The tunnels are no longer a problem to accurately determine our location. At least, for Android users. We tell you all the details.
Tunnels have always been one of the great challenges for Google Maps. When we pass by them with our vehicle, determine our position can be especially complex. Even more so if we find ourselves under a tunnel of several kilometers length. Browsers, aware of this situation, have been exploring all the options that allow minimizing the margin of error in this type of situation. And Google Maps has decided to use a method that we could already use it in Waze long ago: Bluetooth beacons.
If we activate the setting from the menu that we are going to detail below, the Google browser will be able to determine our precision accurately, even if it is not capable of detecting any satellite close to us. Although, yes, with certain limitations.
Bluetooth beacons
Until now, when We were traveling through a tunnel of several kilometersGoogle Maps tried to guess our position by calculating both our average speed and the maximum speed allowed in the tunnel. This was the reason why it is possible that on some journey we have seen how the location losses that were so common in the past no longer occur. However, we have also been able to witness the situation when we left the tunnel: in many cases our exact position had to be recalculated again.
Now, if the tunnels have beacons installed with Bluetooth technology, we will be able to configure our Google Maps so that you can determine your position based on them. This function is currently only available for Android users. Activating it is very simple: we must go to the Google Maps settings and then access “Navigation settings”. Within this category, we will find the “Bluetooth tunnel beacons” option. Serial, This functionality is disabled, despite how useful it is, so we are only going to have to enable it in order to take advantage of this possibility.
Available to all users
As reported by 9to5Google, the possibility of determining our position based on the beacons installed in the tunnels arrived last October, although in a very limited number of users until the operation and acceptance it was going to have were verified. It has not been until now when The test has been extended to a larger group of devices and now most users can use it. In the event that we do not find this configuration menu in our Google Maps account, we must make sure that we have the updated version of the app, which we can check by checking the pending updates in our application store.
Although for Google Maps is new, Users who usually use the Waze app to travel by road have been able to enjoy it for quite some time. Now, it remains to be seen how having this function enabled by default can affect the autonomy of our device and whether the routes we usually take through tunnels have beacons installed.
