Product Description
The M-241 is a high performance wireless GPS logger with the following features:
# Dual interface (Bluetooth + GPS-mouse by USB cable).
# Compatible with Bluetooth Serial Port Profile (SPP) completely.
# Powered by one AA battery.
# LCD display to show position information, speed, capable logging memory size, date & time.
# Capable memory size to record up to 130,000 positions, including longitude, latitude, time, and altitude.
# Personal settings to select the logging mode by distance or time, unit by Kilometer or mile, and 3 languages (English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese) support…. More >>
Holux M241 MTK Bluetooth GPS Datalogger
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If you are a casual user, I would not recommend this product. If you are interested in actively figuring this product out, it could work for you. After 2 days of use, I have successfuly created and uploaded Google Earth files. This is really cool, and the reason I bought the product. However, I have also found the following: 1. This device eats batteries. I have reloaded the single AA battery twice in 2 days, having just used the product for a few brief periods. While indoors near a window, the product take a while to find the satellites. Because it takes a while, I set the unit down and then came back to it later only to find that the unit had timed out and turned off. Turning it back on started the process over again. The PC software is non-professional and is hard to use. It looks like a Windows 3.1 application. 3. The manual is minimal, at best. 4. The UI of the device is not intuative.
Rating: 2 / 5
I have two of these units, and have used them for over a year. This review is based on the Holux m241 with firmware v1.13.
If you need a data logger or track/distance measurer or want to geotagging digital photos, then take my advice and avoid this unit. Multiple failures resulting in data loss have lead me to start looking for something else. If you just want something to display your coordinates, or connect to a computer then it works well, but you can probably find other units more geared towards those purposes. As a GPS data logger, it is horribly unreliable. My advice, if you already have the unit, is to simply take photos of the Long/Lat screen so you have a sure record. And don’t expect its logging feature to work every time.
Pros:
– The satellite signal is good. Doesn’t usually lose its signal when in a car or backpack
– Battery life is good (but not enough for a whole day.)
– Can be powered by USB, so you can get a USB phone charger (2xAA) to extend the logging time to over 24 hours, or use a USB car charger and not worry about batteries while you’re in a car. (These are third party accessories, and don’t come with the unit)
– Has Bluetooth connectivity if you need it. Can even download your data via Bluetooth.
– Will start logging automatically as soon as it receives signal, but only if you set it to do so (Note: was not available in original firmware. Also note: like the device in general, it’s unreliable.)
– When set to “Dist By: Point”, the distance measure mode can be used for simple navigating (e.g. finding your car), although not reliably. See bottom of the review for details.
Cons:
– No Lock: There’s no way to “Lock” the device. If you keep this in your bag or pocket you can accidentally switch it off or press a button, which could stop recording, lose your distance waypoint, or change settings, etc. The buttons are fairly difficult to press accidentally but it’s still not something you want to rely on.
– No accuracy display. Can never be sure how accurate the coordinates are.
– Sometimes needs to be “jump started”: power it via USB to turn it on (after that the inserted battery might start working by itself). This has been required at times on both my m241 devices. I tried multiple batteries (they weren’t the issue)
– Firmware / software is not reliable: The data format stored internally on the device changed between firmware versions (they increased its accuracy, which is good). All well and good, but if you use mismatched software+firmware when you download your coordinates you can end up with corrupted data, and think it was successfully downloaded. Too bad if you wiped your device after downloading the data from it, because your download is corrupt and there’s nothing you can do. This happened to me after I used newer software to download the coordinate data from a device with older firmware. Note that I couldn’t update the firmware without losing the data on there either, so it would have been a catch-22 even if I had known in advance that it was corrupting my data. I lost several days worth of logs because of this. Really wouldn’t have been difficult for Holux’s PC software to check the firmware version and deal with both cases. Instead they chose to have the software show success but silently fail. This is really lazy (or stupid) programming. Even if the issue is unlikely to affect me a second time, it increases my distrust in this unit, and I won’t be buying anything with “Holux” stamped on it again.
– Buggy firmware: certain settings change other un-related settings. To reproduce this bug: Set the device to log by time (15 seconds). Then go into the settings menu and choose “Log Rcd” -> “Full Stop” (which is the default setting, and probably selected already). For no particular reason it will now have now changed back from logging by time (15 seconds) to logging by distance (every 100m). Note also due to the two-button menu system, once you enter the “Log Rcd” menu (e.g. to see what it’s set to) then you can’t escape out of it without choosing an option. Even by re-selecting the already selected option you end up changing the unrelated “Log by” setting. This makes for a very undependable device, as you can never be sure what your settings are and checking them changes others. I’m not sure if this is an isolated bug or if there are others like it.
– Sometimes it simply fails to record coordinates, even though the little “running man” logging icon is shown. I went camping for 4 days, and despite always keeping the thing powered during the day, and supposedly logging, the end result was exactly 0 records recorded. I’ve been using this thing for well over a year, but since this trip it rarely seems to keep logging (it didn’t get wet or damaged in any way). There is no indication as to whether it is working or not unless you keep an eye on the free space screen. By the time you realize that it’s not actually doing anything then it’s too late.
– The distance measure is lost when you switch it off and on or press the right button (“enter”). So forget changing batteries if you want to use this feature and be careful not to knock it. (although the rubber buttons are fairly difficult to press accidentally)
– Distance measure (“ruler” mode) doesn’t tell you the direction of the reference waypoint. If it did, the device could almost be USEFUL for simple navigation e.g. finding your car (See bottom of review for details on how to do this anyway) As is, this gps is not even as good as an XKCD-407 for navigating, although in a pinch you can use it as such.
– Frequent firmware upgrades have been required to fix bugs (e.g. the original firmware gave Northern hemisphere coordinates for the Southern hemisphere). Thank you Holux for fixing the bugs, but it still has a few.
– Software is Windows only.
– Windows software is not so user friendly. E.g. it forgets the last folder you downloaded to. Another issue is that to upgrade the firmware you have to hit the “disconnect device” button first. This really isn’t so intuitive. (And it’s very likely that you WILL have to upgrade the firmware, in case you’re wondering)
- The “Menu” button is also the backlight button. So to turn the backlight on for the current menu/screen, first you have to cycle through ALL the other menus/screens. This is a mere annoyance. (They could have solved the issue by making the first press ONLY turn on the backlight, and the next presses cycle the menu, rather than combine the two)
Summary: It can do what it says it does, but don’t rely on it to do so, and don’t expect a pleasant user experience.
—–
How to navigate with this device: When you’re at your car/bike/home/campsite, go the “ruler” mode and press “start”, then you always know how far away you are. If the distance is going down, then you’re getting closer. Up means further. However, this is really unreliable: You can’t be sure if a fluctuating distance is just random or genuine (there’s no accuracy display). The smallest unit is 10 meters (0.01 km). Also you have to hawkishly watch the display. If the device is switched off even momentarily or if the “enter” button is (accidentally) pressed then the location of your car is forgotten and you’re on your own. I do not enjoy navigating with this device, but it’s saved me in the past.
Note you must have “Dist By: Point” in your settings, and there is no way to tell if that’s the mode you’re using without going into settings and changing it. Fortunately, it seems you can swap between the two modes at will (by point, by path) without resetting either measurement.
I have never been desperate enough to try using triangulation to calculate the direction of my waypoint, although in theory you could do it too. How to do triangulation? This is an exercise for the reader.
Rating: 2 / 5
The software supplied with the GPS logger (M-241) doesn’t works with this item, I had to download soft and drivers from internet.
The item can be powered by USB but only in case whne it’s in OFF mode!!! Keep this in mind, connecting the item to USB doesn’t save battery life! You should turn off the logger to go in usb power mode (that isn’t written in the user guide which is almost useless an too short!!!)
Rating: 4 / 5
Cute little gadget. It is a comparatively fast and sensitive little Bluetooth GPS unit with a tiny display that can show Lat/Lon/Alt/Speed/Compass/etc. and has a backlight. It will also automatically or manually log waypoints and routes with a modest number of configurable options. It works great with my Treo 680 Smartphone and DeLorme Street Atlas USA 2006 Handheld Edition. In fact it is more reliable than my DeLorme Bluetooth GPS’s. Running 12 hours on an alkaline AA battery is rather amazing. The fact that the accompanying software can export the saved waypoint and route data in a number of formats, including NMEA and Google Earth KMZ format is cool. The software is a bit primative but it seems to work. I hope they come out with some updates.
Now for the negatives.
The USB driver doesn’t seem to work properly on XP!!!
It seems to work okay on Win2K Pro.
Fortunately it is possible to connect your XP PC and the data download software to the M-241 over Bluetooth and get the data off of it. Slowly.
And Holux Technical Support (email to China) seems to be strictly a one-way communication medium. You send them emails and nothing ever comes back.
Would I buy it again? Yes! It’s cheap and works great as an amazingly sensitive and fast little GPS. And if you can negotiate the usual quirks and user hostility of Bluetooth, you can make it do everything that Holux promises it can do. However it sure would be nice if Holux fixed the stupid USB driver for XP!
-Christopher Erickson
Rating: 3 / 5
I’ve had this for a few months, and it works. I take it hiking and use other software (GPicSync, free) to geotag the photos. Make sure you set your camera to the right time (get the “true” time from the logger). I seems pretty accurate, finds the satellites after a little while (< 1 min), and has enough recording options. I really like that it uses AA batteries; it will run all day on a lithium rechargeable (2700 mah) that I also use for my camera. When I'm away for a few days, I just bring extra AA's. It can store a lot of waypoints. It has distance and time logging options, can display speed, distance traveled, location, can be locked to avoid accidentally turning logging on/off. And it's been knocked around without complaining.
The USB and bluetooth work fine on a couple of computers (XP); it is important to install the USB drivers before connecting it. I find the USB much easier than the bluetooth. You can adjust the settings from the software, which makes life easier.
OK, some quirks: the software appears to offer geotagging, but does not; the GPicSync works great though. With the USB connection, you have to figure out which COM port it connects to; this is trial and error (COM6 for me), but it stays the same each time you connect it. If it runs out of power while logging, the file is lost (same thing if you accidentally turn it off); there is a low-battery indicator, but you need to be checking it pretty regularly, or have a good idea how long your battery will last. The battery cover feels pretty fragile. You can’t tell it to start logging until you get a fix on the satellites, which means each time you turn it on you need to remember to start logging a minute later.
I think for money and convenience (AA, reasonable memory, accuracy), it’s the best logging option – at least in March it was!
Rating: 4 / 5