I haven’t done anything (that I recall) to set the accuracy of my geotagging on my iPhone, and my photos have an accuracy of 5m. My friend’s photos with her Galaxy Andriod phone are 25m.
If you just go in and add your own location using a name, such as Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park, you start with a wider range that you can change manually. I try to shrink those down, but often I can’t accurately get finer resolution. One observation from my camera, which doesn’t geotag, has an area of 145.96km, probably because I used a fairly unzoomed map image.
Just to add a comment on the scale of the problem of missing accuracy values, this from user @mikeburrell appeared on another thread:
It would be good to know if there are automated solutions to this problem, that would ensure that accuracy values are always captured, at least when they are present in EXIF data. This is not always happening.
When users add GPS coordinates manually, perhaps there could be a prompt the first time they do so without adding accuracy, which could be dismissed from then on.
I would also like to see an indicator when taking photos with the app, maybe an unobtrusive symbol that would indicate when the accuracy has reached a “good” value (less than 20 m?) or is very poor (more than 500 m?) - that could be a red-amber-green symbol or maybe even just the accuracy value itself in numbers.
Finally, if adding or taking a series of photos, could the app choose the location with the best accuracy value, by default, instead of, as it seems to do at present, only taking coordinates from the first image?
one thing I will say is that if we somehow import precision data we need to make sure it’s correct. No precision data is not ideal by any means, but it’s better than wrong precision data… especially if it implies more certainty than exists.
I carry a handheld GPS when I use my phone for observations, and then check and correct any locations stated by my phone.
I recently made 14 observations along a relatively straight line with a forest on one side and open space on the other, a distance of a little over 300 meters.
Some of the observations were not in the area I was in. Generally when the location is wrong, the accuracy is rather large.
My cell phones location was significantly off for six of the observations. The stated accuracy by the cell phone of these observations was from 34 meters to 1.4 km.
After comparing the actual distance they were off, my cell phones location for the six observations was on average 4.6 times what the actual error was.
I’m dealing with the problem of huge “accuracy” numbers pushing observations out of my project area. My choices seem to be to chase down everyone whose observations slipped out and ask them to manually change their location or create a buffer zone of nearly a kilometer to make sure those observations make it in. It’s very frustrating. My project is the kind that catches any observations in a given area (city park in this case).
For anyone experiencing these issues, it would be helpful to know:
if you are importing photos taken with your cell phone or taking photos within the iNaturalist app. If you open the phone’s camera app and quickly snap a photo, it might not have time to register any location, or to register a decently accurate location. There isn’t anything we can do about that.
whether you’re using an iPhone or an Android phone. If the latter, do you have “high accuracy” turned on for location in the phone’s settings?
if you’re in the field, does Google/Apple Maps display the same current location as iNaturalist? Theoretically the apps should be receiving the same location data from the device.
I respectfully disagree - if the app showed some indication of precision when an observation is being made, it would likely help people to wait a moment for a better fix and take pictures with better locational accuracy. This would save having to switch back and forth with a mapping app, which most people probably don’t know is an option and don’t have the patience to do.
No, it doesn’t. You only see the accuracy after the observation is made. I didn’t realise the Android app shows this. Hopefully this feature will get rolled out to iOS too!
The iNat iphone app does show accuracy right under the location name, to the right of the little pin icon. You can look at that number and watch it shrink to 5 or 10 meters in most cases. Or if you have cell service you can click that area and look at the air photo and make sure the location is right.
I’ve personally found that my iPhone gets a location more precisely and quickly than a Samsung phone I use for work, though the difference is less than it used to be for some reason.
@jdmore I can see how you might be frustrated with large location accuracy but I also believe it also deals with make and model of a smartphone. I got a new phone about two months back and I have to click the ‘locations’ setting on observation to get a more accurate location because it will only give the town/city I’m closest to with a 3000+ meter accuracy. And this is with the ‘GPS’ on. And I’ve never had that problem with any other smart device. So my personal belief is, this is a phone problem not an app problem.
Yeah, to make sure you are getting full advantage of the 5-10 meter GPS accuracy, you also have to turn off cell service by putting it in airplane mode. Otherwise your accuracy may be coming from cell tower triangulation instead of pure GPS.
Along with that, change the app settings to turn off auto-sync, and sync manually once you have observations ready to upload and have good wi-fi (or turn on cell service again).
No it doesn’t work with airplane mode. I’ve done iNat when I’ve had no service days left and the location inaccuracy was ridiculous. And I also doublechecked your suggest to make sure I’m not missing anything. When cell service on, I was able to get a 10 meter accuracy around my home and it’s usually pretty good at that but if I’m out in my field by my property, it will stilll be 10 meter accuracy but it will be over my building, not my property. And when I set it to airplane mode, I get a 2100 meter accuracy around my town center. So once again, I state that it’s a phone problem.
You very well may be right. In addition to airplane mode, do you have a GPS app that you can turn on and run in the background, to make sure the GPS is always being engaged? For android I use one called GPS Status, but don’t know if that is available for iOS. Or some people like to use Google Maps for that purpose.
No matter what datum you are using, the Google map will be a little different. The amount varies across the globe because they use a “modified” version of WGS84.
I don’t think I explained very well what I meant. The app shows an accuracy value after a photo is taken, yes. However, this is often too late, in my experience, to improve it. I would like to see an indicator when the app is in Observe mode - in other words, while taking the photo. At that point, if there is still a large circle of inaccuracy (and if the species is immobile, such as a plant) I can wait a little longer for the accuracy to improve. Otherwise, one needs to discard the observation and start again from scratch. Most people won’t care enough about precision to do that.
This only seems to happen within a few seconds after making an observation. In an area with dense forest cover, for example, that’s often not long enough to get a good GPS fix, so the number stays much higher.
Another possible solution to this would be an option to have location services as “always on” so the app can get more accurate locations even when it is in the background. My only options appear to be “while using” and “off”.