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My Travel Tracker doesn't track or is inaccurate

There are various reasons why your Travel Tracker could be inaccurate or not tracking at all. This article provides tips to fix this.

Please know that the Travel Tracker is only available when using our mobile app, not when using our website.

In this article:

How to improve tracking accuracy

The following tips can help improve the quality of tracking, however, they are not required to make the Travel Tracker work!

  • Please update to the latest version of our app
  • Check if your device has cellular reception
  • Connect to WiFi
  • When you're indoors, move to a window
  • Keep your battery level above 20%
  • On iPhones:
    • Disable the 'Do not disturb' mode 
    • Disable the 'Airplane' mode 
  • On Android phones:
    • Disable 'Battery saver' or 'Power saving' mode
    • Disable the 'Airplane' mode 
    • In your phone settings, find the 'Optimize battery usage' section and deselect Polarsteps
    • In your Trip settings, switch your Travel Tracker mode to 'High Accuracy'. Read more about this here How does the Travel Tracker work? Does it use GPS?

Pro Tip: If you turn on a navigation app, such as Google Maps, and use navigation in the background of your device, then Polarsteps can also use these GPS locations to track your route more accurately.

What to do when Polarsteps is not tracking at all

If your Travel Tracker is not working at all, please check out the following suggestions to get it up and running.

  • Make sure that the Travel Tracker is enabled in your Trip settings
    • Open your trip > Open the Trip Menu (☰) > Go to 'Trip settings' -> Enable the 'Travel Tracker'
  • Please update to the latest version of our app
  • Turn your device off & on
  • Turn your location services off & on
  • Turn your phone's location services off & on
    • On iPhone: Open your phone settings > Go to 'Privacy' > Enable 'Location Services'
    • On Android: Open your phone settings > Go to 'Location' > Enable 'Location Services'
  • Check if the Polarsteps app has location access
    • On iPhone: Open your phone settings > Go to 'Apps' > 'Polarsteps' > 'Location' > Set it to 'Always'
    • On Android: Open your phone settings > Go to 'Apps' > 'Polarsteps' > 'Permissions' > Toggle permission to 'On'
  • Make sure you are not logged in to the app on multiple devices at the same time. Check out our article on this here.
  • Check if other apps can determine your location (e.g. Google Maps)
    • If other apps have an issue with finding you, then maybe it's an issue with your device.
  • If none of the solutions above work, you could try to fully reinstall the app. To ensure that none of your data is lost, please make sure to perform a successful synchronization before you reinstall. You can initiate synchronization by going into your settings in the app and clicking the 'Sync now' button.