GeoBeagle – Geocaching Android Style
UPDATE: The below article was written in2009. We have since written about a different Android Geocaching app. Read more by clicking here or continue with your reading:
Ok, I know this site is all about Android + Social Media but sometimes as a team we have to bring you a few things that have nothing at all to do with Social Media or even a few things that have nothing to do with Android. We can’t help it. Today we want to do the first of those two. Departing from social media and online marketing lets venture into the subject of geocaching on your android phone.
What is geocaching? In few words, geocaching is a hobby where you go look for small containers of random stuff that are hidden all over in random places. Yep… sounds cool doesn’t it? We think it is. The hobby of geocaching has gained massive followers in the last several years. Mainly supported by www.geocaching.com there are currently 782,783 active hidden caches in the world.
There is a certain thrill that comes from finding one of these hidden containers right down the street from where you live. Knowing that people walk past it everyday and that you found it’s hidden contents is just… COOL. (Do people still use the word “cool” ?)
Well, now that the G1 has come out with a built in GPS antenna the possibilities of geocaching have been extended. You no longer need a Garmin or similar GPS device. Just grab your phone and go to it. There are several apps popping up in the android market for the purpose of geocaching but our favorite is Geobeagle. This FREE application does everything you need to do. You can access an online list of caches near your current location and browse by map or by list. Download the coordinates directly onto your phone from the browser and then go looking. The geobeagle app also works in conjuction with the radar app to help you find the hidden caches quicker than with Google maps alone.
After you find it you will be able to visit the webpage of that cache and log your visit right away. We are super pleased with the geobeagle app and its potential for this great hobby. We love it so much that we decided to get in touch with the developers to see what plans they have for future updates. While then don’t want to spoil all the secrets we did manage to get this much from Steve over at the Geobeagle development team. He did tell us, ” We generally do a release every two weeks with fixes and improvements. In particular, we are moving to a new UI design which should make GeoBeagle easier to use. We also plan to support cache logging from your phone in the near-term.” In addition Steve asked us to remind all of our site subscribers to contact them with any bugs or feature requests! – Thanks Steve!!!
Just to give you a final insight into GeoBeagle and this great hobby Brandon & Jacob (“the team”) went out the other day to give you a demonstration. Here is the video.
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Hi. Just to add to Matt: Geocaching is big in most places. In Denmark we have 10.000 caches. In Gibraltar (British teritory) there is 7 (but the Gibraltar is very small) and I have cached them all while working there. According to GeoCaching.com there is 43267 caches in the UK. And schokingly enough Antarctica has 32 caches some of them has never been visited and some were visited in april!
Thanks for the link to the new Radar. Just installed it. Like having the bearings on there.
I think this is a great review. I love GeoBeagle and I find the G1 and GeoBeagle work great i don’t see a need to spend big buck sot geocache.
Thanks for this demo, I’ve just started geocaching and I think this is a great getting started guide. One thing I wanted to know, does GeoBeagle provide any way of showing caches on a map? I’m using Symbian OS at the minute and use Google Maps to log locations for when I’m out caching, but I’m looking for an Android phone when my contract expires in October and this would be a big pull factor for me.
Yep. You can display a cache within the google maps program on the device. Hope that helps:)
Geobeagle works great. My only issue is that it decrypts the hints. Is there any way to leave them encrypted?
Not that I know of. You could download a new app called c:geo which I’ve been using lately. It works just as well as doesn’t decrypt the hint unless you tell it to.