For the past few days, I've been dealing with what appears to be a disproportionately huge group of Evo owners (relative to other Android phones) who've been having crashes with an app I wrote that appear to be caused by the unavailability of network-based location services. I did some research, and it looks like a LOT of Evo owners have been doing things that (temporarily?) disable network-based location services in an attempt to keep the battery from dying too quickly.
Are Evo users who do this literally going into Settings and disabling network-based location services outright, or are there one or more apps/hacks that supposedly disable it only when "it's not being used"? If there are, what does an app that depends on network-based location services have to do to make sure that whatever is supposedly enabling network-based location services "when necessary" realizes that it is, in fact, necessary... and do it in a way that won't cause the lookup request to prematurely or needlessly fail?
Like I've said, I've had a few users with other phones have problems due to the app's current absolute dependency on the availability of network-based location services... but with Evo owners, it's more like a nonstop hailstorm of complaints. Rewriting the way the app handles location to eliminate that absolute dependency is my next major project, but it's going to take me at least a week or two to finish, and in the meantime I'd love to be able to find a temporary solution that I can patch and release tonight that will solve the worst of the problem for the majority of Evo users in the meantime.
Speak up brother. What is the App (so people who don't have the slightest clue as to how to relate your user name with the buggy app you have)?
I'm not sure why anyone would do this, aside from "privacy" concerns... It will not help with battery life on it's own. If your GPS is turned off, your device gets it's relative location via the cell phone tower's coordinates. This information gets transmitted to your phone regardless if you have it disabled to accept it.
They are probably thinking that if they disable it, other services won't try to update information based on your location. Instead they should just adjust any services that are auto-updating.
I can go >24hours before I need to charge my phone with moderate usage throughout the day (without using 4G). I can post SystemPanel screenshots if anyone is interested.
mattrb said:
Speak up brother. What is the App (so people who don't have the slightest clue as to how to relate your user name with the buggy app you have)?
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OK, if it makes you happy, I didn't personally write it that way. It's a legacy app I'm helping to fix. In the meantime, I'm trying to put out as many fires as quickly as I can. That said, I'm not going to condemn the original author. All things considered, it was a perfectly reasonable decision for him to make. It was his first major Android programming project, and his immediate runtime environment was a Droid on Verizon. 99% of his Android-owning friends were Sprint or Verizon. For the most part, on Sprint & Verizon, network-based location services work really well. The app's dependency on them didn't really bubble to the surface as anything more than likely user error until lots of non-Americans started showing up with phones that couldn't be automatically assumed to have inseparably-bundled mandatory data service.
Truth be told, America is a lot like Japan -- cellular networks that are almost proprietary to the national market and work in ways that aren't necessarily consistent with the way things work elsewhere in the world, but utterly ubiquitous and totally dominant within it. I'm sure that right now, plenty of Japanese developers are writing Android apps that assume every phone supports network-level low-latency "Push to Talk" capabilities (IDEN's "killer app"), or some other feature that's ubiquitous in Japan and (almost) unheard of elsewhere. Six months from now, they're going to be scratching their heads wondering why it crashes on every phone in Europe and most phones in America (Sprint, and I think Verizon, try to emulate IDEN's PTT on CDMA by buffering the audio stream on a server, then sending a SMS to the recipient's phone that triggers its download and streaming a couple of seconds later).
Anyway, I digress. Getting back to the original question, are Evo owners who disable network location doing it manually, or are they doing it in a way that can be worked with cooperatively by apps in order to get it to automatically turn it back on when needed?
Actually, I have theory #2 about why Evo owners might be having problems, but it's pure speculation at this point. I'm wondering whether there might be Evo owners who've explicitly disabled EV-DO and 1xRTT to try and force the phone to use WiMax in areas where it might otherwise try to fall back to the older modes, and the possibility that even NON-network location service DEPENDS on EV-DO/1xRTT for aGPS data transmission of the raw telemetry data. In a way, it makes sense... the WiMax network is totally parallel to the CDMA2000 network, and it's not inconceivable that there might BE no data route between the Sprint WiMax network and the servers that handle aGPS queries. Especially if there aren't any real-world locations where Sprint WiMax is available, but CDMA2000 data is not.
If you go into the settings you can disable the network location, but there are ways for an app to ask if the user wants to turn the setting back on.
Evo owners can't disable 1xRTT otherwise standard calls and text messages won't work anymore. They can change settings if they have their MSL code such that EVDO isn't ever used however.
Well, maybe "disable" is a strong term. I know that on a Hero, there's a network setting somewhere that allows you to tell the phone, "Use EV-DO, or don't do data at all". It doesn't affect the operation of voice or sms -- only the phone's willingness to fall back to 1xRTT for internet access if EV-DO isn't available. I'm assuming the Evo has a similar setting that goes a step further and lets you dictate "WiMax or Nothing".
Here's how it could theoretically affect location services: obviously Sprint does aGPS. By law, it HAS to do it for e911 purposes. HOWEVER, I think that non-e911 aGPS lookups on Android phones get diverted through Google (or at least an aGPS service hosted by Google) unless you pay Sprint extra for navigation service. Under those conditions, if you told the phone to use ONLY WiMax for internet access, and you were in an area where only EV-DO and/or 1xRTT data were available, you could have a situation where the phone can do e911 location, but wouldn't necessarily have that info available for use by other applications (vis-a-vis most of HTC's WinMo 6 phones). If the phone couldn't use WiMax, and the user dictated "WiMax or Nothing", the phone couldn't reach Google. Without Google, there'd be no free aGPS for Android apps to consume.
The above is pure speculation, of course. As a practical matter, Sprint itself can't/won't give a coherent explanation of where the line gets drawn between Sprint and Google for (a)GPS service, which makes troubleshooting location-related problems that much more fun. Personally, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if late-model HTC phones DO have 100% of the hardware onboard to turn satellite telemetry into latitude/longitude/altitude coordinates, but the underlying software fails without realtime network connectivity anyway because it still tries to involve a server somewhere for some reason.
Look, this is what happens to me and I think it's a bug.
When I turn off GPS for a while, like for 12 hours, and then I turn it on, I still see the "Location" icon crossed out. At first I didn't know what was going on. I thought it was the GPS icon, but it wasn't, it was the location services being turned off.
So I reproduced it several times and this is what happens. When you turn off GPS for a while, the location setting will be turned off also, and it will remain off even after you turn on the GPS again. Which IS A BUG. That's not an expected behavior. So you may be right.
baiatul said:
Look, this is what happens to me and I think it's a bug.
When I turn off GPS for a while, like for 12 hours, and then I turn it on, I still see the "Location" icon crossed out. At first I didn't know what was going on. I thought it was the GPS icon, but it wasn't, it was the location services being turned off.
So I reproduced it several times and this is what happens. When you turn off GPS for a while, the location setting will be turned off also, and it will remain off even after you turn on the GPS again. Which IS A BUG. That's not an expected behavior. So you may be right.
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My experience doesn't mirror that at all. When I turn GPS on (which I am impressed to say has it finding satellites many times faster than my old HTC Fuze) the location disabled icon changes almost immediately. I saw this a lot over last weekend when I was doing a lot of phone based navigation.
Yes, I forgot, I'm in NY, and in Manhattan very strange things happen when you go in and out the subway with signal and no signal several times a day for periods of time from minutes to an hour.
Many programs that are expected to work crash when there is no signal. Or when you run applications in the subway with no signal, the gadget freezes sometimes. Maybe this GPS thing is also one of those glitches. Maybe it's a combination of turning on or off the GPS, and then the loss of signal for a while. It still happens to me, but I got used: every time I turn back on the GPS after being disabled for MANY HOURS (12? 24?), I have to turn back on the Location setting.
merak69 said:
I'm not sure why anyone would do this, aside from "privacy" concerns...
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I turned off network location services for one simple reason....using it caused my location to off by at least 1/2 mile. So it seemed pretty useless to me.
pixelpop said:
I turned off network location services for one simple reason....using it caused my location to off by at least 1/2 mile. So it seemed pretty useless to me.
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It's basing your location on the information from the cell phone tower. It isn't meant to give you a precise location like GPS can (this is why its called aGPS). The point is to give a general location so that apps that need to know what city you are in (weather apps for example) can figure it out to show you information for where you currently are.
If you want precise information, turn on full GPS and you are good to go.
My point was disabling location services entirely will not save you any more battery life vs leaving network location on (excluding full GPS obviously). What will save you battery is turning off your other services (Facebook, Twitter, News, etc) to only update when you manually say so or setting their update schedules to much longer frequencies.
Here's how it could theoretically affect location services: obviously Sprint does aGPS. By law, it HAS to do it for e911 purposes. HOWEVER, I think that non-e911 aGPS lookups on Android phones get diverted through Google (or at least an aGPS service hosted by Google) unless you pay Sprint extra for navigation service. Under those conditions, if you told the phone to use ONLY WiMax for internet access, and you were in an area where only EV-DO and/or 1xRTT data were available, you could have a situation where the phone can do e911 location, but wouldn't necessarily have that info available for use by other applications (vis-a-vis most of HTC's WinMo 6 phones). If the phone couldn't use WiMax, and the user dictated "WiMax or Nothing", the phone couldn't reach Google. Without Google, there'd be no free aGPS for Android apps to consume.
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Your phone doesn't communicate with Google. Sprint has their own aGPS servers but I think you might misunderstand what their purpose is. The "a" part of aGPS means Assisted, but only assisted in the fact of giving the chip the information it needs to lock on to the true GPS signals faster based on your current location.
For example: If you used a GPS device that wasn't assisted and its known internal satellite database was out of date, it'd have to search for awhile to location any/all satellites in the sky. On the flip side, an assisted chip can use the network server to download satellite info (ids, frequencies, etc) to show which satellites are visible for your given rough location. This enables hardware lock to happen faster.
However those aGPS servers are optional since the chip has a hybrid mode of operation:
a) If you have true GPS on, obviously it uses GPS to determine your location, down to potentially 3-4 meters.
b) If the chip can't get a satellite lock or you have true GPS turned off, the chip uses multiple known tower locations in combination to triangulate your location (based on signal strength to known towers). The fewer the towers it has access to, the less and less accurate your known location becomes. This works even with 3G and 4G disabled because it transmits the data over 1xRTT (you can easily test this in Google Maps).
In the second situation (b), I've seen where tower triangulation has narrowed my location down to 100 meters. I've also seen where it can't get a lock on multiple towers reliably such that the chip puts my "center" location as the actual location of the tower with an accuracy rating of 2000 meters. This is what Pixelpop is mentioning above about accuracy.
merak69 said:
Your phone doesn't communicate with Google. Sprint has their own aGPS servers but I think you might misunderstand what their purpose is. The "a" part of aGPS means Assisted, but only assisted in the fact of giving the chip the information it needs to lock on to the true GPS signals faster based on your current location.
For example: If you used a GPS device that wasn't assisted and its known internal satellite database was out of date, it'd have to search for awhile to location any/all satellites in the sky. On the flip side, an assisted chip can use the network server to download satellite info (ids, frequencies, etc) to show which satellites are visible for your given rough location. This enables hardware lock to happen faster.
However those aGPS servers are optional since the chip has a hybrid mode of operation:
a) If you have true GPS on, obviously it uses GPS to determine your location, down to potentially 3-4 meters.
b) If the chip can't get a satellite lock or you have true GPS turned off, the chip uses multiple known tower locations in combination to triangulate your location (based on signal strength to known towers). The fewer the towers it has access to, the less and less accurate your known location becomes. This works even with 3G and 4G disabled because it transmits the data over 1xRTT (you can easily test this in Google Maps).
In the second situation (b), I've seen where tower triangulation has narrowed my location down to 100 meters. I've also seen where it can't get a lock on multiple towers reliably such that the chip puts my "center" location as the actual location of the tower with an accuracy rating of 2000 meters. This is what Pixelpop is mentioning above about accuracy.
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You're correct that aGPS doesn't go through Google. It's presumably handled by the radio and Android is never aware of it at all.
Cell tower location/triangulation is different however. The OP is correct that it does go through Google, as the US CDMA carriers are totally unwilling to allow outside access to this information like GSM carriers do. Google built and maintains their own database of tower info, and that is what populates your rough location in Android. It is not aGPS data from Sprint's servers that is allowing that.
You want a hack? Well use the last known position, if it's historical then post a message "wtf turn on location services, if you want picture phone to work".
The app may not work but it won't crash as it has a location. More so it blames the user. lol
Post a little line to the location service enable semaphore, "who turned off the lights?"
You can get location assisted position from Wi-Max just like you can get it off Wi-Fi. As far as I know there is no app to disable Mobile Network Location on demand. If your having issues with it than users are going in and disabling it by hand through the settings. The problem probably is that 90% of the know it all bloggers advise to disable network position because they think it does something for battery life.
I'm also willing to bet good money that Google is handling the network location. Why else would they have a location server(supl.google.com). Only to let Nokia users use it?
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I've noticed that there are areas where the GPS doesn't work, even outside with no sky obstacles. One of them is on 113 st. between Broadway and Amsterdam avenue (NYC), right next to a building tagged "Cell Motion Laboratories." I've been there twice since I have EVO and the GPS is off like 10 buildings when I'm in the building next door. From outside, it just looks like any other Columbia University residence.
(Yes, my location settings were enabled and GPS was on).
ZIP 10027.
I just searched that lab, and it has nothing to do with cellphones, but with real cells (biological lab for kids, I think).
bedoig said:
You're correct that aGPS doesn't go through Google. It's presumably handled by the radio and Android is never aware of it at all.
Cell tower location/triangulation is different however. The OP is correct that it does go through Google, as the US CDMA carriers are totally unwilling to allow outside access to this information like GSM carriers do. Google built and maintains their own database of tower info, and that is what populates your rough location in Android. It is not aGPS data from Sprint's servers that is allowing that.
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What you are talking about for triangulation is software level functionality part of Google Maps and Google Maps only and yes it contacts their servers to try and guess where you are. Google does build out their own "database of tower info" just like they collect all sorts of other statistical information (you agree to this when you turn on location services), but part of the aGPS standard is that every cell phone tower, GSM or CDMA, transmits its coordinates to your handset.
What I'm talking about is all strictly in the hardware, but perhaps the word "triangulation" was the incorrect choice of word when talking about aGPS, however it is similar... The aGPS functionality in our phones is tightly integrated into the radio chip (Qualcomm RTR6500 CDMA2000) and this chip does not need to contact Google or Sprint to determine your rough location from a tower (turn off all internet access and you'll see what I mean). It can contact Sprints servers through the network (when it is able) to further plot your location based on the data transmitted to/from the aGPS server.
When you first use the EVO, there is a screen that asks if you want to share anonymous location data. That setting is also tied to network-based location services. That is, if you disable anonymous location sharing, it also disables NBLS entirely. You can thank either Google or HTC (not sure which) for their greed on that one.
I just checked and mine was set to off. not sure what sets it to that as I never touch that setting.
Just adding my 2 cents.
I'm currently travelling abroad and I'm therfore on roaming with data traffic disabled. I experience that the GPS is unable to find my position under these conditions and remains on the last known position (or it might take even longer than the few minutes i was willing to wait).
Whereas with data enabled or wifi i get a really fast lock.
Can anyone confirm this behaviour. Imho it should also be possible to get a lock (although slower) without any data connection. At least this is the way it works on my ios devices. It might take a minute or two but it works.
Any thoughts/experiences on this?
Some_One_Else said:
I'm currently travelling abroad and I'm therfore on roaming with data traffic disabled. I experience that the GPS is unable to find my position under these conditions and remains on the last known position (or it might take even longer than the few minutes i was willing to wait).
Whereas with data enabled or wifi i get a really fast lock.
Can anyone confirm this behaviour. Imho it should also be possible to get a lock (although slower) without any data connection. At least this is the way it works on my ios devices. It might take a minute or two but it works.
Any thoughts/experiences on this?
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If the phone's been moved a dramatic amount of distance, the GPS almanac data will be really off. The data/wifi connection helps it locate your position and give the map a hand in finding you.
If you can get data somehow, you can try getting the "GPS Status and Toolbox" app from the Market, and then one of the menu options, perhaps advanced, is to download the GPS almanac data. That should give you quicker locks.
distortedloop said:
If the phone's been moved a dramatic amount of distance, the GPS almanac data will be really off.
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It was only a few hundred meters from the last known position. That's why I'm a little bit concerned?
Thanks for the tool tip will definately have a look at it.
Some_One_Else said:
It was only a few hundred meters from the last known position. That's why I'm a little bit concerned?
Thanks for the tool tip will definately have a look at it.
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Oh, yeah, that sounds like a problem. Even several miles shouldn't make that big a difference.
go to starbucks or some restaurant/bar/cafe with free WiFi
then use the phone there, and turn on GPS to get it updated
I was experimenting a little bit today and it seems to me that this is primarily a google maps problem.
It seems that google maps falls back to the last known position if you have no gps fix. For a strange reason however this last known position is not neccesarily the effective last known position but the last position when I had used google maps with an active internet connection position (which makes no sense imho).
This does not happen always and as long as you have an active data connection you will probably not run into this issue.
Some_One_Else said:
I was experimenting a little bit today and it seems to me that this is primarily a google maps problem.
It seems that google maps falls back to the last known position if you have no gps fix. For a strange reason however this last known position is not neccesarily the effective last known position but the last position when I had used google maps with an active internet connection position (which makes no sense imho).
This does not happen always and as long as you have an active data connection you will probably not run into this issue.
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Click to collapse
That makes some sense, since Google Maps relies on WiFi for it's initial fix if you have the enhanced location settings checked on.
Not really, does it? Example:
Pos1: wifi, hotel no GPS
Pos2: showing Pos1, after GPS fix showing correct position
Pos3: showing Pos1 (i would expect Pos2 now) after GPS fix showing correct position
Pos4: showing Pos1 again, whe no GPS fix
i would expect it to always show Pos(n-1) when there's no GPS fix and not always again Pos1. This is the way it works on ios devices which i think is correct.
Further i noticed that the blue circle (that should br really big if position is uncertain) does not grow respectively reflect this uncertainty by its size.
Therfore i guess: --> Defect in google maps 5.0?
Some_One_Else said:
Not really, does it? Example:
Pos1: wifi, hotel no GPS
Pos2: showing Pos1, after GPS fix showing correct position
Pos3: showing Pos1 (i would expect Pos2 now) after GPS fix showing correct position
Pos4: showing Pos1 again, whe no GPS fix
i would expect it to always show Pos(n-1) when there's no GPS fix and not always again Pos1. This is the way it works on ios devices which i think is correct.
Further i noticed that the blue circle (that should br really big if position is uncertain) does not grow respectively reflect this uncertainty by its size.
Therfore i guess: --> Defect in google maps 5.0?
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Click to collapse
I just checked on mine to confirm, but for me I recall Google Maps ALWAYS opens to the last position I was on with the app open, not my current position. It's cached for sure. Even with WiFi off just now, it opened to that, but within under a minute it jumped to my actual position via the actual GPS.
Hey everyone,
I'm experiencing a couple minor issues with my MyTouch 4G Slide and wanted to see if anyone had any input.
First is the weather location... when I am at work my phone's weather location always gets all weird. It happened with my G2 (before this phone) as well. On the G2, it would show my location as in Japan. With the MT4GS, it shows as Denver CO. It updates when I leave the building, but it is still frustrating for numerous reasons. First, the time on my phone switches to Denver's time zone while at work. It throws me off whenever I look at my phone. Also, after I leave and the location updates, it doesn't update the time zone. I have to go to Settings -> Date and Time, and uncheck and recheck 'Automatic' for it to switch back to the correct time zone. Finally, while Maps will read my location just fine, other location-based apps seem to be thrown off as well.
One other question is about the hardware keyboard. I have Prediction turned on in settings but it never works. It's nice with the hardware keyboard because I can skip the alt+ keypresses for punctuation and it inserts automatically, and it will capitalize I, etc. If I'm not mistaken, this hasn't worked since the recent HTC update that moved us to Google Play Store.
If anyone has fixes and/or other info about these issues, I'd appreciate your input! Thanks so much.
Are you connecting to your work's wi-fi automatically when you are there? It could be that the location information (which would affect weather and time) is using your IP address info. I know when I connect to my wi-fi at home, it will alter my location to a nearby suburb.
Fuzi0719 said:
Are you connecting to your work's wi-fi automatically when you are there? It could be that the location information (which would affect weather and time) is using your IP address info. I know when I connect to my wi-fi at home, it will alter my location to a nearby suburb.
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Click to collapse
I wish! Our WiFi doesn't even show up on my phone... they must have the SSID hidden. I think it's because the building is older, and it must have lots of concrete or something because radios, cell phones, etc don't work well in here. Mine only works because my desk is right by the main entry door and a few windows. I'm assuming that the GPS signal could get thrown off by that as well. I'm just hoping since Maps can locate me that maybe I could fix the rest of the location-based services.
retrokick said:
I wish! Our WiFi doesn't even show up on my phone... they must have the SSID hidden. I think it's because the building is older, and it must have lots of concrete or something because radios, cell phones, etc don't work well in here. Mine only works because my desk is right by the main entry door and a few windows. I'm assuming that the GPS signal could get thrown off by that as well. I'm just hoping since Maps can locate me that maybe I could fix the rest of the location-based services.
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Click to collapse
It may not even be getting a GPS signal, instead relying upon the location data of the celltower you're linked with. I've seen the location info being off by neighborhoods, but not to the extreme you've mentioned.
Uncheck the automatic update, then it will stay in the right timezone.
Also, I use swiftkey x, it has the best word prediction, and works great with the hardware keyboard.
yellowjacket1981 said:
Uncheck the automatic update, then it will stay in the right timezone.
Also, I use swiftkey x, it has the best word prediction, and works great with the hardware keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the recommendation! The app is downloading now and I'm already excited because of the amazing reviews it got. I'm sure I'll love it. I was hesitant to uncheck the automatic setting because I want it to sync the time... but now that I think about it, once the time is set from the network... why would it need to sync? Unless I do a battery pull or something.
Hey guys.
So I have a friend that says he can receive Weather on his Samsung Galaxy phone using GPS Only and that all phones should be able to. I have searched Google and Bing and everywhere and can't find anything... All I can find is apps that basically download the forecast when you are connected to the internet but Oklahoma weather is always changing and that doesnt work.
Anyone know of a way to do this?
Being part of a Scout troop, we go on camp-outs a lot and in fact just got back from one last night. Nobody had service the entire time as we were about 15+ miles from a nearby cell tower, campsite was down in the valley area, and was touring around between caves.
The only thing that bothers me with this, is you need data to download (& update the current) forecast from the weather service provider the app uses. Sure, some apps need GPS only..such as a mapping app or a compass that shows your coordinates along with the heading.
What is the name of the app your friend has? Maybe the app uses the barometric sensor to (sort of) predict the coming weather? My Galaxy Note 3 has that sensor to show air pressure. Changing air pressures are a good start to predicting the weather, so maybe this is it??
I have no clue.
You need data. Some map apps work with GPS only, but that's only because the maps have been downloaded before hand. GPS can tell you where you are, but not where you are, if you get my meaning. A weather app, whether it needs maps or simply just receives bulletins, needs data. In some areas you might be able to receive alerts through your phone (including Amber alerts and presidential stuff) without data, if you're still with in range of telephony signal. But that's not the same.
Your friend is either mistaken of full of crap (I'd lean toward mistaken - I can't see why anyone would deliberately lie about that). I think your best bet would be to take an emergency AM/FM/NOAA radio with you. I believe the Boy Scouts have a motto this sort of thing.
Last week my employer began using isolved time tracker for our work group. We began using it on 9-21-15. On 9-30-15, it was brought to my attention that my 'punches' were being logged from non-work locations. I believe there is a flaw or defect in the mobile software but I'll forward those questions to the software company. One thing I was able to find in my defense was the Google location log on my phone. I know that these items can be edited. I'm afraid that the edit factor may not allow this log to help my case but it does bring some other questions into play. Im hoping someone here with a higher level of knowledge in the field can educate me.
First question-
My location setting is always on and the location method is set to wifi and networks. I do NOT use the GPS option. How does my phone plot my locations? For example, it shows me at my home address at 6:53 am and then my work address at 7:27 am. I assume it's going off my home wifi connection and then my work wifi once I arrive and connect. I also notice it will show a time of 7:27-8:59 at my office, and once I arrive at another work location (and I would assume), connect to work wifi, the next location appears in my location log at that particular time. So, if Im at building B from 11:15 until 1:50, my location will show 'building B 11:15 am - 1:50 pm.' Not to sound redundant but, does the phone/location log know this because of the wifi connection?
What I am concerned most with is, all of my punch-ins for work are showing they were done from my home. I'm hoping to find a rock-solid way to orove that I was in fact at work when I was supposed to be. Would Sprint have any way of showing my locations at various times without me making any calls, sending any texts, or using any data? Do their towers have a constant lock on me and is there a log the can provide?
Thank you for reading through this long winded message. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I would greatly appreciate any help, advice, or ideas. Many, MANY, thanks in advance.
Mike~
hebejebe said:
Last week my employer began using isolved time tracker for our work group. We began using it on 9-21-15. On 9-30-15, it was brought to my attention that my 'punches' were being logged from non-work locations. I believe there is a flaw or defect in the mobile software but I'll forward those questions to the software company. One thing I was able to find in my defense was the Google location log on my phone. I know that these items can be edited. I'm afraid that the edit factor may not allow this log to help my case but it does bring some other questions into play. Im hoping someone here with a higher level of knowledge in the field can educate me.
First question-
My location setting is always on and the location method is set to wifi and networks. I do NOT use the GPS option. How does my phone plot my locations? For example, it shows me at my home address at 6:53 am and then my work address at 7:27 am. I assume it's going off my home wifi connection and then my work wifi once I arrive and connect. I also notice it will show a time of 7:27-8:59 at my office, and once I arrive at another work location (and I would assume), connect to work wifi, the next location appears in my location log at that particular time. So, if Im at building B from 11:15 until 1:50, my location will show 'building B 11:15 am - 1:50 pm.' Not to sound redundant but, does the phone/location log know this because of the wifi connection?
What I am concerned most with is, all of my punch-ins for work are showing they were done from my home. I'm hoping to find a rock-solid way to orove that I was in fact at work when I was supposed to be. Would Sprint have any way of showing my locations at various times without me making any calls, sending any texts, or using any data? Do their towers have a constant lock on me and is there a log the can provide?
Thank you for reading through this long winded message. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I would greatly appreciate any help, advice, or ideas. Many, MANY, thanks in advance.
Mike~
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If you were on location and your device connected to your work WiFi, your IT/IS Department should have logs of that connection, they may need your MAC address to verify, but that should be proof enough.