Child Item

Site Totals

61363 Questions Answered 267 Categories

Having trouble with GPS accuracy and speed? Here's a tip...

I noticed some complaints about the GPS accuracy and speed on various Android sites. I have a tip for people that are having this issue... When you turn on the GPS, turn on Wi-Fi as well and your location will be much more accurate and speedier. GPS alone will find your general vicinity, but for some reason or another the Wi-Fi signal pinpoints your location with (usually) perfect accuracy. I always turn on Wi-Fi + GPS before opening Google Maps and it works great.

Comments

budone

How is a WiFi connection going to work??? By the time the signal is found and connection, you are gone......

PJNC284

budone wrote:
How is a WiFi connection going to work??? By the time the signal is found and connection, you are gone......

ha, I was wondering the same. Unless you're just playing around with it at home or whatever, you probably don't have wifi access the majority of the time you want to use it. That said, mine has been spot on without wifi since I bought it.

mdram4x4

i found gps helper software, like gps status, speeds upt he lock time

never used wifi either, well eve if was on there non where i live :smileyhappy:

AZSALUKI

yeah....wifi wouldn't have helped me yesterday when it took about 40 seconds to lock in, and finally did, and told me to take the exit that i literally JUST passed.....lol. mine is very accurate and with most apps it's just fine.....but for whatever reason, it takes 30-60 seconds to lock in when i say "navigate to....." ironically, when i was in IL this weekend, i went to show my buddy what i was talking about, and, of course, it locked right in in about 5 seconds!!! lol

Ann154

Whenever I feel like the gps is taking longer to lock then I am patient enough for, I always switch to GPS Test to see the number of satellites and if my phone is finding them.

emilynicol2

budone wrote:
How is a WiFi connection going to work??? By the time the signal is found and connection, you are gone......

Not sure how it works, but it works :smileyhappy: Oh and you don't have to connect to any particular Wi-Fi network nearby or enter a password or anything like that (that would take time if it worked that way, yes). You simply just have to turn the Wi-Fi on and it automatically works on its own. I use the little 'on/off' widgets for both GPS and Wi-Fi so I can turn them on/off quickly. Try it out!

emilynicol2

P.S. I noticed that others have experienced this too and it does indeed work:

http://forum.androidcentral.com/htc-thunderbolt/86257-need-wi-fi-gps.html

http://forum.androidcentral.com/htc-thunderbolt/84194-gps-accuracy-wifi.html

http://forum.androidcentral.com/923526-post2.html

Anyway, just thought I'd post to offer help for anyone having issues!

AZSALUKI

emilynicol2 wrote:

budone wrote:
How is a WiFi connection going to work??? By the time the signal is found and connection, you are gone......
Not sure how it works, but it works Oh and you don't have to connect to any particular Wi-Fi network nearby or enter a password or anything like that (that would take time if it worked that way, yes). You simply just have to turn the Wi-Fi on and it automatically works on its own. I use the little 'on/off' widgets for both GPS and Wi-Fi so I can turn them on/off quickly. Try it out!

it will work fine IF you have an available wifi network. i don't believe that it will help if you just turn it on and there is no wifi network available to connect to? i could be wrong, but that just doesn't seem to make sense. but yes, i can see how it would work if you happen to be in an area with an open and available wifi network. i'll test it later though. when i leave i will leave wifi on (even though i will be driving and will not have access to any wifi) and try to use nav.

emilynicol2

AZSALUKI wrote:

it will work fine IF you have an available wifi network. i don't believe that it will help if you just turn it on and there is no wifi network available to connect to? i could be wrong, but that just doesn't seem to make sense. but yes, i can see how it would work if you happen to be in an area with an open and available wifi network. i'll test it later though. when i leave i will leave wifi on (even though i will be driving and will not have access to any wifi) and try to use nav.

I don't believe you need to have any Wi-Fi network to connect to, no. Unlike using Wi-Fi for internet browsing, you definitely don't need to have an open network available that you connect to. In my experience it just seems to work wherever I've been - middle of the street, driving in a car, wherever. My assumption (correct me if I'm wrong, any experts out there?) is that it just bounces info off the closest Wi-Fi tower to pinpoint your location and doesn't need to connect to a specific network. I always turn on the switch on my wi-fi and gps buttons before using google maps navigation. Before when I only switched on the GPS it would take longer to find my location...

But yeah, test it out on your drive home, let us know how it goes! :smileyhappy:

Ann154

Same here and I had forgotten that I still had wifi on and I turned on GPS Test after I had started down the road yesterday and it took about a minute to lock on to the available satellites.

tim600sl

emilynicol2 wrote:
I noticed some complaints about the GPS accuracy and speed on various Android sites. I have a tip for people that are having this issue... When you turn on the GPS, turn on Wi-Fi as well and your location will be much more accurate and speedier. GPS alone will find your general vicinity, but for some reason or another the Wi-Fi signal pinpoints your location with (usually) perfect accuracy. I always turn on Wi-Fi + GPS before opening Google Maps and it works great.

emilynicol2, thanks for this very useful tip. At first I was like, c'mon, wifi has nothing to do with gps util I tried it. I don't really know how it works, but it just does. Gps is the only issue I had/have from day one. Week ago I was out of town and it took nearly 5 minutes (I'm not exaggerating) for gps to give me directions. Don't even start about the map feature, EVERY time I open the map feature I'm like 2 miles away from my actual location. Yesterday I tried the wifi thing, guess what? It took less than 2 seconds to find my accurate location as well as driving directions. Once again, thanks for the tip! Might not work for everyone, but it sure did work for me! Kudos to you!

budone

Made a point to try the gps . I was found in about 10 seconds,and my location was correct . this is with wifi off.

Child Item