# Worth using a GPS receiver with my phone for Google Maps?



## ams232 (Apr 8, 2019)

I had a frustrating experience recently while walking in Portsmouth (UK). Both my Android Phone (OnePlus 7T) and my wife's iPhone XR didn't GPS correctly. It seemed not to triangulate correctly, the arrow pointed sideways and got us lost for a while.

I thought that pairing a GPS locator to my phone, such as these below may help me avoid these situations….if it's not much of a hassle.

I would use it with my car too if this works well.

I'd really welcome any experiences and advice on this.

Garmin GLO 2 GPS and GLONASS Receiver for Precise Position Information on Mobile Devices

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-GLO...ementKeywords=garmin+glo+bluetooth+gps&sr=8-1

or

DUAL Electronics XGPS150A Multipurpose Universal Bluetooth GPS Receive


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## cwwozniak (Nov 29, 2005)

Was the GPS information on your phones showing a completely wrong location or showing an incorrect direction of movement?

If they were showing wrong location, were you in any kind of a valley between tall buildings. GPS signals bouncing off of buildings can cause confusing timing information.

If they were showing incorrect directions and do not have built-in hardware compasses, they would need quite a bit of straight movement to rely just on the GPS signals to determine which direction you are moving. Civilian use location resolution could be as high as 7.8 meters.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

ams232 said:


> I'd really welcome any experiences and advice on this.


Was this a one time glitch, or have you been bitten by this several or many times? My advice is to shrug it off if it is not a recurring problem.

An additional problem that Chuck didn't mention is inaccurate data. When I first started using mapping software (more than 20 years ago) east/west was reversed for (at least part of) the town (Naperville, Illinois, USA) in which I worked. I had trouble finding my destination until figuring this out! Have still seen bad data in the last several years.

Since both the Android and iPhone had the same issue my guess is that the problem was caused by either the signal issue Chuck described or some bad data.


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## ams232 (Apr 8, 2019)

TerryNet said:


> Was this a one time glitch, or have you been bitten by this several or many times? My advice is to shrug it off if it is not a recurring problem.
> 
> An additional problem that Chuck didn't mention is inaccurate data. When I first started using mapping software (more than 20 years ago) east/west was reversed for (at least part of) the town (Naperville, Illinois, USA) in which I worked. I had trouble finding my destination until figuring this out! Have still seen bad data in the last several years.
> 
> Since both the Android and iPhone had the same issue my guess is that the problem was caused by either the signal issue Chuck described or some bad data.


I'm thinking of getting one of these GPS receivers, by what I heard they're much better at locking satellites.


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## ams232 (Apr 8, 2019)

TerryNet said:


> Was this a one time glitch, or have you been bitten by this several or many times? My advice is to shrug it off if it is not a recurring problem.
> 
> An additional problem that Chuck didn't mention is inaccurate data. When I first started using mapping software (more than 20 years ago) east/west was reversed for (at least part of) the town (Naperville, Illinois, USA) in which I worked. I had trouble finding my destination until figuring this out! Have still seen bad data in the last several years.
> 
> Since both the Android and iPhone had the same issue my guess is that the problem was caused by either the signal issue Chuck described or some bad data.


I'm thinking of getting one of these GPS receivers, by what I heard they're much better at locking satellites. It's pretty clear that my phone wasn't connecting to GPS satellites properly. This has happened to me before, while walking on streets as buildings block the signal, sometimes doing an 8 with the phone will help, but I'd rather use one of these devices if they are a good option.


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