Unable to receive NMEA GPS data from bluetooth connected Garmin GLO 2 on Mac serial device

Question

I googled all day to find any hints or even a solution to this problem. I have a Garmin GLO 2 Bluetooth GPS receiver, which I originally bought to have GPS available on my wifi-only iPad when on a boat. When connecting this device to my MacBook it indicates being connected properly. On the computer it's being recognized as a new serial device being available under /dev/tty.GarminGLO2 and /dev/cu.GarminGLO2, respectively. So I assume even tough the Mac lists it as a headset in the bluetooth menu it is simply using the Bluetooth serial protocol.

My confusion starts when trying to read the incoming data stream from the serial device using cat /dev/tty.GarminGLO2. Terminal is just returning short lines of seemingly undisplayable characters:

�%
������%
������%
������%
������%
������%

When opening a dump of this data using SublimeText it's properly display as hexadecimal values:

c001 1600 0301 0025 010a 0180 00e8 03e8
0311 f505 0093 c001 1600 0301 0025 010a
0180 00e8 03e8 0311 f505 0093 c001 1600
0301 0025 010a 0180 00e8 03e8 0311 f505
0093 c001 1600 0301 0025 010a 0180 00e8
03e8 0311 f505 0093

As someone describes here http://forum.gps-laptimer.de/viewtopic.php?p=25619#p25619 the serial interface should output some sort of NMEA data, which I assume would be ASCII formatted. For the series 1 GLO Model Garmin describes this procedure rudimentarily here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=mkuJnIsr4A0d3ug27OUJa9

I am pretty sure I am doing something simple wrong here. Besides reading from serial using cat I have tried screen and miniterm as well, but have not been able to receive any data with both of them. The Garmin GLO 2 seems to function as it should. At least it is providing location information to my iPad as expected. Any help on this is appreciated. If there is something easy to read from this serial device using python, I am happy to give this a try as well, as this is where I would like to work on the data at the end.

Answer 1

As per: "Garmin GLO Series Compatibility with a Mac Computer" The Garmin GLO series is not compatible with Mac computers and will not pair to them. https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=H0UA7rX5Nu6ei8whY7EgQA

Which version of Mac OS X are you testing this?