Location using network

[rob]

Hi,  I am getting very poor accuracy when determining location based off of network.  I have GPS disabled in my phone settings to save power.  When I get a location fix in Tasker with the net option on and GPS off, I typically get a fix accuracy of 2.5-3+km and it shows me as being well over a mile away from my real location.

What has me so confused is that Google Maps consistently has an accuracy of 70m or better when indoors and around 40m when outdoors using network location only.  The accuracy in Tasker is not affected by being indoors or outdoors.  About 1 in 15 to 20 tries Tasker will match Google Maps in accuracy and actually show me in the correct place and will immediately go back to a wild error range when another fix is taken seconds later.  I have enabled Tasker as an administrator, enabled Tasker compatibility, installed Secure Settings and its helper and have gone through everything I can think of.   I am using an LG Optimus Q with gingerbread 2.3.4 and the stock rom.  Google Maps is up to date as is my PRL and phone profile (client initiated device configuration).  I have GPS Privacy Setting set to "location on", and Use Wireless Networks is enabled. 

 I noticed that Tasker will say "asking network providers only..." when taking a location fix when I have the GPS disabled.  I assume this is normal for that condition but want to make sure I didn't miss a setting since without GPS enabled Google Maps is consistently accurate within 70m or less when tested seconds after a Tasker location fix is performed.  I have watched carefully and Google Maps isn't going around my settings and using GPS for acquiring the location fix.  I was under the impression that Tasker was somehow leveraging Google Maps since it is a requirement for the installation of Tasker.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Pent]

> What has me so confused is that Google Maps consistently has an accuracy of
> 70m or better when indoors and around 40m when outdoors using network
> location only.

Is that at exactly the same time ?

To achieve that accuracy, being near a known wifi AP is required.
However, if wifi is on Tasker should also be able to achieve that (it
uses the same API as Maps, unless Google has some internal advantage I
don't know about).

>  I noticed that Tasker will say "asking network providers only..." when
> taking a location fix when I have the GPS disabled.

That's correct.

> Tasker was somehow leveraging Google Maps since it is a requirement for the
> installation of Tasker.

No, that's just for the graphical fixing of the location.

Pent

[rob]

Hi Pent,
Yes that is back to back within seconds of each other and yes wifi is on which does have me thinking that Tasker isn't able to see the wifi or has different wifi maps than Google Maps.  I have repeated this many times and it is consistent.  After you mentioned the wifi factor I disabled it and voila, Google Maps had the same low accuracy fix that Tasker always achieves and Tasker was unaffected by turning wifi off.  After that I re-enabled the wifi and turned the wifi scan time in Tasker down to 25 seconds and then continually took fixes as soon as the previous completed for a couple of minutes to see if it was needing time for a scan but there was never any improvement.  After this I created a wifi near profile and it was successful in recognizing my wifi so it does at least see the wifi.

Where does Tasker get its wifi map from?  Is it different wifi data than google maps uses?  Also, is there any way I could update Tasker's data if so? 

Now that I realize that wifi was on for such a precise fix, I'm thinking that a time based profile that enables wifi near will be a more power efficient means of tracking when I'm home during the day anyway.  But I would still like to hear any input you might have on this since that is definitely what is going on.  Oh and I did uninstall and reinstall Tasker once to see if that would help but it did not.

[rob]

I didn't think of it before but is there anywhere in Tasker that I need to enable use wifi for location?  And if it is set to use wifi for location is it still normal for it to say "asking network provider only..."?

[Pent]

> Where does Tasker get its wifi map from?

Android just provides 'network location' as a lump, it includes wifi
(that they've scanned while driving around) and cell towers.

The only thing I can think of is it's maybe because Tasker stops
network updates as soon as it gets a single fix (with GPS it waits
till the fix accuracy stops improving).

Previously Android has provided a fix via Net and then nothing for 10s
of seconds. It doesn't make sense to keep the phone on for ages
waiting for more than one on the offchance.

I'll make a note to look into it, but as far as I'm aware on most
people's phone's they get good Tasker net location accuracy if a known
wifi AP is nearby, so I'm not going to prioritize it.

Pent

[dakuth]

I'm having a similar problem. For a few days, my "at work" location context worked fine. It's quite a small area, but Google Maps narrows my accuracy down to 60 meters when I'm in the building.

Noticing today that my "at work" profile was not firing, I set up a test task. All it does is:

Location Print (78)
A1: Get Location [ Source:Net Timeout (Seconds):38 Continue Task Immediately:Off Keep Tracking:Off ] 
A2: Popup [ Title: Text:Net loc - %LOCN
GPS loc- %LOC Background Image: Layout:Popup Timeout (Seconds):60 Show Over Keyguard:On ] 
A3: Open Map [ Mode:Point Address: Lat,Long:%LOCN Zoom:17 Label: ] 

basically:

1. Get Location

2. Popup the gps co-ordinates we're talking about

3. Open google maps and zoom to the spot

It grabs the location almost instantly, and then Google Maps opens and zooms to an area about 1km away from where Google has my little blue indicator sitting sweetly in my office building.

No idea why this is inaccurate today - I could put it down to something like the wifi locations list being out of date, but why would tasker and google return different results?