NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Bob Goethe
Date: 2016 Oct 10, 23:15 -0700
I agree that the phone's internal tilt sensors are not up to the challenge. I experimented both with my Moto G by Motorola and my older Samsung. I used the Android app called "AR Bearing + Baseplate Compass". It displays time to the nearest second, with target crosshairs that are well suited to taking a sight on a planet.
But little variations from my phone's inclinometer in the altitude displayed meant my fix could be as close as 2 or 3 miles away from my actual position, or as many as 50 miles off...and there was no predicting which it would be.
It may be that the day will come when having a suitable augmented reality display on your smartphone screen, and the ability to snap pictures which include that AR data, will make a cellphone's inclinometer a poor-man's sextant...but that day is not yet here.
Bob
