Stonex is an European company that manufactures instruments for the surveying market.
Stonex the company
The original country of Stonex is Italy. On their website there are two addresses. One adress is in Paderno and the registered office is in Monza. So they are real European.
But they also have some connection with Hemisphere. These companies are like brothers. Because they both have the same mother company. The mother company of Stonex is Unistrong. The complete name of Unistrong is Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co. Ltd. Unistrong is as you can already see in the Beijing part of the name a Chinese company.
The company does not have a big history. Nevertheless they have a big network all over the world. In many countries they have dealers. Those dealers give support to their users in different areas.
The areas that Stonex focusses on are:
- Land survey and cadastral survey
- Land and structure monitoring
- Building and construction
- GIS data collection
- 3D scanning
- Agriculture and smart farming
They try to solve everything with a Stonex solution in these areas.
The products of Stonex
To do so they have a range of products. Besides the GNSS receivers that we wil describe a bit later they have other instruments. Most of them are in the area of land surveying.
Stonex produces total stations, autolevels, theodolites and more. They also developed 3D scanners. One of those is stationary. This is the X300. But besides that they also manufacture handheld scanners like the F6. That 3d scanner you can hold in your hand to scan for example a building.
Recently they started with products for machines. One of the markets they target is precision farming and agriculture. That is why they created STX plant, which is tool to help farmers plant their plants on the right location.
They also developed some tools for machine control. This is not for excavators yet. They focus more on drilling machines and pile driving.
GNSS receivers of Stonex
GNSS receiver S700A
Stonex has different GNSS receivers. The different types have different names. And the names differ by the number. So the first one is the S700A
As all GNSS receivers of Stonex it is in their company colors. It is grey, blue and white. But the appearance does not say anything. The specifications of this GNSS receiver should say more.
- Dimensions: 140x140x71 mm
- Weight: 1100 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+, ROX
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, BEIDOU B1, B2, B3, GALILEO E1, E5a, E5b, Altboc
- Number of channels: 700
GNSS receiver S850A
As with many GNSS receiver manufacturers the differences between the types of their GNSS receivers is not that big. The S850A looks exactly the same as the S700A.
So we can only check the specifications if there are any differences.
- Dimensions: 140x140x71 mm
- Weight: 1100 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+, ROX
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, BEIDOU B1, B2, B3, GALILEO E1, E5a, E5b, Altboc
- Number of channels: 700
Also the specifications mentioned here on this site don’t differ. The difference must be a small thing. It is strange to call it a complete different GNSS receiver though.
GNSS receiver S900SE
Then Stonex has also GNSS receivers that look a bit different. Those are all in the S900 series. The first ons is the S900SE.
It is still in the colors of Stonex. But let’s see if since it has a bigger number it also has better specifications than the S700A and the S850A.
- Dimensions: 157x157x76 mm
- Weight: 1300 gram
- Ingress protection: IP68
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, L5, BEIDOU B1, B2, B3, GALILEO E1, E5a, E5b, Altboc
- Number of channels: 555
So finally there is a GNSS receiver that is a bit different from the other GNSS receivers.
GNSS receiver S900A
In looks we can’t say that about the S900A. It looks exactly the same as the S900.
So then there are the specifications again:
- Dimensions: 157x157x76 mm
- Weight: 1300 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+, RTCA
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, L5, BEIDOU B1, B2, B3, GALILEO E1, E5a, E5b, Altboc, E6
- Number of channels: 555
As you can see the differences are not big.
GNSS receiver S900
And in the end there is the S900. Also this receiver looks exactly like the other receivers in the S900 series.
So we have to check the specifications to see any difference.
- Dimensions: 157x157x76 mm
- Weight: 1300 gram
- Ingress protection: IP67
- Corrections: NTRIP, RTCM2, RTCM3, CMR, CMR+, RTCA
- Position output: NMEA
- Positioning kinematic horizontal: 8 mm + 1 ppm
- Positioning kinematic vertical: 15 mm + 1 ppm
- GNSS signals tracked: GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS L1, L2, L3, L5, BEIDOU B1, B2, B3, GALILEO E1, E5a, E5b, Altboc, E6
- Number of channels: 555
Also here there is no difference in the specifications mentioned on this page between this GNSS receiver and the S900A. So there must be a small other thing that is the difference.
Land surveying software for GNSS receivers of Stonex
For their GNSS receivers they developed some software solutions, which are Cube-a and Geogis. Stonex is not that sure about their own solutions, because they also have on their website two other software packages that they offer with their GNSS receivers. These are Field Genius and Surv CE. Even of the Surv CE Stonex put their name on it.
So since Stonex is so unsure about their software we can say with certainty that Apglos Survey Wizard is the best land surveying software for the GNSS receivers of Stonex. Apglos Survey Wizard is easy to use and works smooth with the S900 of this company. It works well with any GNSS receiver as long as it sends NMEA strings via Bluetooth.
If you want to know more about this software then check out this page. There you will find all the information you need about this land survey app. And of course if you want to try Apglos Survey Wizard yourself than it is possible for free. Download it here for free from the Google Play Store.