If a lot of today’s smartphones suffer, especially Chinese mobile phones, it is presenting problems with the location system. If you are one of the affected ones, do not forget to take a look at the following tricks to improve the GPS signal of your Android phone.
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It is true that mobile phone manufacturers increasingly implement more and better technologies to improve the GPS signal of their devices. example of this we have is the Xiaomi Mi 8, which hides the first dual GPS of Broadcom to obtain more precision, allowing a precision of 30 cm instead of the current 5 m. However, what is the use of greater precision if the GPS signal is weak or is constantly interrupted?
A good signal is essential to use navigation apps, as well as to play certain games that make use of Augmented Reality like Pokémon GO or the new Ghostbusters World. For this reason, we show you how you can improve the GPS signal on your Android phone to avoid possible problems with the location of it.
Check the GPS status
If you think that your GPS does not work correctly because you can not find a signal or locate yourself in regions far removed from your real position, there are ways to make sure that everything works correctly and that the positioning problems are alien to our smartphones. For this, you can use GPS Test and check the status of the GPS in case there are problems that do not affect your mobile.
Enables “high precision” GPS mode
To get the best possible signal on your Android mobile you must configure the GPS accuracy from the location settings of the mobile. All smartphones have different options to adjust the GPS depending on whether you need to improve the signal, or save battery in the device and, in this case, we will sacrifice energy consumption.
Access the Settings application and locate the Security and Privacy options. Inside you should locate a menu called Access to the Location where you can activate the services that make use of the location of the phone. After doing so, a section is enabled where you can choose the location mode between High precision (using GPS and Wi-Fi networks and mobile data), Battery saving, which only uses wireless connections or simply use GPS.
Keep the GPS always active
As much as you try to control the configuration of your mobile phone, it is common that for reasons of loss of signal or other incidents, the GPS signal of the mobile is lost. When we switch between applications it is also common for location services to be disconnected and, when it comes back to the navigation app, we are slow to find a signal. Against these problems, it is best to use an application that allows keeping the GPS always active, despite the greater wear of the battery.
Download GPS Connected from Google Play Store
GPS Connected is an app as simple as useful because it will keep the GPS of your Android phone turned on at all times and only disconnect it when you request it through the application.
Reconnect GPS from mobile to satellites
Yes, the GPS of the mobile works by connecting to the same satellites as the GPS of the car and not by infused science. What happens is that on more than one occasion our mobile can lose the reference with any of them and cause failures of signal reception or Google Maps, to say an example, scare us with the phrase “GPS signal has been lost“. In this case, we recommend using an app like GPS Status & Toolbox that allows you to “format” all the GPS data and start connecting to the satellites from scratch to maintain a “clean” signal.
Download GPS Status & Toolbox from Google Play Store
Calibrate the compass of the mobile
Believe it or not, the compass has a lot to do with AR apps or the many GPS applications that we use on our mobile. If the compass is badly calibrated, in more than one occasion we are going to make a mistake because the GPS will guide us to the South when, for example, we want to go North.
Today almost all customization layers have their own compass app that can be easily calibrated by moving the phone but if you want you can download one of the many equivalent apps found in Google Play Store to get the same result. Calibrating the compass will help you take better advantage of Android GPS.
A problem on the phone?
If after following all the tricks and tips to improve the GPS signal of the mobile, you still have problems, the source may be in the hardware or software of the mobile. How to find out?
For this, we will use an app like GPS Essentials, available in the Play Store for free to see if our phone is able to connect to the satellites that orbit above our head. If satellites do not appear, it is likely that, if you do not have elements that interfere in the reception of the signal as protective cases or covers, you have some hardware problem in the GPS. If, on the other hand, satellites appear, but GPS does not correctly locate the device, then this is a software problem that may require an update or factory restoration of the mobile.
