GPS Waypoints

GPS Waypoints is a surveying and mapping application for Android from Bluecover Technologies, operational since 2015 and listed on Google Play with more than 500,000 downloads. It turns a smartphone into a field surveying tool for agriculture and forestry, real estate and construction, road and utility networks, emergencies and environmental mapping, as well as hiking and travel.

How it works: the app records points, paths and polygons with their positioning accuracy, classifies them with thematic tags and photos, and measures distances, areas and perimeters. By default it uses the phone's own GNSS receiver (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou), typically accurate to 1.5–5 m. Premium users can connect any external NMEA 0183 receiver over Bluetooth or USB, including multi-frequency and RTK receivers; known supported models include the Trimble R1, u-blox C099-F9P and Bluecover's GISUY receivers.

• Surveying and tracking: manual and automatic paths, point averaging, and datum and UTM conversion.
• Navigation: directions and distances to saved points, and route following.
• GNSS diagnostics: skyplot, satellite status and interference detection.
• Data exchange: import CSV, GPX, KML and KMZ files and export KML, GPX and CSV for GIS tools such as QGIS.
• Maps add-on: OpenStreetMap, OpenTopo and USGS base maps, WMS layers, and an EO Images feature, on trial, that orders Sentinel-2 scenes of up to 20 km x 20 km as true-colour, vegetation-index or burnt-area products.

The free edition carries adverts; Premium is sold monthly, yearly or as a lifetime licence, priced from 1 to 18 euros. An iPhone edition, GPS Waypoints Lite, is also available. A GPS Enterprise activation adds team surveys synchronised to a web admin app with reports, from 8 euros a month.