GPS on Beelink via bluetooth Connection

didacgil9

After several days of trying things, today I made it!

I started this project to install the Orange Pi Plus in my car, and create a Sygic embedded navigator with a music player via Kodi, which would allow me to play Spotify, connect to my Last.fm, and keep all the maps and music updated and with a nice interface.
I had a similar project via RaspberryPi, but the navigator was not really user-friendly. So I wanted to use Sygic instead.

On the RPi, I was using the GPIO to connect a GPS board. However, we do not have still a good driver that would allow reading that board on the Orange Pi. So, I looked for an alternative and I thought that the Bluetooth would be the best one.

Installing the OS
STEP 1: The OS image that I am running is the latest Beelink, that already includes the drivers for Bluetooth support.

Installing the Bluetooth Drivers
STEP 2: After installing Beelink in the EMMC, I downloaded the "USB Device Info" apk from the Google Play, and installed it.
STEP 3: On the menu options of the "USB Device Info" app, select the "Update DBs", so the Orange Pi recognizes the Bluetooth dongle. In my case, a CSR dongle with BT 4.0 (even my GPS is around 15 years old, so an older BT would have been fine as well).
STEP 4: Pair your bluetooth GPS device to Android via the Android Settings

Enabling GPS Mocks
STEP 5: Android can let you emulate GPS coordinates. This is what we will do via the external GPS module. Go to Android->Settings->Developer Options and check "Allow mock locations"

Connecting the GPS device as a location
There is an awesome app that will let us connect the GPS as a location device into our system. The app is called "Bluetooth GPS". However, the application is not compatible with our platform. There s a work around, tho.
STEP 6 (option a): Download the app "Bluetooth GPS" apk. I did from this source http://www.appsapk.com/bluetooth-gps/
STEP 6 (option b): but you could also install it into another Android device via the Google Play and copy the apk from the folder /data/apps. If you follow this option, the file will be called something like "googoo.android.btgps.apk". Copy the file into the Orange Pi filesystem.
If you would try to install the apk directly into the Orange Pi, you will get a message that the Application was not Installed. I noticed that the installer can not locate some libraries that are required for the application to get installed.
STEP 7: Install the application "Lucky Patcher" from Google Play.
STEP 8: In Lucky Patcher, open the Toolbox menu->Patch to Android and Disable signature verification in the package manager. Reboot. (maybe this is not necessary)
STEP 9: In Lucky Patcher, open Rebuild and Install and look for the bluetooth GPS apk file that we downloaded in STEP 6 (googoo.android.btgps.apk). Install as a System App. Somehow, the verification of the libraries is not performed here, and the application gets installed. Reboot the device.
STEP 10: Open the already installed "Bluetooth GPS" application. Select your paired GPS device and Connect to it via the "Connect" button. Mark the "Enable Mock GPS Provider" option, so that GPS applications can receive the GPS stream.

Open your GPS application
STEP 11: I installed Sygic on my Orange Pi. As in STEP 6, it is not directly compatible with Orange Pi, but you can also download the APK from anothe device. Now Sygic can access my GPS data, and I can run the GPS aplication with the bluetooth module.

Great Success! ENJOY!

AsusNSK

Hi all.
There is a similar app - "Bluetooth GPS Provider"
It works well. Installed from the Market. It has widget.