The SparkFun SAM-M8Q GPS Breakout is a high quality, GPS board with equally impressive configuration options. The SAM-M8Q is a 72-channel GNSS receiver, meaning it can receive signals from the GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo constellations. This increases precision and decreases lock time and thanks to the onboard rechargeable battery, you’ll have backup power enabling the GPS to get a hot lock within seconds! Additionally, this u-blox receiver supports I2C (u-blox calls this Display Data Channel) which made it perfect for the Qwiic compatibility so we don’t have to use up our precious UART ports. Utilizing our handy Qwiic system, no soldering is required to connect it to the rest of your system. However, we still have broken out 0.1″-spaced pins in case you prefer to use a breadboard.

U-blox based GPS products are configurable using the popular, but dense, windows program called u-center. Plenty of different functions can be configured on the SAM-M8Q: baud rates, update rates, geofencing, spoofing detection, external interrupts, SBAS/D-GPS, etc. All of this can be done within the SparkFun Arduino Library!

The SparkFun SAM-M8Q GPS Breakout is also equipped with an on-board rechargeable battery that provides power to the RTC on the SAM-M8Q. This reduces the time-to-first fix from a cold start (~30s) to a hot start (~1s). The battery will maintain RTC and GNSS orbit data without being connected to power for plenty of time.