Question

Poor GPS. Please help me improve it

  • 4 March 2019
  • 5 replies
  • 135 views

My phones GPS is very poor and often places me in the wrong place on Google maps! Is there an app that will help improve the phones GPS or is it an hardware issue. My phone is a Vernee Mix 2. Thanks in advance.

5 replies

Userlevel 6
Badge +10
Hi @iciman,

This sounds like a hardware related issue. Have you ensured that the phone is fully up to date too?

Also, some phone cases can actually hinder the GPS service as it can block the phones antenna, creating a weakened service.

Ryan
Thanks for the reply. My phone is up to date but no updates released for some time. Also tried without a case to no avail. I think it must be a hardware issue but hoping that someone could suggest a cure that doesn't involve buying a new phone (which unfortunately looks likely 😞 ).
Userlevel 3
Check your location settings is set to use GPS - you can typically find it in Setting -> Location in your phone (different phones and versions of Android annoyingly lay out their settings menu differently). Your phone should be set to high accuracy.

If that's set, you could try taking your phone out of any case it's in and run an app like GPS Fix in an outdoor location. If the Satellites tab shows your phone can see any satellites then you'll at-least know if your GPS module is working or not. If it's not found anything after about a minute then it's definitely a hardware fault.

Here is an article with more tips if the above steps don't work: https://www.technobezz.com/fix-android-gps-issues/

Hope you get this fixed!
Thank you for your reply. Some useful suggestions on the website you suggested and I will try them out over the next few days to see if any help. It is very frustrating to not be able to use one of the main functions on the phone. I wanted to use the phone for satnav whilst driving and whilst running to monitor how far I run. At the moment the phone says I am usually 1 or 2 streets away from where I actually am and when running the phone shows that I have been running cycles and zigzags because it keeps placing me in different locations all the time - VERY FRUSTRATING!!!
Userlevel 3
Yeah, I had a problem with one of my phones a while back where it was only using Wi-Fi and mobile masts to triangulate my position, which sounds a lot like you are saying. Hopefully for you it's something simple like the location setting has been changed as opposed to hardware!

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