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I'm trying out Geolocation API with HTML5 and it seems the results are more accurate than it reports:

  • geolocation.coords.latitude shows ~correct latitude
  • geolocation.coords.longitude shows ~correct longitude
  • geolocation.address.street + geolocation.address.streetNumber even shows the correct address.

However, the geolocation.coords.accuracy returns 18000 (meters), although the results are 1000× more accurate.

I'm not using any real positioning sensors, such as GPS, and currently testing the API on a desktop browser. I believe should there be a positioning sensor onboard, the accuracy value would be what the positioning sensor reports. But — what defines the positioning accuracy when no positioning sensors are involved? Is it merely a lucky guess by the browser? ("Better be sure than sorry?")

Is there a spec or a draft I could look into?

Jari Keinänen
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1 Answers1

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I think they give you 18,000 when you only submit one wifi_tower to thwart abuse. When you give it a list it returns smaller values, like 90. So, just knowing one AP is not enough, you have to know the environment.

User Agent might have something to do with it too.

towolf
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