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Compass on Android - how well is it working for you?
I've got a used G1 and I've done some compass sensor.
However, I get believable readings from the compass sensor only some of the time. This is also true with any compass application I've tried. The sample code in the Android Development works approximately never.
I'm wondering if
- I have a defective unit
- If all G1's are defective.
- If the sensor documentation is off.
- If there are some secrets for "calibrating" the compass.
So I would like to know how well the compass is working for any of you.
I'm trying to figure this out through the Developer Community as well. There are some old posts about flakiness in the G1 hardware.
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As most of you with an Android probably know by now, there are some techniques for calibrating the Compass that you probably would think are jokes before trying them, such as waving the phone.
Apparently, magnetic holsters throw off the GPS. Since my holster has a TMobile logo, I'm pretty sure many of the phones come with magnetic holsters.
I don't have an android phone yet, but my friend has the HTC Eris and he was showing me the Google Sky (star gazer) app, which uses the compass and gps together to show you exactly what stars you are looking at as you hold the phone up to the sky. It worked really well, so I assume at least in other models that the compass works well.
rp3319 is right. Google Sky Map works like magic. Check it out. Even Google Maps has a labs feature that you can enable that shows a pointer for your location. It seems to work fine.
I really miss BCN since I went Android. Keep up the good work! P.S. I would LOVE to test a beta.
But avoid magnetic holsters and cradles. I think there may also be something to the notion of 'calibration'. Hold the phone flat and rotate it 360 degrees slowly.
My Windows device doesn't have a compass so I'm looking forward to this feature. I think it's also a good idea to indicate both magnetic and 'true' North.
Magnetic vs True North will be addressed in an upcoming blog. The actual formula for it is rather complicated, but I've come up with a pretty good approximation.
My G1 periodically needs "calibration", sometimes even when the sensor returns of accuracy of maximum. But waving it in a figure 8 seems to work.