[Solved] Compass App unreliable? How to do a compass callibration? #1874
Replies: 27 comments
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Posted at 2020-03-24 by MrTomErdnuss Unfortunately for me it's exactly the same. Besides the non-functioning loudspeaker, the compass does not work at all or only shows something randomly. That the loudspeaker does not work was already announced by mail, but what is wrong with the compass? |
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Posted at 2020-03-24 by @gfwilliams The compass should just need calibrating. At the moment it doesn't store the calibration so needs it each time you start the compass app, but it's as easy as just turning around in a complete circle. The compass app also expects to work like a 'real' compass - so with the watch face parallel to the ground rather than perpendicular. Does that help? |
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Posted at 2020-03-24 by MrTomErdnuss Unfortunately, that doesn't help. I turned the clock around the X, Y and Z axis and also in a circle without rotation but nothing helps. The compass still seems very random. |
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Posted at 2020-03-24 by DerGuteWolf Hi Gordon, |
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Posted at 2020-04-07 by user111163 I have the same problem, the compass points in one direction, if I turn with it, the compass needle moves as well. I have also tried a calibration as described here, but without any change. Has something improved with you? |
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Posted at 2020-04-08 by Fram Hi there ! |
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Posted at 2020-04-08 by @yerpj It could be another electrical component inside the watch that generates a disturbing magnetic field ? |
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Posted at 2020-04-08 by @gfwilliams Maybe you could look at the raw data if you connect with the IDE and do:
The absolute values look quite small, and maybe there's something that could be done to improve sensitivity - but when I look at the values I can see them changing pretty repeatably in response to the orientation of the watch, so I guess it's possible that there's something wrong with the code that works out the heading from that data? |
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Posted at 2020-04-09 by user111163 I have no idea how to determine the direction from the three absolute values, but these values seem plausible to me (I rotated the clock around an axis, one value remained almost constant and the other values increased or decreased, just as I would have expected when rotating around an axis). If I orientate the clock to north, I get (I thought correctly) the 0 for heading, unfortunately I get the same value for an orientation approximately to south. I do not understand the values of heading at all. Since they change reproducibly in the same way, I also assume that the calculation of heading is wrong. Maybe someone else can confirm this (?) |
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Posted at 2020-04-10 by @allObjects With the basic sport software installed, calibrating the compass was done by moving the watch in a horizontal figure 8 path... keeping the watch face level was not that important... it was more like you would fly an figure 8. I used it with Espruino compass app loaded and it worked as well pretty accurate. |
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Posted at 2020-04-16 by user111163 I had also tried the 8, but unfortunately without any effect. So then probably a hardware problem after all? Is there a way to find out? |
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Posted at 2020-04-17 by @gfwilliams Ok, I just found the issue. It's just a software problem. Basically the calibration range was reset to 0, so if the magnetometer didn't have much of an offset and the values for north and south lay either side of 0 (as somehow happened on my development watches) then it's fine. If you update the Bangle.js interpreter firmware to a firmware from http://www.espruino.com/binaries/travis/master/ then it'll be fixed! |
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Posted at 2020-04-17 by Purple-Tentacle Do I have to update the compass app? |
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Posted at 2020-04-17 by @gfwilliams
That's it saying it's not calibrated. Turn around 360 degrees and it'll start working |
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Posted at 2020-04-17 by Purple-Tentacle
I found it misleading and changed it, see PR espruino/BangleApps#316 |
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Posted at 2020-04-17 by @gfwilliams But it works now? |
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Posted at 2020-04-17 by Purple-Tentacle Yes, it gets calibrated when turning. |
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Posted at 2020-04-20 by DerGuteWolf The compass seems veeeery sensitive to really being parallel to the ground. Attachments: |
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Posted at 2020-04-20 by user111620 I have the same problem. It looks like the compass shows random values with no visible correlations to the real cardinal points and it is very sensitive to tilt movements. |
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Posted at 2020-04-20 by Robin Mon 2020.04.20
Unless the video was shot through a fish eye lens, it appears the base plane is offset 60 degrees to the ground. Not very parallel. See #3 post: |
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Posted at 2020-04-21 by DerGuteWolf @robin: Yes, sort of, the video was taken with Pixel 3, which has a very wide-angled lens and the video was croppend. Rest assured that it was really parallel to the ground floor! Having sort of spirit level indicator for orientation (bubble in the middle) might be helpful, though. I don't know if the KX023 accelerometer used is capable of providing the necessary data for this. |
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Posted at 2020-04-21 by Old_account @DerGuteWolf There's already a spirit level app, so integrating this into the compass should be possible. |
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Posted at 2020-04-21 by @gfwilliams @user111620 you'll need to update your Bangle.js firmware to the latest version to have it reliable. Right now we use just the magnetometer X and Y values for the angle. If you don't hold it level then like a real compass it'll read differently. I guess you can't easily just add the Z value in, so I guess as you say I think you'd have to:
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Posted at 2020-04-21 by DerGuteWolf Yes, you could do a tilt compensation, cf. eg. https://www.instructables.com/id/Tilt-Compensated-Compass/ , which is imho a better idea than to incorporate the spritit level. And then there is the declination and inclination deviation of magnetic and geographic north, cf. https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM/ |
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Posted at 2020-04-21 by user111620 @gfwilliams: I have the latest firmware version installed (2v05.1) and I hold it like a real compass, but the needle points in a random direction. Compass works fine with firmware version 2v05.22. Thanks ;) |
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Posted at 2020-06-09 by jeffmer Just submitted a PR for a tilt compensated compass. Seems pretty stable with respect to roll and pitch if you are conscientious about calibration. If anyone is eager to try it before it appears on the official app loader, it is available now at https://jeffmer.github.io/JeffsBangleAppsDev/. |
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Posted at 2020-06-09 by DerGuteWolf @jeffmer Thanks, tried your app and it seems to work much better and reliable than the default compass app. |
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Posted at 2020-03-24 by DerGuteWolf
I received my bangle.js today. Totally awsome!
One of the I tried first was the compass app, however this seems to have problems to point to north and to keep pointing to north...
Is there some compass callibration needed? If yes, how to do it?
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