Ublox annouced new RTK chip X20 based on the F9, very good news, means we can see FACET 2 GNSS receiver by 2025 maybe.
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Yep! We’re working with u-blox to implement the X20 in our upcoming products. Late 2025 or early 2026 is the currently timeline.
That will be more expensive I assume.
So late. 
Well, I don’t know when X20 itself will be available.
Yeah, that’s why I think they were giving out Lego rather than actual parts and documentation… really just a paper release for the expo.
At the end of the day should just drop into existing designs with a BoM change. And software fiddling to accommodate new features and settings.
As to cost, by the time of arrival I’d expect it to hit the ~$100 high volume price point of the ZED’s, unless there’s a lot of completive pressure for it to be lower.
I’d expect it to hit the ~$100 high volume price point of the ZED’s, unless there’s a lot of completive pressure for it to be lower.
TBH, I feel for u-blox right now. The GNSS world is moving so quickly in a race to features, and in lowering costs. This is great for the end consumer, I just hope they can keep up.
Yes, well I think they are well positioned and staffed. Certainly a better position than cellular and broadband modem chipsets, which has broken much larger companies. uBlox has the distinct advantage of not being incompetent and directionless. Intel, for example, has been a dumpster fire.
They have volume and margins working for them, which high-end receiver/equipment companies don’t, and the market space for affordable GNSS is very large, with the Ag and Construction users being gouged for years.
The agreements with TOPCON and Nordian being quite interesting.
I have no doubt that the X20 prototype is working and demonstrable in the labs, but it’s a heavier lift to get built and coded to the level of polish they are known for.
Also there’s a lot of push to get Chinese ICs and gear out of things, certainly for US and India.
I’m surprised that I’ve not seen any mentions, here or on other forums or websites, that the ZED-X20 apparently does not support GLONASS. I see no mention of GLONASS in u-blox’s documents for the X20. Some other vendors’ overview descriptions of their upcoming X20-based products mention GLONASS, but when you look in the specifications sections of those products’ web pages, GLONASS is not among the supported constellations.
GLONASS is the poorest-performing and most-difficult to support of the four major constellations, so it makes sense that u-blox would omit it in order to hit a low price for the X20, but I expect some purchasers of X20-based products are going to be in for a rude surprise. I’m thinking of people who use older RTN services, such as Connecticut’s (one of the USA’s states) ACORN. ACORN provides corrections for only GPS and GLONASS, not for Galileo or BeiDou. With an X20-based receiver, an ACORN user would be back to the old days of GPS-only RTK (albeit with GPS L5, if I recall correctly), which is likely to be very disappointing in performance, e.g. regarding convergence time.
Am I incorrect about the X20’s lack of support for GLONASS? Can anyone point to documentation from u-blox itself that says the X20 supports GLONASS?
the u-block page does not indicate glonass
I also did not see the Galileo E5b frequency.
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@wjc , I researched this last week and came to the same conclusion as you for the X20.
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Although Galileo E6 is still mentioned, Galileo HAS don’t seems to be mentioned in last documents as an example of PPP service. (ZED-X20P product summary, ZED-X20P-00B Data sheet)
Strongly waiting for public release.
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I coincidentally noticed that the Garmin GPSMAP 67i recreational handheld GNSS receiver lists GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS, and IRNSS in its specs, but not GLONASS. I wonder if this is a trend among receiver manufacturers, at least for the lower-priced / non-professional receivers, to drop GLONASS support. That way, they don’t have to deal with GLONASS’s FDMA architecture, and thus they have to handle only CDMA signals. Perhaps when the future CDMA version of GLONASS becomes operational, they can add support via a firmware change.
I suspect that u-blox is disabling GLONASS because of the war in Ukraine. I have no idea if this is true, but many recent u-blox products (across the cost spectrum) have had this removed. It is unfortunate, but I get it.
@wjc - I like your theory; lower costs. It’s also a solid potentiality. A receiver can do jarringly well with just GPS/BeiDou/Galileo.
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…even only with Beidou alone.
…four separate frequencies with one channel even bidirectional…
this scenario worries me a lot.
Gps and Galileo are easy to knock out if there are no future investment.
To make a GNSS receiver without GLONASS support for whatever reason is fine, but to call it an ALL constellation receiver has a bit of “The Emperor has No Clothes” vibe to it. Not a good look for Ublox.
They were really pushing the ALL constellation aspect of the X20, but that fictional attribute has been toned down some in their recent advertising - though it can still be seen here:
Maybe ALL constellation will finally be removed from their advertising or they add GLONASS support, but it needs to be one or the other.