University of Otago researchers have developed algorithms that improve the precision of location tracking in smartwatches, a world-first development.

Led by Associate Professor Robert Odolinski, a Visiting Researcher with Google from Otago’s School of Surveying, in collaboration with Google’s Android Context group and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the research team demonstrated that a smartwatch determined its location with centimeter-level precision over four hours with a stationary setup.

This was achieved by using the Google GnssLogger app and combining precise signals from several global navigation satellite systems. The results have just been published in the journal GPS Solutions.

Associate Professor Odolinski says that for decades, achieving centimeter-level positioning has required industries such as surveying, construction, and engineering to invest in expensive GPS equipment.

“While the use of the so-called carrier-phase signals has long been known to improve the positioning performance, the specialized antenna and receivers needed for this have traditionally come at a cost far beyond the reach of many who would benefit from the technology.”

GPS was introduced in a wearable watch in 1999, but hardware and power consumption limitations prevented it from tracking the carrier-phase signals needed for high-precision results. Recent advances in smartwatches now make this possible.

“This is just the beginning of what wearable high-precision positioning can potentially achieve,” says Odolinski.

The four environmental modes can be of some help here, but the best in my experience was the default Comfort mode, which “reduces the sharpness of high-frequency sounds and overall intensity, creating a more comfortable, balanced listening experience.” The Atom X’s Conversation mode was too sharp for much use, while the Crowd and TV modes didn’t make a big impact in comparison to the Comfort mode.

I immediately noticed that there was a much lower level of hiss on the Atom X than on previous Audien hearing aids, but the overall experience still wasn’t all that effective. By blasting out lower frequencies I didn’t need amplified, I found I often heard worse with the hearing aids in than with them out—and this was exacerbated the louder I pushed the volume. At very low levels of amplification (10 or 20 percent at most), the hearing aids were at their most effective for me. Anything beyond that threatened to get painful.

At $389, the Atom X is a tough sell compared to the $249 Apple AirPods Pro 3, which have a tuning system, app control, outstanding noise cancellation, and overall better-quality hearing support. Yes, they are much larger and more visible than the Atom X aids, but if you never actually wear your hearing aids because they don’t provide a great experience, how much does discretion even matter?

A new app with a straightforward name wants to make it easier for people to fix their stuff by helping them find trustworthy repair services near them.

The Repair App launched today, on a day that’s being celebrated as International Repair Day. The app is currently available in beta form in the US and France, because that’s where cofounders Robert Lise and Caleb Faruki reside, respectively. If the app does well, more countries should be added soon.

The app arrives during a time of renewed interest in the right to repair movement. Through lobbying efforts and consumer advocacy campaigns, right to repair folks argue that when somebody buys a piece of technology, they should have the legal right to fix it, replace broken parts, or upgrade it using services, tools, and replacement parts accessed on the open market.

“You don’t actually own something if you don’t have the ability to repair it,” says Lise, the app’s cofounder.

It sounds like a position that doesn’t need much advocacy, but large companies like Apple, Samsung, and John Deere, have been resistant to allow their customers to tinker with their products.

Lise says the goal of The Repair App is to platform businesses and service providers who cover just about anything that can be repaired, from devices like phones and computers to bicycles, clothes, and maybe eventually vehicles. To start, they have reached out to verified repair businesses that they can vet for inclusion in the app.

Matt Zieminski, vice president of Repair.org and VP of partnerships at the repair marketplace iFixit, has worked with Lise and the others on the Repair App and says he supports the project. He says that if the app is utilized by enough people, it could make finding options for fixing your stuff easier than it is now.

For example, if you’re searching for repair options on Google, Zieminski says, your local community repair shops might not necessarily come up as one of the top results. Instead, you’re presented with big repair franchises or generic service providers.

The Repair App will instead show you the shops closest to you that have been vetted by the tech repair experts behind the app.

“I think this is really cool,” Zieminski says. ”It is going to level that playing field and allow everybody to find the services they need and then to offer the services to people that may not even know those services exist.”

Linking customers to businesses is certainly not a new service. (Remember phonebooks?) Sites like Thumbtack or Angi (formerly Angie’s List) have long acted as repositories for finding handypeople to hire for a variety of tasks. Places like Upwork and Fiverr put a gig economy spin on the same format. And there are more specific service finder sites like RepairPal, a resource for car repair shops. (RepairPal was bought by Yelp last year.)