Location

[DanDroid]

Simply put, where is the device receiving this information from?

A. HTC's Weather Service?

B. Location --> "Use Wireless Networks" (and if so, which networks are we talking about? Sprint's Towers? Google's "location based"? or a combination of both?

C. Location --> "Enable GPS Satellites" (When enabled - does this take over if "Use Wireless Networks" is off / on?)


The problem I'm having is that it's reporting the incorrect city. I don't live in "Eastlake", I live in "Willowick". I've done everything I can think of including factory reset, battery pull, ran the RUU back to original firmware, nothing seems to correct this problem.

I've installed various weather widgets, most of them also report "Eastlake" with the exception of "iMap Weather", it correctly reported my location as "Willowick".

The one thing I have noticed, using my desktop browser at home, if I go to google maps and key in my address, it is reporting "Eastlake" as my city, when clearly on the map it should be "Willowick". Is this a problem with google's map service? And.. for the peeps that are gonna say, "look outside for your weather".. it's not about the weather, it's about the location being wrong..

Oh and HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

 

[timlitw]

What is the name of the township you live in? Here in Kansas it reports townships and with the cell low tower density it can be up to 12 miles off - not that 12 miles makes much difference in general weather.

 

[ToxicToastKatz]

i'd like to know as well. Typically, it takes FOREVER for mine to update. I can be in one town for a few hours and it will still say that I'm in my hometown. Other times, it updates pretty rapidly. weird.

 

[kennyidaho]

Are the two cities close by? In my area we have Idaho Falls, but there are several small towns that are nudged up right against Idaho Falls...Ammon, Iona, Ucon. To top this off there is a lot of unincorporated areas. Historically this whole area is just called Idaho Falls and most location services will report as being in Idaho Falls even though technically you maybe in another city.

Ammon however is getting larger and it's starting to pop up in location searches. My HTC device reports me being in Ammon, but I am several miles away from it and live in just the county.

Another thing is zip codes. My zip code is listed by the postal service as an Idaho Falls zip code but the vast majority of it is outside of the actual city of Idaho Falls. So perhaps your zip code is technically a Eastlake zip.

 

[jimdroid]

I usually know what the weather is where I'm at

I deleted that huge HTC clock/weather app and my phone has been much much happier ever since.

 

[tatonka_Hero]

Where I'm at, I pick up 6 or 7 different cities on the stock weather app. It's weird, because using the "cellfinder" app, I'm always picking up the same tower, regardless of what location my weather's being reported from.

 

[LLWesMan]

I changed clocks because I was constantly annoyed by having the wrong city especially when I was in my house.

 

[tatonka_Hero]

to be honest, I think it's got something to do with the weather stations in the area. For example, I know where most of the weather stations are around here, and I assume they send the info to a tower nearby. At times, I would imagine the weather station can go down, causing you to receive the info from another weather station, and that's why it reads a different city.

It also depends on what tower you're receiving your phone signal from. For example, I usually pick up my little bit of a signal from a tower about 8 miles away (direct line) and on top of a hill. Sometimes I'll pick up a different tower in the complete opposite direction from my house, and my weather location will be that direction. Oddly enough, when I pick up my usual tower, the weather is from a location on the other side of my house from the tower, and I haven't really figured that one out yet. Other times, a little farther down the road, I'll pick up a tower that's across the river, 12+ miles away, and my weather will report the city the tower's in (which is in a different state even).

So I think tower location has just about everything to do with what city your weather is reporting.

 

[PGR]

I deleted that huge HTC clock/weather app and my phone has been much much happier ever since.

The phone has, or you have?

Pete

 

[DanDroid]

Thanks for all of the replies. During more research I found that by turning off "Use Wireless Networks" and turning on GPS, the HTC Weather Clock never updates with location information. So it definately uses tower / antenna info for weather / location information. I guess the real question is, where does that information come from? Is it based on where the tower / antenna is physically located, or is it pulling information on the registered owner of said tower / antenna?

Again, for me this is really not about the weather. My quest on this is based on location accuracy. The maps / data I gathered below cleary show the tower / antenna my device is connected to is in Willowick, not Eastlake. I guess my main gripe is who is responsible for keeping this information accurate, and updated?

 

[kennyidaho]

In a nut shell the phone gets it's location information like this:

Step 1:
Detects which tower it's using.
Detects WiFi nodes
Obtains Latitude and Longitude via GPS.
Or uses a combination of these three.

Step 2:
Feeds that information to a location server

Step 3:
Location Server using multiple databases feeds back info like Eastlake, New York, Miami.

Weather Part:

Step 1:
Phone sends request to weather info provider requesting the weather info for location obtained from previous steps.

Step 2:
Weather provider checks location information against it's database and sends weather information for that area or closest area that weather is recorded for.

Step 3:
Phone displays it to you.

Now about that information - there is multiple sources of information.

If it's using WiFi then it probably using whatever information is in that database. If people went out and mapped wifi nodes instead of inputting every little city they just put Eastlake, as in the Eastlake area. Maybe they did this because they where lazy, maybe because the zip code the node resided in was an Eastlake zip code.

Maybe if it's pulling tower information the tower is just listed as an Eastlake tower because that's what the company decided to do instead of having a giant list of every little city surrounding Eastlake(Willowick, Lakeline, Timberlake, and so on) Maybe they did this because it was just easier to refer to the whole area as the Eastlake AREA. Maybe they did this because the zip code belonged to Eastlake.

if it's using GPS it probably uses whatever information is listed in that database.

A quick google search for Willowick, Ohio zip codes comes up with three of them:

44092
44094
44095

Quick google search on those 3 zip codes show that not a single one is actually a Willowick zip. In fact the only zip code the USPS claims is acceptable to use for Willowick is 44095 which is actually a Eastlake zip code. Even further the Easlake zip of 44095 is the only zip that USPS lists as acceptable for LakeLine, Timberlake, Eastlake, Willoughby, and Willowick.
So by USPS standards it seems the area you are in is the Eastlake area. So like I had mentioned previously perhaps companies and organizations just list everything as Eastlake. I am sure I don't need to tell you what the zip code of that Building Department.....

Cross check all these zips in accuweather.com and not a single one of them will pop up as Willowick.

Anyways I feel like a resident of the Eastlake area now to bad I am over about 2000 miles away.

 

[DanDroid]

Welcome to Eastlake!

Thanks for info on how the device gathers data.

I too went and looked up zip codes and found the same results as you. I can understand the fact of a "generalized area", but I woud not expect to see that type of grouping in a well populated area.

Strangley enough, last night after the wife and I went out for movie night, I drove through each surrounding city and even a village. Oddly enough, each location changed on the device as I made my way though.

City
Willoughby - Device Changed
Wickliffe - Device Changed
TimberLake (which is a village) - Device Changed
Eastlake - Of course

Yet not once did it ever read "Willowick". It's almost like the city doesn't exist. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I expect to much from so called smartphones. I'm in quality assurance. I test software changes. I test for accuracy / bugs / glitches. I can't afford to be "lazy" in my position. So if indeed they generalized the "EastLake" area for the sake of not having to report every tiny town, shame on them.

 

[Chief7]

I was wondering the same thing in my limited (24 hours now! ) experience and noticed that it was posting Palmetto as my location while I am north of the Manatee River IN Bradenton. A quick review of the previous post and allowing "Use Wireless Networks" and I came home. I'll monitor it for a few days and see how much it changes. Great post everyone!

 

[Sorce]

My mom's hero was having a problem like this. I managed to fix it by removing all entries for times and all entries for weather locations. Then turned off the GPS and Cell tower location things, turned off the cell network connection then turned them all back on.

 

[chfields]

You can edit the location in the widget. I did that with mine as it would say Orlando, when in fact it was Longwood. I just went in and changed it and had no problem since.