Is There a Way to Calibrate Google Maps?
Google Maps uses your smartphone’s built-in GPS (among other features) to figure out where you are and how to get you where you want to go. You may need to calibrate that compass to help Google Maps get the best location data from time to time. Luckily, do that is easy.
How to Calibrate Google Maps on iPhone
To calibrate the compass that Google Maps uses on an iPhone, follow these steps:
How to Calibrate Google Maps on Android
You can also calibrate the compass on Android to improve Google Maps. Here’s how:
Why Is Google Maps Location Not Accurate?
Generally speaking, the location determined by Google Maps is pretty good. Sure, it might not figure out exactly where you’re standing, but it’s usually accurate to within a few yards/meters. However, from time to time, your location features will become much less precise than that, which can be frustrating and confusing. This decline in accuracy happens most often when the compass feature of your smartphone gets misaligned. It’s just the nature of the feature, and you can fix it in the ways described earlier. Other things that can cause Google Maps to have an inaccurate location for you include Location Services or Wi-Fi being off or hardware or software problems.
How Can You Improve Location Accuracy?
Calibrating your smartphone compass isn’t the only way to improve location accuracy. There are several other methods, including:
Turn On Wi-Fi (iPhone and Android): Smartphones use Wi-Fi to triangulate your location by checking with databases of known Wi-Fi networks. It’s a significant factor in determining your location (along with GPS), so your location will be incorrect if Wi-Fi is off. Allow Exact Location (iPhone): To turn on Precise Location for Google Maps go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Google Maps > Precise Location. Turn Off and Turn On Location Services (iPhone and Android): One good way to recalibrate your phone’s location features is to reset your Location Services by turning them off and back on. Doing this should clear out any old, bad data and replace it with an accurate reading. Learn how to turn off Location Services and how to turn on Location Services. Restart Phone (iPhone and Android): Restarting your smartphone is a cure-all for many, many problems, including inaccurate location data. A reset clears out all of your old, temporary info and provides new data. Learn how to restart iPhone and restart Android. Update OS (iPhone and Android): Since new versions of your phone’s operating system bring new features and bug fixes, installing the latest OS can also improve your location data accuracy (assuming that the new OS includes those features). Find out how to update your iPhone and update Android.
