In a previous thread, I mentioned that one of our collectors had bitten the dust. In acquiring a new one I would like to keep with the times and work towards streamlining the field to office procedures. Previously I have had experience with a mifi and laptop, to provide internet and "emailability" to send data collector files from just about anywhere. That worked well, however our outfit does not include a laptop in the truck and we do not use a mifi for GPS work, making that setup somewhat useless for our practices. Turning a cellphone into a hotspot is potentially an option but that may take some convincing. Seeing as there are quite a few folks in this online community that run one or several crews, I thought it might be beneficial to ask what your procedures are when it comes to utilizing mobile offices in the field. Particularly if there is a way to do it without the use of a mifi, although I suspect that with no portable WiFi we are left with the crews getting coffee while e-mailing from Starbucks...
I use my phone as a hotspot pretty regularly. It works fine.
I use my phone as a hotspot all the time as well. There are also various models of tablets that have cell modems in them. $400-$500 for a decent one and $25/month for a 5GB data only plan pretty much pays for itself with one saved trip back to the office or off to find a free WiFi location. They also work great for looking at PDF's of construction plans or point plots with search coordinates or sending out KML files to view in Google Earth.
The ability to send and receive data directly back and forth is a HUGE asset! If you're doing construction work the Super is always asking for something once the crew gets there that he didn't say anything about on the phone when he scheduled the visit and if they're working boundary they can send back the monuments they have recovered and modifications to search calc's can be made on the fly to speed their recovery of others.
We had been running Nomads with Mifi's until Gmail stopped accepting the security profiles on the data collector that were apparently not upgrade able. We then switched to linking to our mifi's through a cheap ($80) bluetooth/wifi capable tablet. All data transfers, timesheets, mileage logs, and project PDF's were done through the tablet from the field through Asana.
We have now started upgrading out data collectors to FC-5000's running Magnet with internally installed cell modems....and the streamlining is ridiculous. We don't use the Magnet transfer protocols as we like the ease of use with Asana. We can send data back and forth in seconds...reassign or add jobs....etc. Since the FC-5000 is really a computer we are researching setting up an a VPN to the office so dwg files can be viewed directly, etc....
The best part about it....The FC-5000 was cheaper in the end than most data collectors.
I use an old smartphone with data-only sim card. I have 2GB on this plan. (8â per month)
It is a permanent wifi hotspot which is all the time in my car.
Connected to my vpn i can download an upload to my office server without a problem
Our data collectors using Leica Smartworks and Viva have a function to connect to our FTP site. I just email the crew on their phone when I upload a file they need. Our CS15 has a built in GSM modem but our old RX1250s we used a Motorola Tundra phone to connect to the internet. The phone was kind of a pain due to batteries and available plans that worked with it. I the RX1250s had Wi-Fi I would have just gotten a hot spot.
This is a very timely thread. Just this morning I got my LT30 email up and running with help from my iPhone's personal hotspot and [USER=1087]@Mark Silver[/USER] at igage.com
Now I can send and recieve files directly from/to my data collector.
Thank you Mark!
Trimble's Access Sync works very well for us. As soon as the field crew finishes a job they hit sync on the data collector and it uploads the data to the Trimble Connected Community cloud server. The Slate controller has a sim card. I have it configured to send me an email when there is new data. Then I simply download the data using the TCC plugin for windows explorer (TCC shows up as a drive on my computer). What's great about this is I can also upload data to the field if necessary. I have the field guys trained to sync data as soon as they're finished with the job even if I don't need the data right away. This gives me a backup of the data in case something happens to the controller before it gets back to the office. Very slick Trimble.
I picked up a 'free data for life' tablet a few years ago. It's crazy good about grabbing WiFi so I rarely use the data. It downloads static from the r8 much faster than the TSC3 and emails it to me. I can take a photo of my point and email it as well. Simple 5mp camera keeps the files small.
The funny part is when other Surveyors call me old school for doing it that way. If they only knew...
The responses here show that there is for sure more than one way to skin a cat. Good info, I am taking notes!