Can GPS BE WRONG?

[JoannaLBland1]

My finance think I am seeing shine one else since my GPS said I was on that location and I was and I was at home that whole day!!

 

[SpookDroid]

GPS, just like TV signals, are definitely susceptible to error, and since GPS is a 'line-of-sight' system that needs a minimum number of satellites 'in view' of your phone (the more satellites the more accurate the position is), if you have no visibility the reading might be a bad one or the accuracy of the position could be off by miles. If you were home, however, location was probably determined more by WiFi signals and mobile tower data, and that (especially tower data) might have 'glitched' into putting your location somewhere else.

These glitches, however, seldom last more than a few minutes unless your WiFi-based/tower-based location is permanently marked in the wrong location.

In this case, I think it's not the GPS you should worry about but just talking things out with your fiancee.

 

[anon(10360853)]

They can I've had it happen where I have entered a location and had taken me the wrong way.

 

[Tim1954]

It will also depend on the accuracy setting you have in locations...
You should discuss the trust issues with the guy, if he's like this already maybe think about the long term future with this behaviour...

 

[4Deco]

They can be sometimes as they basically depends upon the accuracy. Sometime it have guided to the longest routes instead of short ones while travelling and even sometimes wrong too.

 

[Morty2264]

Absolutely, they can be wrong. Google Maps thinks my phone is my town's local gravel pit site.

 

[pbksoft]

Are you sure your phone used only GPS when the location was not shown correctly? Android uses also other data sources like surrounding WiFi networks. Now, let's imagine someone uses a mobile WiFi hotspot (you know 3G/4G modem access to the internet on one side and WiFi router to connect clients on the other) that was previously in a different location (and Google registered this fact) and voila!

Pure GPS reporting if available at all (will not work under the roof for example) should generally have around 25 meters of accuracy and most of the time below 10 meters.

 

[robertm7]

Yes, the accuracy of the GPS depends on your settings and many other factors. A typical accuracy for a hand-held GPS device would be something like 30% of your measurements within 50 meters of the true position. In your case it must have been more than 50 meters

You can read more here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1567443/how-accurate-is-android-gps

 

[robertm7]

Yes, the accuracy of the GPS depends on your settings and many other factors. A typical accuracy for a hand-held GPS device would be something like 30% of your measurements within 50 meters of the true position. In your case it must have been more than 50 meters