Why is my phone hotspot causing my laptop to show a location hundreds of miles away when connected?

[Android Central Question]

Recently moved into a place that doesn't have broadband active in the house, so I'm using a hotspot from my phone (Xiaomi Mi Note 10) on my laptop to connect to the internet.

However, when I try to access like Tinder on my laptop, it automatically sets me to a location hundreds of miles away, rather than where my city actually is. As in - it tells me these people are maybe a km away, when they're way more than that in reality.

Any idea on how I can solve this?

 

[Kizzy Catwoman]

Hi there. Welcome to the forums. Are you using a VPN at all?

Please register for an account so we can help you further. With a guest account, you can't reply. Thanks

https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=409154

 

[Mooncatt]

IP based location is almost useless when it comes to mobile data. Carriers assign an IP address to your phone based on region and address availability, not specific location. So by extension, anything connected via your phone's hotspot would have similar issues. There isn't anything you can do about it that I'm aware of, and you'll need to manually enter your location anytime you use location based services. If you want to test this, go to https://www.iplocation.net/ on your phone's browser and you'll see a similar far away IP based location result.

 

[joeldf]

Agree with @Mooncatt.

For example, on my phone, I don't allow the browser to use my location services on the phone. So most websites I go to that try to locate me assume I'm in Dallas Texas. I'm actually just outside Baton Rouge Louisiana. About 380 miles (600 km) away as the crow flies. That's because while I'm on AT&T, the mobile network routes to Dallas, then out to the web, so my IP address is assigned from their Dallas hub.

The sites you visit, if you don't have GPS on the device you're using, get your location based on the assigned IP, and since it's through a mobile carrier, that may be nowhere near you. Even if GPS is turned on in the phone, hotspotting to your laptop does not pass that info to the labtop.

If that makes sense.