Google Nexus - GPS unreliable as hell. In China.

[fuzzybabybunny]

I'm beginning to want to chuck my Nexus against the ground. I get full signal in China. I'm running stock ROM just rooted. It sees several satellites but it just doesn't lock! A foreign country is perhaps the worst place to not know where you are. What the hell is the problem with just getting reliable GPS on these things? I've had 3 Samsung phones and each one has had shitty GPS, ESPECIALLY when there's no signal ie. Camping. Right now I have full signal in China and I still can't get a lock.

What if there's an emergency and I need to tell emergency services exactly where the situation is?

F*cking ridiculous. I don't remember ever having this problem even 7 years ago on my little Dell pocket PC with Bluetooth GPS receiver. 7 years ago I never ever had the problem of not knowing exactly where I was. Now I have that problem every day. Maybe I need to carry a standalone GPS receiver with me from now on because the Nexus is truly worthless in this regard.

 

[WelshBloke]

Restart your phone, download gps status from the play store.

Then menu-tools-reset agps data-then download new data.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

I'm beginning to want to chuck my Nexus against the ground. I get full signal in China. I'm running stock ROM just rooted. It sees several satellites but it just doesn't lock! A foreign country is perhaps the worst place to not know where you are. What the hell is the problem with just getting reliable GPS on these things? I've had 3 Samsung phones and each one has had shitty GPS, ESPECIALLY when there's no signal ie. Camping. Right now I have full signal in China and I still can't get a lock.

What if there's an emergency and I need to tell emergency services exactly where the situation is?

F*cking ridiculous. I don't remember ever having this problem even 7 years ago on my little Dell pocket PC with Bluetooth GPS receiver. 7 years ago I never ever had the problem of not knowing exactly where I was. Now I have that problem every day. Maybe I need to carry a standalone GPS receiver with me from now on because the Nexus is truly worthless in this regard.

I dont think signal has anything to do with gps (unless your talking specifically about GPS satellites), but yea mine also kinda sucks. When i first got it i almost sent it back because it was completely unreliable. Just like in your case the few times i actually NEEDED it, it wouldnt work. I also use endomondo when i run, and it also could do a better job with that as well. EDIT: If it makes any difference, i had about 3 or 4 days straight of it not working at all before it started working again. Give a custom rom a shot (im using paranoid android right now)

Samsung is awful when it comes to GPS. My captivate was completely broken. My sgs2 was not terrible, but nothing great. I also remember hearing about the nexus s having a GPS just as bad as the captivates (how the hell could they have a completely broken gps on a nexus phone?) Pretty sad when i think about how great my GPS was on my blackberry 8310 and 9700 compared to these pieces of junk. I literally could walk around my house (indoors) and it would show exactly where in my house i was. Any android ive had cant get closer then 10m outside, and 30m inside. ugh.

 

[ponyo]

Did you have a problem getting lock while in the States? Because the GPS in my Galaxy Nexus is ridiculously good for such small device and I get locks in seconds even while driving highway speeds. I know what shitty GPS is coming from Samsung Vibrant and Samsung Captivate. My Galaxy Nexus gets way faster lock than my TomTom GPS and my wife's iPhone 4S and maintains it.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Restart your phone, download gps status from the play store.

Then menu-tools-reset agps data-then download new data.

Thanks! This seems to have allowed it to lock. I need to remember to do this next time. Will be impossible to do when there's no signal to download the data from. Samsung still needs to fix this and have it be able to work 110% of the time just by itself.

I dont think signal has anything to do with gps (unless your talking specifically about GPS satellites), but yea mine also kinda sucks. When i first got it i almost sent it back because it was completely unreliable. Just like in your case the few times i actually NEEDED it, it wouldnt work. I also use endomondo when i run, and it also could do a better job with that as well. EDIT: If it makes any difference, i had about 3 or 4 days straight of it not working at all before it started working again. Give a custom rom a shot (im using paranoid android right now)

Samsung is awful when it comes to GPS. My captivate was completely broken. My sgs2 was not terrible, but nothing great. I also remember hearing about the nexus s having a GPS just as bad as the captivates (how the hell could they have a completely broken gps on a nexus phone?) Pretty sad when i think about how great my GPS was on my blackberry 8310 and 9700 compared to these pieces of junk. I literally could walk around my house (indoors) and it would show exactly where in my house i was. Any android ive had cant get closer then 10m outside, and 30m inside. ugh.

I had a Captivate. When I was on the border of Mexico still on the US side I could immediately get a GPS lock. Drove into Mexico with no Mexican SIM card and no service, it would *never* get a lock. Or it would take 30 minutes. NOT pleasant at all. Downright dangerous at times. Drive back into the States and bam, GPS lock immediately when I got service.

 

[ericlp]

http://www.petapixel.com/2012/05/25/why-your-digital-cameras-gps-might-not-work-in-china/


Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android

 

[Fire&Blood]

Having service means downloading ephemeris data. While it doesn't mean instant lock, it basically tells where to look to get a lock. Also, the more satellites are accessible, the better the accuracy and less time to get a lock.

My old HD2 took forever to get a lock. Once it did though, it was extremely accurate, even sitting, literally stretching the arm I held the phone in would register in maps. Gnex locks very fast, in my case it's aided by cell triangulation as well so it locks very fast but is inaccurate, up to 40 fit or so. Not only is it missing, it varies constantly, when I test without moving, it doesn't display a stationary "wrong" location, it bounces around as if I'm walking in circles up to 40 feet away from where I'm actually standing. However it hasn't caused any problems navigating in the car.

 

[gorcorps]

Thanks! This seems to have allowed it to lock. I need to remember to do this next time. Will be impossible to do when there's no signal to download the data from. Samsung still needs to fix this and have it be able to work 110% of the time just by itself.

If you're just using google maps you can at least download the map data you need to your phone. In the maps app press menu > make available offline

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

If you're just using google maps you can at least download the map data you need to your phone. In the maps app press menu > make available offline

Right. Unfortunately without a working GPS you don't know where on the map you are exactly. At least the compass works. It sucks being in a foreign city and not having an exact lock, so you're forced to walk to an intersection, then pan all around the map looking for those street intersection names in a foreign language.

I was in Shanghai and using the public transportation google directions. Told me to first walk to this bus stop. Well.... I don't know where I'm starting from so how exactly do I walk to this bus stop? Later I found out that the cell triangulation location that it was showing me was actually half a mile from where I actually was, and half a mile more from the bus stop, which was already 2 miles away. That was fun.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

http://www.petapixel.com/2012/05/25/why-your-digital-cameras-gps-might-not-work-in-china/


Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android

I'm in China, I've said it before and I'll say it again... the Chinese government which imposes restrictions like this can go screw itself. And I'm Chinese.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

the thing is maybe Google location services is blocked in China? So you're not able to get AGPS data. As a result you may need to sit outside for a while. Perhaps GPS Status grabs geolocation info from some other server so you're able to get aGPS data now.

The benefit of the program is it shows how old your GPS data is and so you can continuously update it so you can get fast locks.

 

[WelshBloke]

Thanks! This seems to have allowed it to lock. I need to remember to do this next time. Will be impossible to do when there's no signal to download the data from. Samsung still needs to fix this and have it be able to work 110% of the time just by itself...

You shouldn't need to do it that often, just if you've travelled a fair distance with your sat nav off or if you haven't used it for awhile.

The AGPS data it pulls is very small its just quicker than waiting for it to stream from the satellite.