If the Global Mode is activated, Situm can provide Outdoor Positioning anywhere in the world.
Situm Mapping Tool allows you to test this feature. To do that, you will have to (1) turn ON the Global Mode and (2) configure your preferred building detector. After that, if you are not in a building calibrated by Situm, your Outdoor Position will be returned (3). Your location will be updated every few seconds based on the GPS (or location provider) of the smartphone.
Open Sky Detector (Optional, not recommended)
Contrary to the previous method (Outdoor GPS based on Building Detector), Situm offers a legacy alternative (not recommended anymore) to decide whether the smartphone is located indoors or outdoors based on the SNR (Signal-To-Noise-Relationship) of the GPS signals it receives (high SNR = outdoors). If the smartphone is located outdoors, then the GPS will be used to render an Outdoor Location. See this section for details.
The bigger the SNR, the higher the chances that the user is outside. The default value is 28, so Situm may work well out of the box in most buildings, but others may require a bit of configuration to decide if the smartphone is indoors or outdoors.
Configuration steps
As detailed in the following figure, in the Positioning Settings, (1) turn ON the Global Mode and the Open Sky Detector. After that, (2) by pressing on "Advanced Global Location Detection Config" and "Overriding the server value", you may configure the Minimum SNR (SNR threshold value):
- If the Minimum SNR is too low, it is highly likely that the system will decide that you are outdoors even when you are indoors, specially if you pass nearby areas where GPS can be received (e.g. windows).
- If the Minimum SNR is too high, it is highly likely that the system will never be able to detect that you are outdoors, even if you are.
Finally, you may configure the frequency by which the Open Sky detector operates. By default, it is set to reevaluate the GPS SNR every 5-10 seconds, but you may configure this value by activating the Continous Mode and changing the GPS scan interval. The lowest the interval (e.g. 1 second), the highest the accuracy but also the battery consumption.