Taiwanese company Haicom have announced a new 20 channel SiRF StarIII chip based GPS unit with Bluetooth connectivity and power via a MiniSD to SD converter. At first I had to think about this, but after consulting Haicoms product page it became more clear: you use a MiniSD to SD converter cable to connect the GPS unit to the host unit, i.e. a mobile phone or PDA and the HI-505SD takes power via this connection, but connectivity is done via Bluetooth. This sadly means, as far as I am interpreting this correctly, that the HI-505SD may have Bluetooth but is not a wireless device, as it needs the MiniSD to SD connection for power. The product page does you use the word wireless several times, but this refers to the GPS connection, not the GPS unit to host application connection.
Personally I don’t really understand this concept, the only advantage being that you can still use SD cards plugged into the GPS unit. But why not equip the GPS unit with a battery pack and make it completely wireless?
Nevertheless, the Haicom HI-505SD should be shipping in February for around $119.
