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M-241: Holux M-241 Bluetooth Data Logger GPS (Runs on AA Battery, MTK Chipset, 130,000 Waypoints) | 
 enlarge | Brand: Holux
Category: CE
Buy New: $63.99
New (2) from $63.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 5344
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 10 x 6.2 x 1.7
MPN: M-241
Model: M-241
UPC: 811745010052
EAN: 0811745010052
ASIN: B0011XV19O
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | The Holux M 241 Bluetooth GPS logger provides real time coordinate logging and easy-to-use trip guiding service. | | • | Holux M-241 is capable to record up to 120,000 records positions, including longitude, latitude, UTC, and height data. | | • | Besides the logger function, you are also able to enjoy a brand new experience in driving with BluetoothTM | | • | 51 parallel satellite-searching channels for fast acquisition and reacquisition | | • | LCD display ( 32 x 8.9mm/128 x 32 pixels) to show position information, speed, capable logging memory size |
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| Editorial Reviews:
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 It is a good product. Needs improvement August 27, 2010
I bought a Holux M-241 recently for geo tagging my photos. I like its small size and single battery design. The best thing for this device is that it displays time, location, travel direction, travel distance. I used the displayed time to synch my camera time. It can be used in place of a watch. Changing time zone is very easy. One of the reasons I choose this device is that it can output track data in NMEA format which is compatible with my computer's setup for geo tagging. I give it thumb up regarding the ease of use in the field.
Uploading track data to a computer is quite a hassle. The provided USB driver does not install on Windows Vista. The name of the USB driver file is different from what it says in the user manual. The device is not displayed in Windows Explorer when connected. You are out of luck if your laptop has no driver installed when you are traveling for an extended period of time. The maximum storage is for 180 hours of track data which may not be adequate if you do not carry a laptop on a long trip. You can not simply plug it into a hotel computer and transfer the track data to a storage device for later use. The default setting for recording track data is OFF. You have to turn the recording on in a deeply buried menu item the first time you use it. Compared with another GPS device (an AMOD model) I have, I give this device thumb down on the uploading data.
 Great performance if this is the device you want. July 31, 2010
What I wanted was a small device that can tag my photos with their location once I get back home from the zoo, hike, etc. This is one of several devices that at the 50-100$ range can do that. Where this device shines is it has a display that is actually useful. This gps locks on pretty fast, with bluetooth turned off the battery will easily last for 18+ hours, and in a pinch its Long/Lat display can tell you where you are within about 25ft (it may be more accurate than that, but my maps are not.) For time adjustment, every couple of days (definitely every time you change location by more than a timezone) Take a picture of the gps displayed time. This makes calibration easy, and accurate to 1-2seconds.
Other good uses for this - record paths around town, or hiking / jogging trails, spy on your kids (turn it to record every x feet, and tuck it in their backpack or toss it in their messy car.
Not only would I buy it again in a second, but anyone who asks what it is gets a 3-5 min sales pitch. This little thing was exactly what I was in the market for!
 Unreliable for logging April 6, 2010
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
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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.
Software isn't compatable with the item February 15, 2010
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
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!!!)
Good compact GPS and photo logger November 2, 2008
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
This is a good compact GPS logger, which is primarily intended for geotagging digital photos.
The idea here is that the GPS logger periodically records your GPS location and then, later on, the Holux Logger Utility takes this timestamped GPS information and compares it against the JPG timestamps on your photos. Then for each photo, it can find the GPS record that best matches the photo time and add that GPS location information to the photo.
The basic idea works well. The M-241 is sometimes a little awkward to use, but I like mine enough that after I accidentally lost my first one, I quickly bought a second. I use the GPS info for both tagging photos and for generating route maps.
Some specific positives:
* The logger is very compact and easily fits into a pocket.
* The Holux logger utility uploads GPS data as either proprietary TRL files or as Google Earth KML files. The KML files can be easily viewed with Google Earth.
* GPS signal sensitivity is quite good. It can sometimes take several minutes to get an initial fix, especially if you are moving, but it tracks quickly thereafter.
* The LCD display is useful: I enjoy being able to watch things like direction, or speed, or travel distance as I travel.
Now some weaknesses:
* A Duracell Alkaline AA lasts me about 15 hours and a Lithium AA about 22 hours. (Fairly typical battery life for a GPS device.)
* The battery case cover is rather flimsy and needs cautious handling.
* The two button control UI on the logger takes a little getting used to. I can now navigate it quickly, but I initially found it rather frustrating.
* The logger utility UI is distinctly clunky and the manual is rather weak. The UI does the job, but not particularly elegantly.
* You need to keep your camera time synchronized with the logger's time and you need to compensate for timezone differences when you do the photo tagging.
You can use either USB or Bluetooth to communicate with the logger. I've been using USB on Vista, without any problems. I can't speak to the Bluetooth functionality.
Some suggestions:
* Make sure to download the latest firmware and logger utility from the Holux website. The latest versions have bug fixes and some feature additions.
* In the logger settings, turn "AutoLog" to "on". This means it will start logging as soon as it gets a GPS fix, and you don't have to remember to separately turn on logging.
* Rather than worrying about time zones, I ended up leaving my camera permanently in UTC+0 (GMT). The logger always writes its TRL records in UTC+0, so this means I can tag photos without having to specify a timezone adjustment.
* By default, the logger logs every 5 seconds. I moved it to every 30 seconds, which I find adequate for photo location and lets me store over a month of records.
* If you're using USB, it's worth turning off the Bluetooth radio to save power. (This is a new feature in the v1.12 firmware.)
Overall, this isn't perfect, but I find it very convenient as a lightweight tool for GPS and photo logging.
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