Develop Bugs

GPS is not Very good

The gps is not very good atleast it is not working very well in my phone.
I tried using cardio trainer. And the gps jumps about. Plus the gps signal shown is very low can anyone put their phone gps through the paces and then tell me should I ask for a replacement or its in all phones

Mines fine.
Mine works fine, GPS is actually pretty good as navigation tells you the road names..!

Dopedangel said:
The gps is not very good atleast it is not working very well in my phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you clarify if you're talking about hardware or software?
And did you compare GS with other GPS at the very same time and place?

I too am seeing poor performance with the GPS. Seems to be a hardware issue.
I did a test over the weekend comparing my Galaxy S with a friend's HTC Desire. Using one of the many GPS utilities the Desire was consistently seeing and locking more satellites when stood in an open area outside. When running Google maps and showing the current location I found that the "accuracy circle" (for want of a better description) was growing and shrinking several times a minute causing the map to zoom in and out.
I've also noticed that the compass is almost unusable and showing a much lower signal compared to the Desire. I did perform the figure of 8 calibration several times.

Not tried the GPS yet, but I'm amazed how accurate network location is on this thing.
On my old G1 network location was laughable, but this thing knows pretty much exactly where it is without GPS.

MarvinTheAndroid said:
Not tried the GPS yet, but I'm amazed how accurate network location is on this thing.
On my old G1 network location was laughable, but this thing knows pretty much exactly where it is without GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
probably having wifi on? google can locate you more precise cause it has registered every wifi network during the streetview picture taking.

tommy34 said:
probably having wifi on? google can locate you more precise cause it has registered every wifi network during the streetview picture taking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, this is with wifi turned off.

tommy34 said:
probably having wifi on? google can locate you more precise cause it has registered every wifi network during the streetview picture taking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol what kind of anti-google propaganda have you been reading?
Google streetview cars collected data of open wifi networks.
Besides from the fact that google doesn't use the data (which it isn't allowed to have), there are by far not enough open wifi networks to find your location.
Also. You have to have at least 3 networks to be able to determine a location using wifi access points.
So the statement you just made is rubbish and ofcourse nonsense...

BasieP said:
Lol what kind of anti-google propaganda have you been reading?
Google streetview cars collected data of open wifi networks.
Besides from the fact that google doesn't use the data (which it isn't allowed to have), there are by far not enough open wifi networks to find your location.
Also. You have to have at least 3 networks to be able to determine a location using wifi access points.
So the statement you just made is rubbish and ofcourse nonsense...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont care about it, i like it.
hmm. just figured this because where i live there arent any open networks and with wifi on it knows my exact location. Without wifi it has a 1600 m radius.

The GPS seems to work flawlessly for me at least.

BasieP said:
Google streetview cars collected data of open wifi networks. Besides from the fact that google doesn't use the data (which it isn't allowed to have), there are by far not enough open wifi networks to find your location.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google collected the SSID and MAC addresses for all of the wifi networks they found, with the explicit intention of using them as an additional source of location data. They also inadvertently collected more data from open networks, and that's what they're in trouble for.
googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html

yes and the new google navigation api in the i9000 and android appears to use this data as the damn thing turns on your wifi even when off when gps tries to get a fix!

lgkahn said:
yes and the new google navigation api in the i9000 and android appears to use this data as the damn thing turns on your wifi even when off when gps tries to get a fix!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can disable it in location settings then it wont look for wireless data

Dopedangel said:
you can disable it in location settings then it wont look for wireless data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope it is disabled and try to get a gps fix.. wifi still comes on and then goes off.. not sure what it is doing.

I got mine and tested.
In the beginning I had a perfect fix on location. When I started moving, however, I experienced this "jumping around" issue with a huge loss of accuracy. The circle of accuracy was also changing constantly. I think I show something about the wifi seeing (or not being able to see - can't remember) some hotspots although my wi-fi was turned off.
Maybe indeed - the phone detects wifi networks even if the wifi as such is off and possibly compares it to an internal database (thus explaining the persistence of the problem even when the radio is off and the phone is not connected on the net).
Do you know any good free program that would allow me to get some test data - e.g. number of satellites / signal quality etc (unless there is already one somewhere in the interface - I am new to Android).
Can someone else run a test? Can some one run a test in an area where no wifi exists.

That's bad news,i'm really interested in this phone (money-forgiving for a while ),but i need great gps performances...

Evans_Prophet said:
Do you know any good free program that would allow me to get some test data - e.g. number of satellites / signal quality etc (unless there is already one somewhere in the interface - I am new to Android).
Can someone else run a test? Can some one run a test in an area where no wifi exists.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try "GPS Test" its on the market for free. From my test the GPS is actually quite nice, several 18-25 SNR connections and a few 26-30 SNR ones ( When outside I even find one or two 31-40 SNR ones which is really great).
Anyway I notice that GPS had become far more accurate when I disabled the Wifi-location option. The only problem is that locking down takes some time ( about 10-20 seconds max) in my area.

kitsune223 said:
Try "GPS Test" its on the market for free. From my test the GPS is actually quite nice, several 18-25 SNR connections and a few 26-30 SNR ones ( When outside I even find one or two 31-40 SNR ones which is really great).
Anyway I notice that GPS had become far more accurate when I disabled the Wifi-location option. The only problem is that locking down takes some time ( about 10-20 seconds max) in my area.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok - i will test with that and revert..
By the way, in my wm6 Touch HD there was a utility called quickgps which would download data from server instead of having them downloaded from a satellite with a low speed connection. This increased speed of cold lock. Furthermore there was also another option to enable assisted gps (not sure whether this was different from the quick gps application and what this did exactly). I wonder whether these application / features are automatically enabled in our case.

Evans_Prophet said:
I got mine and tested.
In the beginning I had a perfect fix on location. When I started moving, however, I experienced this "jumping around" issue with a huge loss of accuracy. The circle of accuracy was also changing constantly. I think I show something about the wifi seeing (or not being able to see - can't remember) some hotspots although my wi-fi was turned off.
Maybe indeed - the phone detects wifi networks even if the wifi as such is off and possibly compares it to an internal database (thus explaining the persistence of the problem even when the radio is off and the phone is not connected on the net).
Do you know any good free program that would allow me to get some test data - e.g. number of satellites / signal quality etc (unless there is already one somewhere in the interface - I am new to Android).
Can someone else run a test? Can some one run a test in an area where no wifi exists.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It can also be a problem of google navigation beta?? Did anyone try another gps navigator?

i felt the same thing about GPS, as it is not that good , as there's no wi-fi Google can detect hear. the performance was not that good at all!.
but tonight i used the GPS without the Wifi (i turned it off) and for a surprise the performance was amazing, I was with my friend in his car watching the road as he drive and watching the google map in my phone and was very good indeed.
that's strange!.

GPS Fix ... soooo slooowww...

Anyone know why my GPS fix is so slow? It takes at least 10 minutes to get a fix..
I'm running - VaniljEclair RLS6
TW,

It really depends on the weather. If you look up and see clouds, it's going to be a while. If it's raining then it may never connect.
It also helps the have the best tools for the job. Use kallt_kaffe's latest kernel, and download and use "GPS Test" for connecting your GPS.

Dukenukemx said:
It really depends on the weather. If you look up and see clouds, it's going to be a while. If it's raining then it may never connect.
It also helps the have the best tools for the job. Use kallt_kaffe's latest kernel, and download and use "GPS Test" for connecting your GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's clear outside so its not weather related.
I'm curious what the"GPS Test" tool actually does? and just exactly what the phone is doing causing it to take so long.
Thanks,

The way GPS works is as follows.
In order to know your position on a 2 dimensional plane, you need 2 coordinates, X and Y, however in order to know your position on a 3 dimensional object, you need 3 coordinates, X, Y and Z, what we need to know is our position in a 4 dimensional space, which requires not only X, Y Z and V, so that's a lot of data right there, and to further complicate things, the satellites themselves are in motion, also in 4 dimensions.
Ok if that hasn't messed with your head, consider this, your phone only receives GPS data from the satellites, it does not transmit anything, so how does your phone know where the satellites are? simple, the satellites transmit their position, the time, their velocity and heading, ( actually it's slightly more complicated, but I'm not getting into orbital mechanics, lol).
So in order to be able to fix a position, your phone must download this data from each satellite in view, process and compare it with all the other data in order to get an initial fix.
As if this was not complicated enough, you must also realise that the satellite data is continually transmitting in an updating loop, so if the receiver gets bad data from one sat, it must discard that set and start again.
Once the initial fix is made, it's a simple matter to continually update the devices position, but once the gps is turned off, it may take some time to resynchronise, especially if the user has moved to another location before restarting gps.
To operate with reasonable accuracy, (within a few tens of metres), you must have a good signal from at least 4 satellites, more just refines the accuracy.
So why ten minutes? Well there are a number of factors, weather does play a part, but not as much as some think, typically you will lose lock on the weaker satellites, giving less accuracy.
Surrounding buildings and trees are actually great at blocking GPS signals, so in wooded or built up areas, expect slower fixes, less accuracy, and dropped locks.
Movement, this is actually the biggest problem, if you are in motion during the initial fix period, there is a high probability that your own motion will cause problems, since the gps data may be changing too fast for the device to cope with, which will cause it to continually discard data that may be valid.
All in all, the best practice is to find somewhere stationary, away from buildings and trees, turn on GPS, and just wait for it to lock, it will usually take 5 minutes from cold start, perhaps up to 10 minutes in some cases.
Once the initial fix is established, it takes less time to refix after gps is turned off, since the last data is kept in the device for future reference, (which is why it can take more time to fix if you turn off gps and then move 10K or so before turning it on again).
Winmo has a few advantages over Android for gps, since on WM you can download a 'snapshot' of the satellite data in order to 'jump start' the gps to get a faster fix, that plus cell location and agps make it much faster to get up and running compared to Android on our hardware, which lacks cell location and agps.
What GPS Test does is simply show you a lot more data than you would normally see, satellite positions, signal strengths, number of sats visible, number in use by you. Basically it lets you see that some data is actually being received by your device, how strong the signal is, and if the device has locked to a satellite. I highly recommend getting GPS Test from market if you use gps, used it on WM, and the Android port is just as good, ( I got the paid version, but the free one is excellent too).
Any questions?

zenity said:
The way GPS works is as follows.
...
Winmo has a few advantages over Android for gps, since on WM you can download a 'snapshot' of the satellite data in order to 'jump start' the gps to get a faster fix, that plus cell location and agps make it much faster to get up and running compared to Android on our hardware, which lacks cell location and agps.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Terrific write up!
So, GPS Test won't help speed up the positioning so therefore there isn't a need to download it unless your curious about any of the other settings, thanks.
Since the WM version was a bit quicker in getting the position by downloading a file is there something in the works to try and incorporate this process into Droid?
After it finds a fix, if the handset suspends is there a need to re-aquire the sats or wait again for the same process?
Thanks,

Well GPS Test won't speed up the initial or subsequent fixes, but it does give a good indication that gps is actually working, and receiving/processing the data, and once fixed, you just close that and start your preferred gps app, which will fix almost instantly since the data is current.
I don't think we have anything for android that does the same as the WM gps app, could be wrong, but have not seen anything yet.
The slowest is the initial fix, after that it usually fixes faster, suspended or powered down, only reinstall/wipe data will usually require such a long fix time again, however as I said, there are a number of factors, movement being perhaps the biggest cause of delay.
However once fixed, Android is comparable to WM, even better in some cases, since I never could get my all time favourite GPS software (trekbuddy), to work in WM, it is great in Android though

I don't think we have anything for android that does the same as the WM gps app, could be wrong, but have not seen anything yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i also looked and found nothing
The slowest is the initial fix, after that it usually fixes faster, suspended or powered down, only reinstall/wipe data will usually require such a long fix time again, however as I said, there are a number of factors, movement being perhaps the biggest cause of delay.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mine also takes forever every time unless i havnt moved and switch apps within 10 minutes.
However once fixed, Android is comparable to WM, even better in some cases, since I never could get my all time favourite GPS software (trekbuddy), to work in WM, it is great in Android though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i lose gps on the highway, unlike when i had wimo
i still think its odd that i can see 6, 7, 8 sats for 2 or 3 minutes before getting a lock

Thinking about trying this on a friends Eris, but other android devices get a lock very quickly. The other devices have working tower location, so does the android gps system use the tower location to speed up gps lock?
I'm going to take my friends Eris and turn off all radio functions, then run GPS test to see what happens and how long a lock takes...

Ok, tried a few things on the Eris. In airplane mode, launched GPS test in a lock in under 10 seconds. Restarted the phone, still in airplane mode, and immediatly launch gps test and a lock in under 10 seconds.
Do these other phones have GPS chips have almanac caching or does the OS have some way of storing almanac data to assit the GPS.

As far as I am aware, from previous experience of GPS devices, the last ephemeris data is cached in the device chipset, allowing a faster start up, provided the user has not moved too far, or left gps off long enough to make the data too old. However I do not have enough information to make more than guess that it is hardware based rather than OS based caching.
Cell tower location allows GPS to establish a 3 dimensional fix, (remember gps needs more than 3 dimensions to establish a true fix), not enough to be totally accurate, but within 20-50 Metres, which is ideal for 'seeding' the incoming gps data from satellite, allowing even faster start up, since the gps chipset does not have to do nearly as much calculation and correlation on the data, since it already knows roughly where it is.
So the delay we experience in getting a gps fix with Android on our devices has one main cause, lack of cell tower location, and it's possible that the ephemeris data cache may not be getting processed, if this is indeed cached by the hardware, and not by the OS.

Some of you may have noticed a file called gps.conf in /system/etc
It looks like this:
Code:
NTP_SERVER=north-america.pool.ntp.org
XTRA_SERVER_1=http://xtra1.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
XTRA_SERVER_2=http://xtra2.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
XTRA_SERVER_3=http://xtra3.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
SUPL_HOST=supl.google.com
SUPL_PORT=7276
NTP is a protocol for getting accurate time from servers on the internet.
xtra.bin is asfaik the satellite almanac.
SUPL_HOST is for AGPS.
My guess is that a "real" android libgps uses this information to do a few things to help the GPS out.
1. Give it the current time
2. Prime it with the almanac
3. Use the AGPS data to provide it with correction data etc.
We could do some HaRET magic to monitor what the QuickGPS software send to the GPS chip and make our own QuickGPS tool for android or even build that into libgps.so. It's possible but is it worth the time? I don't know. I would give it a go if I wasn't allready lacking time to do everything I want to do.

kallt_kaffe said:
Some of you may have noticed a file called gps.conf in /system/etc
It looks like this:
Code:
NTP_SERVER=north-america.pool.ntp.org
XTRA_SERVER_1=http://xtra1.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
XTRA_SERVER_2=http://xtra2.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
XTRA_SERVER_3=http://xtra3.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
SUPL_HOST=supl.google.com
SUPL_PORT=7276
NTP is a protocol for getting accurate time from servers on the internet.
xtra.bin is asfaik the satellite almanac.
SUPL_HOST is for AGPS.
My guess is that a "real" android libgps uses this information to do a few things to help the GPS out.
1. Give it the current time
2. Prime it with the almanac
3. Use the AGPS data to provide it with correction data etc.
We could do some HaRET magic to monitor what the QuickGPS software send to the GPS chip and make our own QuickGPS tool for android or even build that into libgps.so. It's possible but is it worth the time? I don't know. I would give it a go if I wasn't allready lacking time to do everything I want to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, that makes sense, since Agps uses an internet server to prime the gps chipset, and if I recall correctly QuickGPS is similar, but provides the weeks Ephemeris data. Ephemeris, Almanac and Time are the three main data components of GPS, ( almanac being the one I tend to forget about....).
Perhaps changing a few server addresses in gps.conf may provide us with some aggps functionality, but I am now wondering if perhaps agps is 'broken' in our builds, or perhaps I have never noticed any data activity.
Just had a look at the website address http://xtra1.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin, which allows me to download what I assume is the data file, so what we need to complete the puzzle is, what uses gps.conf, and where does it put the data file?, Also does anything use that data file if present?

GPS is currently pretty much useless in that it just never gets a fix, today I waited 10 minutes and still nothing - I went back to WM to use GPS, so any development in this area would be sweet!
TW,

Not sure exactly what is going on there, last night I installed the latest nbh from kallt, plus his RLS7b eclair build, this morning I started gps for the first time, using gpstest I got a first fix in under 3 minutes, which is faster than average.
Sent from my HTC Kaiser using Tapatalk

zenity said:
Not sure exactly what is going on there, last night I installed the latest nbh from kallt, plus his RLS7b eclair build, this morning I started gps for the first time, using gpstest I got a first fix in under 3 minutes, which is faster than average.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using the same setup at the minute, tried GPS this morning and it got a fix on the move in about 5mins which isn't bad, my girlfriends HTC Hero got a fix in under a minute though and it's the first time it has connected and it's true that WM is much faster when quickGPS is updated. Any improvements here are very welcome, maybe i'll have a look into it too.

you could edit gps.conf according to your own pool server
a list of these servers can be found here. May make a small difference for some people.
Please post if this helped getting a quicker fix
http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/
Update:
i used the appropriate time server for my country (netherlands),
i used a fresh device (android had never ran on it, though the android on sdcard has been used on other devices)
i went to the toilet very quick, when i came back there was a fix.
So please go see if this makes a difference for you, and post your experiences in here

I seriously don't think it will matter what you put in gps.conf at the moment. What we need to know is how this is used on a "real" android phone.
I've tried to find some GPS code in the Hero kernel source in the past but found almost nothing and the libgps for HTC devices are asfaik closed source so I guess it's in libgps all the "magic" takes place. (I fact, for Kaisers the it would be more "right" to do our NMEA parsing in libgps instead of doing it in the kernel but since libgps evolved around the Vogue it was made in the kernel to make it appear just like the vogue gps data to libgps.so.)
So I'm guessing that a "real" libgps.so reads gps.conf, get's some data and feeds it to the GPS. Likely with AT-commands. It is possible though that it is the ril interface that does it. We have the source for our ril lib and our gpslib and I know for sure we don't do any prime:ing in the our libgps. (The sources are here: http://androidhtc.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb-index.cgi?p=gitroot/androidhtc/bootenv/)
It is possible to do dump stuff with HaRET when you for example enable the GPS (I've done it in the past following instructions from dzo) and also when you run QuickGPS and try to match the information sent with the information in xtra.bin. I also expect we should find it sending the current UTC time which by it self propably could speed up fix times.
Once we know what to do we either build it into libgps or we make an Android app similar to QuickGPS.
In fact, I found some dumps laying around....
At boot WinMo sends the system time to the Radio with this command:
[email protected]=2,21,43,2010,5,12
I would say the format is H,M,S,YYYY,M,D even though values are a bit strange because the files are dated 2010-05-11 but it's possible that the WinMo clock was a bit f*cked up at the moment.
Perhaps our rild is allready sending this (someone should check the source)
Otherwise you could try this and se if it helps:
echo -e "[email protected]=x\r" > /dev/smd0
(replaceing the x with the current time and date of course)

Just tried and it was going on 10 minutes with no fix...
TW,

Have you tried gpstest to see if it's actually receiving a signal at all? It is possible that you have a hardware issue, perhaps a broken antenna connection?

If that were the case then it shouldn't work in Windows and it does... ???
Strange...
Does Android require a data connection when getting a GPS fix?
TW,

GPS on Archos 101G9

anybody can use gps on archos 101g9? can't get no sat fix. app gpstest does not show any satellite. is this a further bug in ics?
running rooted ics 4.05 for sde (surdu_petru).

I have a Archos 80(same hardware though) and my GPS works fine on firmware 4.0.5
And if I may say so wow is it good, I get a GPS lock inside my house after about 20-30 seconds
Sent from my ice cream powered Nexus S

DarkhShadow said:
I have a Archos 80(same hardware though) and my GPS works fine on firmware 4.0.5
And if I may say so wow is it good, I get a GPS lock inside my house after about 20-30 seconds
Sent from my ice cream powered Nexus S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mmh, where is my mistake? can't get gps lock with google maps, navigation and so on. car navigation is impossible. gps search is endless inhouse and outdoor
settings location + security:
"use wireless networks = off"
"use gps satellites = on"
"use location for google search = off"
edit:
found this in another forum
http://www.forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=64272
can anybody confirm?

Mine works great. I'm using 80g9. My archos is now my traveling/adventure teblet. I have two and like the screen size for jps etc in my jeep?
Sent from my ARCHOS 80G9 using Tapatalk

It's little bit mystic...
Hey guys,
last week i also thought about open up a thread related to GPS issues on the Gen9 series, because i had some trouble to get a fix as well.
I'm using an Archos 80 G9.
4carlos said:
mmh, where is my mistake? can't get gps lock with google maps, navigation and so on. car navigation is impossible. gps search is endless inhouse and outdoor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The same with my device at first.
I used the rooted ICS 4.0.5 and GPS Status from the market and started some experiments.
There'd been no response from the GPS part at all.
After some time i used a serial port api tool to directly connect to ttyO0.
Though the GPS part uses some hex protocol i had been able to get a response from the chip, but it was not human readable.
So this way i made sure there's no hardware damage on my UART interface or GPS chipset.
Afterwards i did some hard resets and checked settings of the UART by typing:
Code:
stty -F /dev/ttyO0
I started to run GPS Status again and also deleted my AGPS data by using the tools menu. Then i changed GPS Status setup to stay active and prevent device from sleep.
I took a while, but then the first satellite came in sight, still no fix.
Next day i did the same after some time more and more satellite where seen, but still no fix.
I restarted my device again to boot stock firmware.
Same again... more and more satellites became visible... but then... suddenly a fix. In fact it took very very long and i'm not very satisfied with the situation.
After i re-booted to rooted firmware again i was able to get a fix here as well.
The signal reception is still far from being nice though.
Try to get a fix with stock firmware first, then reboot and check again with rooted firmware.
4carlos said:
settings location + security:
"use wireless networks = off"
"use gps satellites = on"
"use location for google search = off"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should be no problem with this setup.
AFAIK, these three settings address different services.
GPS should be set of course.
4carlos said:
http://www.forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=64272
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice thread, but people start to mix things up at some point.
Though the GPS and location service on Android OS is quite mystic, i'll try to concentrate on some facts.
Hardware:
- NL5550 chipset used on Archos Gen9 is up to date and not that bad
(merged into WL1283 chipset, see http://www.murata-ws.com/com7.htm)
- Due to hugh shielding areas, GPS reception is not the best with tablets (if compared to handsets).
- GPS antenna and position of the antenna seems to be problematic
Software:
- Firmware setup changed form HC to ICS
- size of the patch file for the chip had grown in ICS
(mabye they wanted to make thinks better, but they got worse)
So what could be done...
Hardware:
- I started searching for a better antenna to be placed in the housing
(e.g. helical/helix antenna)
- Place a HF-connector on the mainboard to use an external antenna
Software:
- Extract the firmware files from HC and try this setup for ICS
- try to find other devices based on the navilink chipset and compare their firmware setup
Basically GPS works on ICS and things in fact are not related to ICS itself.
Some firmware tweaks might be the cause of these issues.
The basic construcion of the hardware could have some side-effects on this as well.
Some people seem to have no trouble at all, so at least GPS reception is of course little bit depended on the weather and the area you live in.
I may post the HC firmware files here, if you like to try the HC setup on your device.
Cheers,
scholbert

GPS lib loops
Hi,
I can ONLY get my GPS to lock on if the wifi and location services are enabled and working.
This is because, the gpslib tries to speed up the lock and position information by going out on the internet and firstly fetch the time from the main European ntp server.
Looking at the system logs, it appears to get into an infinite loop waiting for a time update.
Therefore my gps WILL NEVER WORK if actuated with NO wifi.
However..... If I start the GPS application, (I am using mmaps) with the wifi on and the locaation services on I get a good lock, with 10-12 satellites with the Archos INSIDE my house, within a few minutes. (There is nothing wrong with the sensitivity of the GPS engine!)
If I then stop the app and turn off the Wifi and location serves and restart the app it will get a lock in a few seconds and stay working until I power down the Archos.
This is OK apart from the problem that I want to use the Archos in my car with no wifi.
cheers
Patrick

Hey superpat999!
superpat999 said:
I can ONLY get my GPS to lock on if the wifi and location services are enabled and working.
This is because, the gpslib tries to speed up the lock and position information by going out on the internet and firstly fetch the time from the main European ntp server.
Looking at the system logs, it appears to get into an infinite loop waiting for a time update.
Therefore my gps WILL NEVER WORK if actuated with NO wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, thanks for pointing at this.
Try to disable automatic time sync in time & date settings menu and check again.
You should definitely get a fix without setting the other location services or having wifi enabled all the time.
superpat999 said:
However..... If I start the GPS application, (I am using mmaps) with the wifi on and the locaation services on I get a good lock, with 10-12 satellites with the Archos INSIDE my house, within a few minutes. (There is nothing wrong with the sensitivity of the GPS engine!)
If I then stop the app and turn off the Wifi and location serves and restart the app it will get a lock in a few seconds and stay working until I power down the Archos.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
O.k. this is also very helpful information. I must admit that sensitivity is not that bad, but could be further improved... that's why i also talked about hardware in my last post.
superpat999 said:
This is OK apart from the problem that I want to use the Archos in my car with no wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As stated above... getting a fix without wifi should work, i'm pretty sure.
Thanks again for this detailed descriptions!
Regards,
scholbert

big thanks for descriptions!
seems like a complicated science for a simple functionality
my older external sirf 3 receiver need only 5 minutes for sat fix after cold start (very cloudy!) and 10 up to 15 seconds in warm state. i wonder why the archos is much slower.
ok, i will give a new chance an try it again and again and again...and report later.
regards,
4carlos

Assisted GPS !!!!!
Hi,
Unfortunately The Archos uses assisted GPS
I am not allowed to post links yet so see:- the wikipedia entry for assisted GPS
The Archos "might" use the Qualcomm chipset "GPSONE" , I am not sure but a lot of phone makers use it:-
see the wikipedia entry for GPSONE
Like I said in a previous post in the other place, I wish Android tablets were not still so mobile phone centric.
cheers
P

superpat999 said:
The Archos "might" use the Qualcomm chipset "GPSONE" , I am not sure but a lot of phone makers use it:-
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please refer to my post above:
Hardware:
- NL5550 chipset used on Archos Gen9 is up to date and not that bad
(merged into WL1283 chipset, see http://www.murata-ws.com/com7.htm)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Archos uses TI NaviLink chipset. GPSONE is Qualcomm only and there's no Qualcomm chip inside our units.
TI NaviLink supports AGPS as well but it does not rely on that.
In other words even without assisted data you'll get a fix... sooner or later
Assisted GPS is always an option to get faster fix.
Did you try again with disabled automatic network time setting?
Regards,
scholbert

libgps loops!
Hi Scholbert
Thanks for correction re type of gps chip. Why I thought there was a GPSONE chip in the Archos was because the /etc/gps.conf uses the Qualcomm extra server site , see below.
However I still maintain there is an infinite loop in the ICS (or Archos modded) libgps. I have left the machine on for 8 hours and never got a lock without wifi.
I cannot post the /etc/gps.conf and the log here because I am too noob yet.
Instead have a look at my post here:-
forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=64272#p396064
regards
Patrick

Hey superpat999!
superpat999 said:
Thanks for correction re type of gps chip. Why I thought there was a GPSONE chip in the Archos was because the /etc/gps.conf uses the Qualcomm extra server site , see below.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah no problem, i'm a hardware addict... so if you need some info about the chips of G9 ask me
superpat999 said:
However I still maintain there is an infinite loop in the ICS (or Archos modded) libgps. I have left the machine on for 8 hours and never got a lock without wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess you're right... I made some further tests and must confirm, that i observed the same behaviour. This in fact is really annoying...
The GPS receiver receives satellite information (satellites can be "seen"), but there's no fix without beeing connected to the networks.
This is acceptable. We should contact the Archos developer's, especially user courville who has joined this forum for bug fixing.
He's an employee of Archos and one of the chief developer's, very friendly and helpful as well!
superpat999 said:
forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=64272#p396064
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had a view at this thread and read your posting.
If the described behaviour is compiled in the lib, we can't fix it ourselfs.
Archos needs to fix this problem by tweaking the library.
If it is related to a setup option, we might easily fix it at least on a rooted device using a customized image.
Had anyone tried the 4.0.6. firmware test release yet... maybe GPS got fixed as well.
Regards,
scholbert

scholbert said:
If the described behaviour is compiled in the lib, we can't fix it ourselfs.
Archos needs to fix this problem by tweaking the library.
If it is related to a setup option, we might easily fix it at least on a rooted device using a customized image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since GPS is integrated into wlan chip it may be necessary to power on wifi to power on also GPS part.
scholbert said:
Had anyone tried the 4.0.6. firmware test release yet... maybe GPS got fixed as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On 4.0.6 GPS works exactly the same.
Some observations (GPS Test)
-it takes quite a while to aquire lock even with "fresh" aGPS data
-lock is not stable- it likes to dissapear even if I don't move tablet
-catching new sattelites "unlocks" the lock
-accuracy seems poor- GPS Test didn't report anything less than 80 meters (Xperia Arc S in the same spot has <20m)

I get a lock within 10 seconds with my G9 inside my house. The accuracy has gotten down to under 4 meters. On my particular tablet, it works fantastic. I never had to clear AGPS data. I think this is luck of the draw. Some work great, some not.
My ASUS TF101 has all the issues you guys describe. Unreliable and slow. Most people with the TF101 do not have my issue.
My wife's LG Optimus One GPS works great, locks in under 20 seconds and never unlocks. My Samsung Galaxy Ace struggles to get a lock but can maintain it once lock is achieved.
All these devices are running different Android versions so I agree that it is not a software issue. I tend to believe it is the fact some get better build quality antennas than others making some of the same devices work better than their twins.

i have tested copilot on 3 different archos G9 80s. All have gotten a lock in my house. I have tested one while driving to work and it maintains the lock.

anybody want an archos 101g9 ?????
hi,
i'm back here after testing my 101 and i'm not really lucky
thanks to all here first. i pursued the discussion with interest.
my archos did not work with gps at all!. i checked with gpstest and gps status apps indoor and outdoor several hours/days. no satellites found! nothing, zeroooooooooooo. clear sky, no clouds and NO satellites. i'm alone in the universe
what i did:
- device cold start (many times)
- switching on/off date and time from ntp server
- wifi on/off
- google location service on/off
no idea what happen. this is not my first archos. my older g8 had broken usb ports and was changed 2 times. the g9 freezes very often in cpu state "hotplug", run stable only with half speed and gps don't work. why gps need an internet connection?? i have no 3g stick in my tablet and no wifi in my car. yes, i can connect my phone with wifi tethering but sorry, that's not what i have planned. puuh archos, what do you think what customers tolerate. i love android, but the next tablet should be better an ipad
seems, there is a defect. how can i check my hardware before i put it in the trash?
thanks,
4carlos
by the way, my htc legend with froyo works great. it beams my to every point i wish!

Sorry to hear all you guys are having such problems with gps lock.
I have an original 8gb 9g classic. I have taken it through Honeycomb and up to the last ICS update. I have rooted it, over-clocked it and it has taken everything that I have thrown at it!
In every case, the gps has been first class. Using gpsstatus from the market, it locks on to 9 sats from inside my house within 30 seconds.
It was originally set to europe.pool in the gps.cfg file and I got a good lock with that. When I changed to rooted custom fw, I downloaded fasterfix from the market and used it to change the gps.cfg to uk.pool. This speeded up the lock and increased the number of sats to 11.
One thing that may help, has anyone tried toggling airplane mode on then off again. Whenever I install a new rom, on phone or tablet, I reboot the system at
least twice after setup and then toggle airplane on/off. This was an instruction in some roms that had wifi issues and I now do it as a matter of course.
It may be worth a try.
I use Co pilot live as satnav and it has never failed to lock on within seconds of being set up.

GPS on G9 still behaves strange...
First of all, thanks for posting your observations.
The GPS issue remains little mystic though
uphall said:
In every case, the gps has been first class. Using gpsstatus from the market, it locks on to 9 sats from inside my house within 30 seconds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just got a fix within a minute, yesterday it was a no go!
The device actually needed a reboot before. What is responsible for this locking???
I got the fix by...
- deleting the AGPS data in the settings menu of GPStool
- setting the data update interval to never
- unchecked set system time from server in the device settings
- Wifi and 3G were disabled as well
So it's possible to get satelite fix without network connection.
But something may lock the interface. Afterwards it seems to be impossible to get a fix again... at least things get worse.
BTW, GPStool and the AGPS "framework" of the G9 use definitely different data bases for the assisted data. Maybe this causes locks as well...
So from what i can tell... disabling the AGPS function in GPStool definitely helped to get a fix.
uphall said:
It was originally set to europe.pool in the gps.cfg file and I got a good lock with that. When I changed to rooted custom fw, I downloaded fasterfix from the market and used it to change the gps.cfg to uk.pool. This speeded up the lock and increased the number of sats to 11.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
O.k. might try fasterfix... though it seems to set the timeserver to another domain... What else does it do?
We need more understanding of the mechanism in general.
Did anyone try the Gingerbread setup on ICS yet?
I may post the files here...
uphall said:
One thing that may help, has anyone tried toggling airplane mode on then off again. Whenever I install a new rom, on phone or tablet, I reboot the system at
least twice after setup and then toggle airplane on/off. This was an instruction in some roms that had wifi issues and I now do it as a matter of course.
It may be worth a try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's worth a try but maybe it won't help anything.
As far as i can tell, a reboot certainly fixes some kind of lock on the interface.
But as long as we always guess there will be no improvement, nor we'll find the real reason for the missbehaviour.
uphall said:
I use Co pilot live as satnav and it has never failed to lock on within seconds of being set up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You lucky guy
Cheers,
scholbert

Scholbert
I can't find GPStool in the market - is that the correct name?
I would like to try your procedure to find out if my GPS is working at all.
Thx.
Don.

bufflehead said:
Scholbert
I can't find GPStool in the market - is that the correct name?
I would like to try your procedure to find out if my GPS is working at all.
Thx.
Don.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i guess :
GPS Status & Toolbox (author EclipSim, can delete agps data)
also nice
GPS Test (author Chartcross Limited)
GPS Status (author espresso3389, nice graphical tool but only portrait mode)
btw.
upgrade to firmware 4.06 (fix for increasing gps stability) did not help in my case. only my problem has more stability now. still no satellites in sight. my htc legend shows a minimum of 5 satellites with the tools from above at my location (indoor) but still nothing with my archos. disappointing.
the better way is to check the gps functionality before rooting the tablet (loosing guarantee!). seems a weak point of tablet.
i'm searching for an external bt mouse. any recommendation? the mouse should be bought in germany.

Location wrong without WiFi/GPS/Edge

Hey guys,
I tried searching on google but to no solution.
The problem is when I switch off all forms of data except cellular coverage, my location changes to a City where I'm not at. I went to that place maybe thrice since I got the phone.
My location in Maps, Weather or even location saved along when I take pictures will be that other/wrong location.
Its easily fixable by just starting one of the data services, but why should I even face it in the first place.
Its happened on all ROMs and wipes don't fix it. Done a full wipe twice from cwm.
My GPS works normally when I'm using maps, it takes about 30 seconds to get a lock on my location.
Any workaround or solution or fix? (except for not keeping data switched on all the time)
Thank You.
Cheers.

death__machine said:
Hey guys,
I tried searching on google but to no solution.
The problem is when I switch off all forms of data except cellular coverage, my location changes to a City where I'm not at. I went to that place maybe thrice since I got the phone.
My location in Maps, Weather or even location saved along when I take pictures will be that other/wrong location.
Its easily fixable by just starting one of the data services, but why should I even face it in the first place.
Its happened on all ROMs and wipes don't fix it. Done a full wipe twice from cwm.
My GPS works normally when I'm using maps, it takes about 30 seconds to get a lock on my location.
Any workaround or solution or fix? (except for not keeping data switched on all the time)
Thank You.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Location without GPS is online service. I hope that answers your question about "fixing" it.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

There's three things at play in plotting location: 1) GPS, 2), aGPS, and 3) Geo-location
GPS is the onboard chip functioning alone to pick up satellite signals and lock on them. You can test how well your GPS chip alone works by putting the phone in airplane mode and rebooting it.
All aGPS does is use a wireless signal (Wi-FI or cellular) to help the chip get its first lock faster. Once lock is established the chip is on its own.
From Wiki...
"Assisted GPS is a system which can, under certain conditions, improve the startup performance, or time-to-first-fix (TTFF) of a GPS satellite-based positioning system. It is used extensively with GPS-capable cellular phones as its development was accelerated by the U.S. FCC's 911 mandate making the location of a cell phone available to emergency call dispatchers."
Geo-location uses wireless signals alone to approximate position. Devices w/o a GPS rely on this for location based services.
From Wiki...
"Geolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an object, such as a radar, mobile phone or an Internet-connected computer terminal. Geolocation may refer to the practice of assessing the location, or to the actual assessed location."
Once the chip locks, it memorizes the position of the satellites. So if you had your wireless on to get first lock and then turned it off the chip is still using the satellite locations aGPS helped it find. If you want to test the performance of your chip itself reboot it in airplane mode. Download GPS Test from Play. It'll give you a much better picture of what's happening with your phone. I just tried it on mine and indoors it locked and got down to 15’ accuracy in less than a minute. Conditions affect performance but, at least outdoors, yours should do as well or better than mine. If it doesn’t, it’s a h/w problem.

tkolev said:
Location without GPS is online service. I hope that answers your question about "fixing" it.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BarryH_GEG said:
There's three things at play in plotting location: 1) GPS, 2), aGPS, and 3) Geo-location
GPS is the onboard chip functioning alone to pick up satellite signals and lock on them. You can test how well your GPS chip alone works by putting the phone in airplane mode and rebooting it.
All aGPS does is use a wireless signal (Wi-FI or cellular) to help the chip get its first lock faster. Once lock is established the chip is on its own.
From Wiki...
"Assisted GPS is a system which can, under certain conditions, improve the startup performance, or time-to-first-fix (TTFF) of a GPS satellite-based positioning system. It is used extensively with GPS-capable cellular phones as its development was accelerated by the U.S. FCC's 911 mandate making the location of a cell phone available to emergency call dispatchers."
Geo-location uses wireless signals alone to approximate position. Devices w/o a GPS rely on this for location based services.
From Wiki...
"Geolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an object, such as a radar, mobile phone or an Internet-connected computer terminal. Geolocation may refer to the practice of assessing the location, or to the actual assessed location."
Once the chip locks, it memorizes the position of the satellites. So if you had your wireless on to get first lock and then turned it off the chip is still using the satellite locations aGPS helped it find. If you want to test the performance of your chip itself reboot it in airplane mode. Download GPS Test from Play. It'll give you a much better picture of what's happening with your phone. I just tried it on mine and indoors it locked and got down to 15’ accuracy in less than a minute. Conditions affect performance but, at least outdoors, yours should do as well or better than mine. If it doesn’t, it’s a h/w problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that was a very informative post.
Well I switched on GPS and put my phone in airplane mode and restarted. The Maps App keeps saying "Your current location is temporarily unavailable" and I can't figure how to use the GPS Test yet.

Okay, I did get a lock-on from the Maps and the GPS Test app. I went closer to my window lol . Now I'll see if my location comes up wrong.
Edit:Location came up accurate in weather.
Edit2:Location is accurate in a photo I clicked with everything off.
By accurate I hope you understand what I mean, when all the data goes off the phone should still think its in the place/location where it was when the data was on. Ii.e Surat in my case. But what used to happened before today(gps in airplane) was without data the phone will think its in Pune, which is a 12 hours drive from here.
I'm not the only one who's faced this, some say its a bug in sense :/
Anyways here's a thread I saw earlier
http://www.htconesource.com/forum/htc-one-x-discussion/1042-incorrect-location.html
The answers the guy gets are retarded.

To be sure, are you saying that when only on mobile data and relying upon that, you cannot get an accurate location down to 1 KM?
If so, this sounds like a software issue or a carrier issue.
If your GPS has poor reception then I would advise getting warranty repair. It might have the same issue as the Wifi antennas do.

Yeah just so you know pure GPS is line of sight, you have to have a clear view of the sky to work (no clouds either).
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app

Hunt3r.j2 said:
To be sure, are you saying that when only on mobile data and relying upon that, you cannot get an accurate location down to 1 KM?
If so, this sounds like a software issue or a carrier issue.
If your GPS has poor reception then I would advise getting warranty repair. It might have the same issue as the Wifi antennas do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
jonshipman said:
Yeah just so you know pure GPS is line of sight, you have to have a clear view of the sky to work (no clouds either).
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No no.
My location when all services are on shows up fine. But say I have a weather widget and all my data services are off, instead of showing the location detected last when data services was on the widget and other settings will show another city.
I'll explain it with an example.
Lets have a hypothetical country with all the letters as its cities.
I stay in 'S' at present. I have visited 'P' and 'M' a couple of times but I'm back to 'S' now. On the occasion that my data services switch off, intentionally or because of weak coverage. Instead of showing 'S' as my location in the weather widget, app and geotag the phone will show 'P' which I had visited days ago.

Lineage 17 GPS question

Unlike many modern versions of Android, I can find no three-tiered setting for GPS accuracy. I'm looking to set it to "Device Only" but it's either off or on, with a few additional location options but nothing more for GPS.
I'm using lineage 17, the second to last update, on a Samsung Tab 4 and I just want to restrict the device to the system GPS app GPS I've set (but it keeps drifting).

neocortex08 said:
Unlike many modern versions of Android, I can find no three-tiered setting for GPS accuracy. I'm looking to set it to "Device Only" but it's either off or on, with a few additional location options but nothing more for GPS.
I'm using lineage 17, the second to last update, on a Samsung Tab 4 and I just want to restrict the device to the system GPS app GPS I've set (but it keeps drifting).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't see any android 10 distro with the old settings (high precision/ device only/energy saving)
GApps installed?

kurtn said:
I don't see any android 10 distro with the old settings (high precision/ device only/energy saving)
GApps installed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, Gapps installed and working well (version for Android 10, nano),but I'm not sure google settings would change what would be in the device system settings. I guess I'm just looking for some way to force that missing setting without having to resort to tin foil around the device.

neocortex08 said:
Yes, Gapps installed and working well (version for Android 10, nano),but I'm not sure google settings would change what would be in the device system settings. I guess I'm just looking for some way to force that missing setting without having to reset to tin foil around the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No matter what settings you change, Google knows your location.

kurtn said:
No matter what settings you change, Google knows your location.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not tin-foil-hat-concerned with Google knowing my location; I'm referring to the systemized GPS app I installed to be able to determine the location I set. Which it can currently, and can usually continue to do when I can set the device to take GPS from "device only". In this case it shows me on the map "rubberbanding" between my actual location and the location I've set about 100 feet away. This is because the OS is allowing the device to try and locate its own location.

neocortex08 said:
I'm not tin-foil-hat-concerned with Google knowing my location; I'm referring to the systemized GPS app I installed to be able to determine the location I set. Which it can currently, and can usually continue to do when I can set the device to take GPS from "device only". In this case it shows me on the map "rubberbanding" between my actual location and the location I've set about 100 feet away. This is because the OS is allowing the device to try and locate its own location.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, location spoofing
https://f-droid.org/app/com.wesaphzt.privatelocation

GPS drains battery
With previous (before 17) it was possible to set the location service to be switched on, but only use cell data.
When I use the gps device it drains my battery much faster.
Therefore: How can I leave the location service on, but DO NOT USE the gps device in LOS 17 ????
Thanks in advance
Chris

Chris56 said:
How can I leave the location service on, but DO NOT USE the gps device in LOS 17 ????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1

luckysoul777 said:
+1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you try to spoof your location? And why? What location providers do you have? GApps?

I guess your reply refers to my question.
Maybe I was not clear.
With former LOS versions I was able to explicitly choose whether to use the (battery draining) gps receiver for my location or not.
I have several other sources of location information (gsm cell based and wifi based) usually with less accuracy. But I may prefer theses under certain circumstances because of less power consumption. I Don't use google but microg.

kurtn said:
Do you try to spoof your location? And why? What location providers do you have? GApps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. I am not trying to spoof anything. I have an automation program called Tasker on my S4. When I was on stock Samsung ROM (5.0.1), I was able to use the "location mode" in Tasker to switch between high accuracy and battery save. If Tasker detected I was running Google Maps, it switched on high accuracy. If not, it switched over to battery save. From what I can tell, high accuracy used GPS + network and battery save used network only.
Now, I'm on LOS 17.1 and battery save would turn on GPS too. It seems the only way to not use GPS is to turn off location mode altogether. This makes me wonder what the differences are between Device Only and Battery Save modes. Since I cannot tell, I am assuming both modes are provided for backward compatibility to Tasker users but the underlining Android 10 doesn't differentiate them.
I am suspecting with Android 10, there are only 3 modes.
* GPS + network
* GPS
* OFF
Thus, if one needs the location service, GPS must be used.
I raised this question elsewhere. Some people actually told me that GPS doesn't consume much power if it's just turned on but not being used, e.g. by Google Maps. I have no way to verify if they are right.

luckysoul777 said:
No. I am not trying to spoof anything. I have an automation program called Tasker on my S4. When I was on stock Samsung ROM (5.0.1), I was able to use the "location mode" in Tasker to switch between high accuracy and battery save. If Tasker detected I was running Google Maps, it switched on high accuracy. If not, it switched over to battery save. From what I can tell, high accuracy used GPS + network and battery save used network only.
Now, I'm on LOS 17.1 and battery save would turn on GPS too. It seems the only way to not use GPS is to turn off location mode altogether. This makes me wonder what the differences are between Device Only and Battery Save modes. Since I cannot tell, I am assuming both modes are provided for backward compatibility to Tasker users but the underlining Android 10 doesn't differentiate them.
I am suspecting with Android 10, there are only 3 modes.
* GPS + network
* GPS
* OFF
Thus, if one needs the location service, GPS must be used.
I raised this question elsewhere. Some people actually told me that GPS doesn't consume much power if it's just turned on but not being used, e.g. by Google Maps. I have no way to verify if they are right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Network location is not part of lineageOS. You can add it with GApps or microG. Have you?
Enabling location does not power the satellite receivers continuously. It really needs battery. The job of your tasker script is done by android 10 automatically. If you suspected apps to drain battery with GPS, disable their location permission!

kurtn said:
Network location is not part of lineageOS. You can add it with GApps or microG. Have you?
!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using Gapps, the nano package. Do you know which one comes with network location? I can't tell because this comparison chart doesn't show it for any packages, https://github.com/opengapps/opengapps/wiki/Package-Comparison
kurtn said:
If you suspected apps to drain battery with GPS, disable their location permission!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason I preferred to keep it on battery save instead of off completely in the old days was that if I ever lost my phone, I wanted to be able to track it. Now with Android 10's mandatory GPS for location service, if I want to disable abusive apps from requesting unnecessary location service, which app should I avoid disabling? Which app is giving out my phone's location if I am tracking it remotely?
Thank you

luckysoul777 said:
I'm using Gapps, the nano package. Do you know which one comes with network location? I can't tell because this comparison chart doesn't show it for any packages, https://github.com/opengapps/opengapps/wiki/Package-Comparison
The reason I preferred to keep it on battery save instead of off completely in the old days was that if I ever lost my phone, I wanted to be able to track it. Now with Android 10's mandatory GPS for location service, if I want to disable abusive apps from requesting unnecessary location service, which app should I avoid disabling? Which app is giving out my phone's location if I am tracking it remotely? Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the answer to both questions is Google play services. com.google.android.gms It's the mightiest app on your phone. I avoid installing it.

kurtn said:
I think the answer to both questions is Google play services. com.android.google.gms It's the mightiest app on your phone. I avoid installing it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I still see one drawback with very selectively granting apps location service. For example, I do want to grant Chrome location service to facilitate better search. If I'm indoor, wouldn't GPS without a clear view of the sky trying very hard to get a fix and thus burn more power than necessary? With that said, can High Accuracy (GPS + network) actually be more power efficient under Android 10 than Battery Save (GPS only)? This is assuming Chrome would give up on GPS when it can't get a fix and be happy with just network while Battery Save would keep trying to get a fix with GPS. Again, this is just my assumption.