Help! All GPS Tracking apps show me at the wrong location..

[Mobi]

I have been using a GPS Tracking app to keep track of me and my family. It has always worked very well, and I was very happy with it.

Three weeks ago I moved about 2 -3 kilometres to a new house.

The App continues to show both me and my family at the old house location.

I have re-installed the App, deleted the data, cleared the cache and everything else I can think of to delete the old location but the app continues to show us at the old house location.

So I checked on 'Google maps' app - same thing. I took my phone outside so that it could get a better fix. (per the apps instructions). The location hovered between the old and new locations, but it finally settled back down at the old (wrong) location. I have followed all the instructions of "how to correct my location if it shows the wrong place", but to no avail.

I have downloaded and tried 3 different gps tracker apps and all of them show me at the old location.

At least 'Google maps' switches from the old to the new location before finally settling on the old location.

My wife's phone does exactly the same thing.

I have good wifi (plus 3G) and the sky is clear.

This is driving me round the bend - any suggestions?

Thanks

[thaimite]

Just a thought

Did you bring your Wi-Fi setup th the new location and are you telling the apps to refine your lication uding Wi-Fi?

If so I could ser how possibly the location apps are not aware your Wi-Fi has moved and are thus confused and thus adsuming the wirless location is more accurate.

I may he totally wrong in the above as it is only a guess

[thaimite]

If the above seems logical try changelong your WI-Fi SSID which may confuse Google in to thinking its a new one

[Mobi]

Just a thought

Did you bring your Wi-Fi setup th the new location and are you telling the apps to refine your lication uding Wi-Fi?

If so I could ser how possibly the location apps are not aware your Wi-Fi has moved and are thus confused and thus adsuming the wirless location is more accurate.

I may he totally wrong in the above as it is only a guess

You're a genius!

That's exactly what has happened. I am using the same internet provider (3B) and using the same router - just moved it to the new location.

I turned off the wifi on my phone and the new location came up.

How do I get the router to reflect the new location? I am not very tech savvy, so can you explain how to do this please, How do I "changelong my WI-Fi SSID" ? or anyone?

But you have definitely found the problem, and thanks a lot.

[Guest]

Switch off the WiFi and put GPS on and phone outside for 20 minutes might help.

Changing ssid might not help. I think the location system is using different identifying methods

[thaimite]

My suggestion would ne to go in to the riuter settings and change the Wi-Fi SSID (name) and oasdword fir good meadyre. Gopefully the NDA (Google) will treat ut as a new royte / location

[thaimite]

I don't know how the aei-Fi is located but my GUESS would be it is dine my triangulating many GPS signals connected to it hwmence changing the name may help.

I am sure it would have been turned iff for mire than 20 kinutes so do nit hold much chance for that but I am just makibg assumptions and look forward to hearing how you eventualoy fix it

[Guest]

I don't know, but assume that Google checks the WiFi routers hardware address and compares it to previously measured GPS location.

Not the ssid as there are plenty of ssid's called 'router', 'mywifi' and 'CIA mobile team'.

Disabling WiFi will make the initial location approximation based on mobile network, before the more accurate GPS location is used.

Mobile devices try to minimize battery usage and therefore use the GPS only when needed.

The location records of your router will eventually be updated on Google's databases.

[sandmike]

If you go into settings, location. on your phone (mine's a Samsung) you can set positioning to use gps only, which should solve your problem. The other settings use WiFi and mobile networks to assist in positioning (and appear to be the default setting, my phone was set that way) which is probably the cause of your problem.

Hope this helps

Sent by carrier pigeon

[Mobi]

I Googled - seems I'm not the only one with this problem. One guy lives in England and Google shows him as living in Scotland! Seems he bought a second-hand router.

I feel much better now I know I'm not alone....

The best advice seems to be to turn off the wifi as long as possible and let the gps find my new location. Apparently Google will eventually update its database for the new Mac wifi location.

There is also a website http://www.skyhookwireless.com/submit-access-point which will pass on the info to Google to update my location. So I have submitted my mac wifi address and my new location to them and see what happens. They say it can take up to 7 days.

What a to do!

[Mobi]

If you go into settings, location. on your phone (mine's a Samsung) you can set positioning to use gps only, which should solve your problem. The other settings use WiFi and mobile networks to assist in positioning (and appear to be the default setting, my phone was set that way) which is probably the cause of your problem.

Hope this helps

Sent by carrier pigeon

I also have a Samsung.

Yes it does solve the problem, but the location is not very stable using gps only - keeps shifting around. I get a more stable location by turning the WiFi off but leaving the 3G on.

Anyway, I now understand all the issues, and once Google update their database for my wifi location I should be OK... I hope..

Thanks for the advice.

[RichCor]

Geo location can be done using several methods

GPS only: utilizes satellite signals to triangulate Lat/Long/Height position. Some devices are better than others. Can take a while from a cold reading.

a-GPS: assisted GPS use nearby mobile cell tower that provides it's Lat/Long location to help quicken accuracy.

Mobile Tower: Some phones can use nearby mobile cell towers to provide a rough location (place you somewhere in an given area).

WiFi: Some devices will, when successfully discovering a GPS location, will silently 'log' the local bssid (hardware MAC addresses of nearby WiFi Access Points) and send that to a hidden database on the next Internet connection. Services like Google collect this information to assist in providing quick location to other connecting devices utilizing google services.

So, Mobi's app is defaulting to the WiFi location database (and his WiFi bssid is still associated with the previous physical location). To get this to update you need to use a mobile phone device with accurate working GPS while connected to google services to discover the new location. Some 'help' sites also suggest setting a 'home' location in the Android Device Manager app.

Configure access points with Google Location Service

Google Location history

Google's Android Device Manager (location tracking app)

[WorriedNoodle]

Geo location can be done using several methods

GPS only: utilizes satellite signals to triangulate Lat/Long/Height position. Some devices are better than others. Can take a while from a cold reading.

a-GPS: assisted GPS use nearby mobile cell tower that provides it's Lat/Long location to help quicken accuracy.

Mobile Tower: Some phones can use nearby mobile cell towers to provide a rough location (place you somewhere in an given area).

WiFi: Some devices will, when successfully discovering a GPS location, will silently 'log' the local bssid (hardware MAC addresses of nearby WiFi Access Points) and send that to a hidden database on the next Internet connection. Services like Google collect this information to assist in providing quick location to other connecting devices utilizing google services.

So, Mobi's app is defaulting to the WiFi location database (and his WiFi bssid is still associated with the previous physical location). To get this to update you need to use a mobile phone device with accurate working GPS while connected to google services to discover the new location. Some 'help' sites also suggest setting a 'home' location in the Android Device Manager app.

Would I be correct in stating that geo location fixes you've listed above are in the order of the results precision?

I noted Mobi's comment "location is not very stable using gps only - keeps shifting around" but I always thought GPS was the most precise result even tho it varies over time due to the errors in the system, and the other methods are more coarse - although I am not sure how precise the wifi result is these days?

Edited October 28, 2015 by WorriedNoodle

[RichCor]

Geo location can be done using several methods

GPS only: utilizes satellite signals to triangulate Lat/Long/Height position. Some devices are better than others. Can take a while from a cold reading.

a-GPS: assisted GPS use nearby mobile cell tower that provides it's Lat/Long location to help quicken accuracy.

Mobile Tower: Some phones can use nearby mobile cell towers to provide a rough location (place you somewhere in an given area).

WiFi: Some devices will, when successfully discovering a GPS location, will silently 'log' the local bssid (hardware MAC addresses of nearby WiFi Access Points) and send that to a hidden database on the next Internet connection. Services like Google collect this information to assist in providing quick location to other connecting devices utilizing google services.

So, Mobi's app is defaulting to the WiFi location database (and his WiFi bssid is still associated with the previous physical location). To get this to update you need to use a mobile phone device with accurate working GPS while connected to google services to discover the new location. Some 'help' sites also suggest setting a 'home' location in the Android Device Manager app.

Would I be correct in stating that geo location fixes you've listed above are in the order of the results precision?

I noted Mobi's comment "location is not very stable using gps only - keeps shifting around" but I always thought GPS was the most precise result even tho it varies over time due to the errors in the system, and the other methods are more coarse - although I am not sure how precise the wifi result is these days?

Yes, they're posted in the order of accuracy.

But while GPS may be accurate, if you haven't used the instrument for a while (or have moved a great distance before using it again) then GPS can take forever to get an accurate stable reading.

According to Wikipedia: Assisted GPS

Some standalone GPS [chipsets], when used in poor conditions, will be unable to fix a position because of satellite signal fracture and must wait for better satellite reception. A GPS unit may require as long as 12.5 minutes (the time needed to download the GPS almanac and ephemerides) to resolve the problem and be able to provide a correct location.

...

Standalone GPS provides first position in approximately 30–40 seconds. A standalone GPS needs orbital information of the satellites to calculate the current position. The data rate of the satellite signal is only 50 bit/s, so downloading orbital information like ephemerides and the almanac directly from satellites typically takes a long time, and if the satellite signals are lost during the acquisition of this information, it is discarded and the standalone system has to start from scratch

In A-GPS [(Assisted-GPS)] , the [mobile phone network operator] deploys an A-GPS server. These A-GPS servers download the orbital information from the satellite and store it in the database. An A-GPS capable device can connect to these servers and download this information using mobile network radio bearers such as GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, LTE or even using other wireless radio bearers such as Wi-Fi. Usually the data rate of these bearers is high, hence downloading orbital information takes less time.

Also with A-GPS, the Mobile Network operator can provide the GPS software with the precise time, which is necessary for the GPS software to accurately calculate distance based on satellite signal reception time differentials.

I once had an HTC smartphone that was sold primarily in the US that always had constant GPS position discovery issues. It was later found that HTC had preprogrammed the software to download the Assisted-GPS data over the Internet from their Taiwan-based servers (where HTC's phone development is based) that contained A-GPS data for Taiwan. There in-house testing never found any problems with A-GPS Time-To-First-Fix.