Android: requestLocationUpdates updates location at most every 45 seconds

Question

Background

I am writing an Android app whose main function is tracking the user\'s location and making an alert when the user gets near some point. Therefore I nee

Answer 1

I was having a similar issue. I put a call to locationManager.requestSingleUpdate() at the end of onLocationChanged() and it forced back to back updates. You could set a delay command then execute requestSingleUpdate, making sure to register the containing locationListener.

I was trying to create a GPS clock but the updates were inconsistent updating anywhere from 1-5 seconds or so. but it might work for another application.

Answer 2

You are completely right, the minimum time 45 seconds is harcoded in Android.

This seems to be a NetworkLocationProvider class source code, when it was still in Android core:

http://www.netmite.com/android/mydroid/frameworks/base/location/java/com/android/internal/location/NetworkLocationProvider.java

Look at the variable:

private static final long MIN_TIME_BETWEEN_WIFI_REPORTS = 45 * 1000; // 45 seconds

And the method:

@Override
public void setMinTime(long minTime) {
    if (minTime < MIN_TIME_BETWEEN_WIFI_REPORTS) {
        mWifiScanFrequency = MIN_TIME_BETWEEN_WIFI_REPORTS;
    } else {
        mWifiScanFrequency = minTime;
    }
    super.setMinTime(minTime);
}

Now NetworkLocationProvider is out of the Android core, you can find it in NetworkLocation.apk in /system/app

You can find an explanation of why is out of the core here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/android-platform/10Yr0r2myGA

But 45 seconds min time seems to still be there. Look at this NetworkProvider decompilation:

http://android.fjfalcon.com/xt720/miui-trans/apk-decompiled/NetworkLocation/smali/com/google/android/location/NetworkLocationProvider.smali

.line 149
const-wide/32 v4, 0xafc8

iput-wide v4, p0, Lcom/google/android/location/NetworkLocationProvider;->mWifiScanFrequency:J

As you might guess if you convert 0xafc8 to decimal you get 45000 milliseconds

I haven't found an explanation of why 45 seconds. I suppose there will be reasons like avoiding service overloading or other uses they don't want.

In fact, there is a 100 request courtesy limit to Geolocation API:

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/business/geolocation/#usage_limits

But they don't seem to respect this rule in Google Maps app. If you open it and you only active network location you can notice that yout location is updated much more frequently than 45 seconds.

I noticed this line suspiciously frequent (33 times a second) in logcat when Google Maps is open:

02-20 17:12:08.204: V/LocationManagerService(1733): getAllProviders

I guess Google Maps is also calling removeUpdates() and requestLocationUpdates() again to obtain a new position.

So I think there is no fix and this is the best you can do if you want to get network locations over one in 45 seconds.

Answer 3

You can set the minTime to any value. However, you will only get an update once a new location is available. The network only updates every 45 sec or so on every phone I own. This seems to be a limitation of the Network Provider. If you want more frequent updates use the GPS provider. Depending on the GPS hardware you should get a maximum update rate around 4Hz.