no car data without adding a Bluetooth or Wifi OBD II reader. Even then you aren't likely to see faster than 3-5Hz. If you want good data and want to actually analyze the results and learn from it I second the recommendation for an AiM Solo or Solo DL. It's more expensive, but it is a better tool. It comes with AiM's RaceStudio for data analysis. I think you can separately add your GoPro video data to create overlays (I haven't used it yet). If not I know RaceRender will work and it's only $50.

FWIW I used Harry's Lap Timer for the last two years. Just the phone the first year. Added the OBD II and GPS units last year. All of it has been sold and I'm waiting for my Aim Solo 2 DL to ship.

Greg Phillips

Another vote for Track Addict, the other advantage is how well it integrates with RaceRender for video production.
An external 5-10 Hz GPS will help (Dual and others).
I have not used the OBD2 as my cars are too old :^)

Greg

Scooby921

Another comment...

If using a phone based app to record data I believe most or all of them will export to a format which you can then pull into VBox's Circuit Tools software on your PC (free). This gives you a bigger screen and better data analysis if you want to learn from your data. I've exported *.VBO files from Harry's and pulled them into Circuit Tools.

ProCoach

Matt Romanowski

If your in the US, I do a loaner program for a Solo 2 if your interested.

daylorb

I have an AIM Solo 2 DL supposedly arriving, but have been using Harry's for a while now. For casual DE's, it is really impressive and well worth the $$$. Combined with a GoPro, the video overlay is fantastic. It is an amazing piece of software for the price with a crazy amount of features and connectivity options, and the support documentation is top notch.

spruden

I'll echo the above. The game changer for any phone based (Android or IOS) system is using an external GPS sensor. Harry's paired to something like the is very accurate. Not as simple to use as the integrated data acquisition products listed above (like the new Solo 2), but very powerful and a great tool to use in the pursuit of learning.

The data provided by your internal device's GPS is not sufficient for driver improvement IMO. You need a higher sample rate, more data, and better accuracy.

daylorb

Here is an example of the video that can easily be produced with Harry's and a GoPro.
In terms of accuracy, I think you are correct. I researched it quite a bit and was struggling to find something that would point to a meaningful improvement. Here is an article on the accuracy of GPS sampling for shuttle runs in football - very fast/small space runs where tenths of a second matter. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5187957/. The conclusion was that sample rate definitely mattered, but the small percentage differences made me think on a bigger scale it may not have as much of an impact. Either way - can't hurt!

NYoutftr

Greg

You use race render and harry's lap timrer ot track addict ?
I have a road hawk camera with GPS built in.
i purchased the oddII sendind unit, by did not follow through with rr or hlt.
which would you suggest?
David

Greg Phillips

I use the Roadhawk HD and the Track Addict app along with a Dual GPS 150 external GPS but have no OBD2 experience.
RaceRender works best with Track Addict (same company)
I use a Samsung S5 with external SD card of 128GB
Greg

e9stibi

I am using Harry's Laptimer with Dual GPS and a GoPro. It is very easy to create videos with RaceRender with this setup. For my occasional use, this is a sufficient solution. I I drove more, I would look at AIM solo.

petee_c

Followup as the OP.

I bought the Harry's Grand Prix version to use with my LG G3, and was very happy with how it performed on my recent trackday I will look at an external BT GPS in the future.

Thanks,
Peter

cstyles

There is a new product that not many people here are talking about yet for some reason, and it splits the gap between harrys & full out Aim systems.

The new Garmin Virb Ultra 30 action camera:
- Built in 10hz GPS receiver
- Built in wifi and bluetooth for external sensor connection ie bluetooth OBDII device
- 4k resolution
- Automatic recognition of virtually every race track in north america - you do not have to program or set it to a track
- Automatically overlays any data you want onto the video as it's being exported

Effectively, it's a GoPro with all the built-in stuff you would want as a weekend hobbyist at the track. No you can't get squiggly lines and graph data out of it like you can from the Aim and other purpose-built systems, but for $400 it is an amazing all-in-one super easy to use camera.

Here's a quick rip up Mosport's Mario Andretti straight from yesterday using my Garmin Virb Ultra 30. Just exported this quick to show my buddies on whatsapp chat so the res is way low but you get the idea. This is right off the camera, and connected to a $20 Veepeak Bluetooth OBDII dongle. I don't have it shown on this clip, but you can overlay throttle, g-meter, boost, IAT's, virtually any other ECU parameter you can think of.