What happens when your favorite navigation app disappears? It sounds like a joke, but it’s not: there are times when Google Maps doesn’t work as well as it should and the compass built into your Android phone may be to blame. If this has ever happened to you, don’t panic because there is a simple but effective trick to remedy it: the twist of the eight.
What does Google Maps have to do with the compass? Although navigation apps use GPS to show our position to go from an origin point to the destination, they also need other sensors and instruments of your mobile to get to a successful port, like the gyroscope (to position the phone with precision along the three spatial axes), the accelerometers (provide information on horizontal and vertical movement) and the magnetometer, responsible for creating a low-precision three-dimensional plane thanks to the magnetic field that surrounds it.
There magnetometer function It is essential that the application indicates where we are going with a pointer. When you arrive in a city, you see where you are on the navigator map and you start walking, this pointer helps you confirm that you are going in the right direction. But every now and then the compass loses its calibration and it’s time to tweak it.
a bit of magnetism. The planet Earth behaves as if it were crossed by a magnet, the south pole of the magnet being close to the geographic north of the planet. And since opposite poles attract, the north pole of a compass points to the south pole of the earth’s magnet (which, as we mentioned, approximates true north). So far so good, but EMFs can decalibrate it, preventing it from pointing clearly north. This doesn’t have to be the result of strong signals, but it can be enough to be close to another electronic device, close to metal surfaces, or your own circuitry causing this drift.
How to Calibrate Your Android’s Compass, When to Do It, and Why It Works
Calibrate phone compass It’s a fairly simple task and the key is in the twist of the eight. Thus, you will have to take your phone firmly with one hand and start twisting your wrist, drawing figure eights in the air for about 30 seconds. Although it is enough that you perform these movements with the phone on, if you do it with the Google Maps application open, it will inform you that it has already been calibrated.
Why does the twist of eight work? Given the interference that tide your mobile’s magnetometer, tracking these turns, is used by the system to compare the readings of the three spatial axes with those it records, eliminating erroneous positions resulting from exposure to other electromagnetic fields. regains its reliability.
However, you won’t have to calibrate your mobile’s compass often. To begin with, because modifying this sensor is more common in veteran or low-end devices, but also because it is not in itself a process that only needs to be done once in a while. Additionally, calibration may be necessary if you are in an environment susceptible to magnetic interference, such as inside a vehicle.
Some additional recommendations: Although it may be useful to apply the turn of eight just before opening the Google Maps application, it is better to reserve it for when the Google navigation application asks for it.
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