Compass problem D855

mariusfilip

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Apr 5, 2014
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Hi! i can't manage to make the calibration of the compass to stick, i had this problem on kitkat,but i thought Lollipop solved this.
i wanted to ask if anyone is facing this issue, every time i open any app that uses compass, the phone tells me to calibrate the compass, after calibration, if i exit the app ot turn GPS on/off or reboot the device the calibration is lost, it's a little bit annoying, my G3 is D855 3/32GB Lollipop...., i hope it's a software issue although i had this issue when i had kitkat too ,i read that some Sprint users were having this problem, but i live in Eastern Europe.
I attached a screenshot from Here Maps app.
Thanks Screenshot_2015-01-30-01-01-17.jpg
 

Rukbat

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The compass is affected by any nearby metal or electrical flow. If I calibrate my compass and put the phone down on my desk (which has an aluminum band completely around he edge of the top), the compass will lose calibration (due to the magnetic fields created by random currents flowing in that loop of metal). It has more to do with the relative strengths of the planet's field and man-made fields almost everywhere (the Earth's field at the equator is on the order of 31.9 µT [microTeslas], the magnetism in an audio transducer - like a phone's earpiece - is on the order of 1-3 Teslas - that's about a million times as much) than it has to do with the phone. Turning on a flashlight 10 feet from the phone produces a magnetic field at the phone that's thousands of times stronger than the one the compass is trying to measure.

If you're traveling, your best bet is to use a GPS app, like Maps, that measures direction by calculating the direction you were moving in by going from the last location reading to the present one. If you're turning it'll always lag by a second or two, but if you're going in a straight line, it's very accurate.

(If you need an accurate compass, buy an accurate compass - the compass in a cellphone isn't as accurate or as stable as a magnetized needle floating in a cup of water. Even a Boy Scout compass, which is a joke as far as accuracy, is orders of magnitude more stable than the one in a cellphone. [If you run a calibration chart for it, you'd have readings as accurate as a much more expensive compass.] The cellphone compass uses a totally different technology than a rotating magnet compass and is much more susceptible to any nearby flow of electricity [it's even affected by the electricity flowing in the phone itself].)
 

mariusfilip

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Apr 5, 2014
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The compass is affected by any nearby metal or electrical flow. If I calibrate my compass and put the phone down on my desk (which has an aluminum band completely around he edge of the top), the compass will lose calibration (due to the magnetic fields created by random currents flowing in that loop of metal). It has more to do with the relative strengths of the planet's field and man-made fields almost everywhere (the Earth's field at the equator is on the order of 31.9 µT [microTeslas], the magnetism in an audio transducer - like a phone's earpiece - is on the order of 1-3 Teslas - that's about a million times as much) than it has to do with the phone. Turning on a flashlight 10 feet from the phone produces a magnetic field at the phone that's thousands of times stronger than the one the compass is trying to measure.

If you're traveling, your best bet is to use a GPS app, like Maps, that measures direction by calculating the direction you were moving in by going from the last location reading to the present one. If you're turning it'll always lag by a second or two, but if you're going in a straight line, it's very accurate.

(If you need an accurate compass, buy an accurate compass - the compass in a cellphone isn't as accurate or as stable as a magnetized needle floating in a cup of water. Even a Boy Scout compass, which is a joke as far as accuracy, is orders of magnitude more stable than the one in a cellphone. [If you run a calibration chart for it, you'd have readings as accurate as a much more expensive compass.] The cellphone compass uses a totally different technology than a rotating magnet compass and is much more susceptible to any nearby flow of electricity [it's even affected by the electricity flowing in the phone itself].)
thanks, i had a Nexus 5, Galaxy S5, and didn't had this issue, last night i tested a Htc M7 along with my G3, and only the G3 asked for recalibration, this is why i think it is a software problem, also if this sensor would be broken on my device, i'm thinking it wouldn't function at all