Photo: reddit
While Waze is an app that many drivers turn to when getting behind the wheel, it’s not a secret that users occasionally come across various bugs, including GPS tracking struggles.
In other words, Waze is no longer able to determine their location and then follow them on the map as they drive.
However, Waze isn’t always the one to blame for the GPS problems, as the whole thing could be caused by your mobile phone. And you can actually determine who’s the culprit with a very simple trick.
But before anything, let’s see how Waze works.
The Google-owned application receives information regarding your location from your phone’s GPS sensor. In some cases, your GPS coordinates might tell Waze you’re in a building or on the side of the road, so what the application does is run quick processing to further polish this information and actually put you on the road.
In other words, because Waze is supposed to be used when driving, it uses a dedicated algorithm to determine your location on the road even if the phone tells it you’re not.
So when Waze shows you on a completely different road far away from your current location, it might the phone’s GPS sensor the one causing the problems. How can you tell who’s to blame? It’s all possible with a feature called Raw GPS that’s bundled with Waze.
To activate it, launch Waze and then in the search box where you typically configure a new address, just type this code ##@rawgps. Press enter and Raw GPS should now be enabled (to disable it, just do the whole thing one more time).
When Raw GPS is running, Waze should now display two different location arrows: the blue one is the location determined by Waze, while the yellow one is based on the information submitted by the phone. If the yellow arrow is far from your current location, then there’s something wrong with your GPS sensor.
However, Waze isn’t always the one to blame for the GPS problems, as the whole thing could be caused by your mobile phone. And you can actually determine who’s the culprit with a very simple trick.
But before anything, let’s see how Waze works.
The Google-owned application receives information regarding your location from your phone’s GPS sensor. In some cases, your GPS coordinates might tell Waze you’re in a building or on the side of the road, so what the application does is run quick processing to further polish this information and actually put you on the road.
In other words, because Waze is supposed to be used when driving, it uses a dedicated algorithm to determine your location on the road even if the phone tells it you’re not.
So when Waze shows you on a completely different road far away from your current location, it might the phone’s GPS sensor the one causing the problems. How can you tell who’s to blame? It’s all possible with a feature called Raw GPS that’s bundled with Waze.
To activate it, launch Waze and then in the search box where you typically configure a new address, just type this code ##@rawgps. Press enter and Raw GPS should now be enabled (to disable it, just do the whole thing one more time).
When Raw GPS is running, Waze should now display two different location arrows: the blue one is the location determined by Waze, while the yellow one is based on the information submitted by the phone. If the yellow arrow is far from your current location, then there’s something wrong with your GPS sensor.
Google News