Donate to e Foundation | Murena handsets with /e/OS | Own a part of Murena! Learn more

Skip to content

Inaccurate GPS position FP3+

  • /e/ version: 1.6-r-20221129238947-stable
  • Device model(s): FP3+
  • Developer mode enabled: yes
  • Device rooted: no
  • Trackers blocker enabled: yes

Summary

The GPS position is inaccurate for a number of geolocation apps.

The problem

Steps to reproduce

Turn on Location, go outdoors in a big city or in a place with good coverage and check your position with the default Maps app, Google Maps or Citymapper.

Advanced Privacy is used only for trackers.

What is the current behavior?

The location is off compared to the real one, and the precision vary from 1 to 10km depending on the app used. Example: I live in Paris and Google Maps circles the whole city (which is rather big) as its uncertainty radius!

What is the expected correct behavior?

The location point should be centered around the real position, and the outdoor precision should be about a few meters.

Technical informations

Relevant logs (adb logcat)

Relevant screenshots

Solutions

Workaround

Use HERE WeGo, which is the only app finding the correct location and has precision of a few meters.

Possible fixes

No idea, but the fact that it works correctly for one app and not the others is intriguing. Something at the interface between HERE WeGo and the OS works better, maybe some authorization to access GPS position is different?

Edited by Matthieu Roman