Sv: Vurderer kjøp av ELBil

[BauDemo]

I made a program that runs on a mobile phone and uses the data from www.uppladdning.nu to find a charging point near you.
It uses cell id and does not need GPS unit.
There are currently two versions of the program - one for Windows Mobile phones and one for java phones - like Sony Ericsson or some of the nokias.
There are not that many charging points registered for Norway, but it still may be of use to you. Feel free to give it a shot and let me know what you think.
The programs are available when you type www.puru.nu/m/main.aspx in your mobile phone webbrowser and click on the link for the appropriate version.

[Ken]

This is very good Bau Demo. I managed to connect my Sony Ericsson and got 10 charging points within 100km radius. One of the main car parks i Kristiansand was not shown and only 8 points were described. Børsparken P-hus.
Will the program always show all the points within 100km radius?

My cheap Samsung telefon didn``t work and referred to the Loopia web hotel. Dont think that the phone had enough memory either.

Well done.
I hope that more people will register charging points in Norway, particularly in the south because of the Viking Rally.

[BauDemo]

Thanks Ken! Glad you liked it.
I am sorry about the 100km - I understand that this can be misleading... The program always shows maximum 10 charging points near you, and searches within 100km radius for them, so you don't get charging points that are in Australia and most probably irrelevant for you.
I should probably change the wording for that message. Any ideas? Do you think 10 points and 100km are limiting?  I was also thinking that every time you press the Find button the phone uses internet, and for some people that can be quite some money.

Which model was the Samsung? And which model was the Sony Ericsson?

You are correct - there are not that many charging points registered for Norway.
I am ready to help out with "bulk" uploading if someone has a list...

[Ken]

Its OK when you get the hang of it. The thing is that I got 4 points and these have 2 sockets each. I was thinking that this made 10 altogether  but only 8 actually.
One of the main points was missed completely and I don``t know why. There aren``t 10 charging points on the Google map within 100km  unfortunately.

The phones are cheap flip types: SAMSUNG sgh-m310 and Sony Ericcson Z310i

I``ll try to find some more points to the east and west of Kristiansand.

Come on the rest of you, help us out here!

[BauDemo]

I have fixed a small bug - the charging site you were missing should be visible now.
I find only 3 charging sites defined in Kristiansand, 1 at Skibåsen, and 1 at Arendal. That makes it total of 5 charging sites that should be visible by you through the Charger Finder program.
Is this what you are seeing?
If there were more then 10 charging sites in 100km radius around you then you would have seen a list of only the 10 closest charging sites.

I checked the specification for the sgh-m310 and it should work. Did you try downloading from the "Download Charger Finder for J2ME - SonyEricsson, some Nokias" link on the main page (www.puru.nu/m/main.aspx)?

I will test tomorrow with some different phones.
Thanks again!

[Ken]

I have found the Børsparken  P-hus now. The distanse to the sites is not accurate, too conservative. Is this the  distance from the nearest cell phone transmitter to the actual charging points?

I can only get into the web- hotel site with the Samsung.

[BauDemo]

Yes, the distance shown is the calculated straight line distance between the cell phone tower and the charging site. This means that the results are not super accurate, but they should be good for distances larger then kilometer.

The "charger finder" purpose is that if you were in another town and trying to find alternative charging station then the one you planned to use (because it is busy or broken), you can start the application and see if there are any station nearby and approximately how close they are.

I definitely need to work on the wording and presentation in the mobile app.
Any comments are well appreciated!
Thanks again Ken!

[Ken]

The program is a good back up for those without GPS so the cost of connecting to the net won``t be appreciable. I won``t be using it much because I rarely travel out of my area with my EV.

With the address of the parking place one can ask the locals how to get there if neccesary.

If you want to use more text in the application then you could either wait all year for others to chip in or send me a PM . (  [position]  with one S. )

[Boogie]

I tried it on my Nokia E51 (Symbian), but it only comes up with: "Unable to identify location"
Will this phone be able to work with your application, or will I have to use an other phone?

Good initiative!!

[BauDemo]

Ken - you've got mail!
Boogie - "unable to identify location" can be that the particular cell your phone was connected to does not have "known" position. I will check tonight.
You can also check again when you are walking, or when you change your location.
There should not be any problem running Nokia E51.
I will let you know after I double check.
Thanks again!

[Elmo]

"Unable to identify location"

Looks like your mobile-subscription has restriction against positioning services ?
GSM default is that you have to tell your operator that you want to be opened for positioning, but I believe at least Telenor and Netcom have chosen the opposite - ie. they have opened for everyone so you have to contact them to restrict positioning.

[BauDemo]

Elmo - this message has nothing to do with operator positioning services.
<technical>
The program uses cellid and does not use any operator specific solutions. I've seen the message that Boogie gets, and it simply means that the cellid his phone is sending to www.uppladdning.nu can not be identified right now.
The problem is the relatively limited set of cellid's known to the server.
Usually a change in the cell id (by walking or driving 10 to 400m down the road) will result in better location.
</technical>

[BauDemo]

More info - I checked and it looks like Nokia E51 requires that my application is signed either by nokia or the mobile operator in order to get access to the cellid. I will do some more research and post here.

[Boogie]

I've checked several times tonight at various positions with the same result.

[Elmo]

The program uses cellid and does not use any operator specific solutions

Very interesting. We probably should not become too technical here but I wonder how you know the position of radiotowers in Norway by reading the cellid ?