Find My Location is way off

[+Team Bostradamus]

Within the last hour or so the "Find My Location" option is putting me 30+ miles away from my actual location... The iphone app still shows the right spot though..

This happening to anyone else? Is this a problem since the latest update?

Is the option going to be temporarily disabled?

[+Lil Devil]

"Find My Location" has never worked well for me. It has always located me in a city around 40 miles away, which is where the offices of my ISP is. I assume the feature works based on IP addresses and my IP address maps to the office of my provider.

 

Considering the field on the front page is initially filled in with my home coords, the "Find My Location" button is superfluous.

[+StarBrand]

I just tried it and it puts me roughly 30 miles north of my actual location in the middle of nowhere. I'm at work not home.

[+The A-Team]

Due to the way our network is set up at my workplace, any locating system like this thinks I'm in Ottawa, Ontario, because that's where all of our external internet traffic is routed through. I actually live and work in Victoria, BC, approximately 2900 km away!

[+Team Bostradamus]

It's worked spot on for me until today, I don't know what caused it, but I hope it resolves quickly.. I can do a "close enough" search by zip code, but we shouldn't have to settle for that.. we are paying members

[+StarBrand]

It's worked spot on for me until today, I don't know what caused it, but I hope it resolves quickly.. I can do a "close enough" search by zip code, but we shouldn't have to settle for that.. we are paying members

Just click the magnifying glass if you are at home to see a list of caches. If you are elsewhere, its always been a bit spotty - but I agree that places that were working a few days ago are now waaaay off - Groundspeak must be using a different coordinate database as reference

[+Lil Devil]

It's worked spot on for me until today, I don't know what caused it, but I hope it resolves quickly.. I can do a "close enough" search by zip code, but we shouldn't have to settle for that.. we are paying members

 

As I said above, just set your home coords, and the box on the front page will be pre-filled with your exact coords. The "Find My Location" button becomes superfluous.

 

If you have multiple locations you search on a regular basis, use this page or this page to do a search, then use your browser's bookmark function to save the results. You can even set a button at the top of your browser for one-click access.

[jri]

The Find My Location button doesn't use Groundspeak data to locate you. It relies on the Geolocation API in your web browser to figure out where you are, and different browsers use different methods. Some desktop browsers are limited to using your IP address, which can be off by hundreds of miles, but some like Chrome and Firefox can also use information about which wifi networks your computer can see, giving a much more accurate result. These methods rely on database services like Google Location Service or Skyhook.

 

Mobile devices are generally better as they have a location API built into the operating system. As well as the methods above, depending on their hardware and service provider they can also use mobile network cell id, cell triangulation or built-in GPS for location.

 

If Find My Location used to work well for you, then got bad, either your browser has switched from one location method to another (perhaps you accidentally disabled wifi or GPS?), or something has changed in your network setup (your ISP gave you a new IP address, someone switched off a wifi network in a neighbouring building, etc.) If you are using a desktop computer, you might get a different result by switching web browser.