Geolocation settings: accuracy against battery
Check that position tracking is working, and set GPS accuracy — what it really changes about which trail a task gets attached to.
In the field everything starts from your position: the task you create, the trail it attaches to, the scan of what's around you. This screen is the only place where you can check that the GPS is working and trade accuracy against battery life.
Where: mobile app, the ⚙ button at the top of the Terrain view → Geolocalisation settings.
The screen
The geolocation settings.
- 1Tracking status, with the time and position of the last reading.
- 2The accuracy level, and the battery warning.
Two blocks, nothing else.
At the top, tracking status. If you've never allowed location, a single button — Active location tracking — asks for permission. On Android an explanation screen comes first.
Once allowed, the button gives way to three lines:
| Line | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Tracking position running | Tracking is live. If it reads Tracking position stopped, the GPS isn't reporting any more |
| Last update | When the last position came in |
| Last position | Your coordinates, to four decimals — about eleven metres |
If something is blocking, an orange message appears under those lines.
This is your first diagnostic move. When a task lands in the wrong place, or the proximity scan finds nothing, open this screen: either the last update is twenty minutes old, or the position is plainly wrong — and you know the problem is the GPS, not Sentinel.
GPS accuracy
Five levels, from thriftiest to most precise: Lowest, Low, Balanced, High, Highest. The default is High.
The setting is saved per place: if you work for two organizations, each keeps its own.
What it really changes
This is the part the screen doesn't explain, and the only one that matters.
When you create a task, Sentinel looks for the nearest trail. It doesn't search a fixed radius: it starts from the accuracy the GPS reports. The starting radius is twice that accuracy, with a floor of twenty metres and a ceiling of one hundred.
- A position accurate to 5 metres opens a 20-metre search — the floor.
- A position accurate to 30 metres opens a 60-metre search.
If nothing is found the radius widens in three steps, up to two hundred metres. Put differently: poor accuracy doesn't stop you finding a trail — it makes you find too many. Where three trails cross, a sixty-metre radius catches all three, and Sentinel has to ask you which one. With good accuracy there's only one, and the question never comes up.
That's exactly what the screen's own text means by "a more precise detection of the trails near you".
The cost
It's written in bold on the screen, and it's real: more accuracy, more battery. The GPS polls satellites more often and for longer.
A trade-off that holds up:
- High — the default, and the right choice almost always. Precise enough to attach the right trail, without draining the phone.
- Highest — for a day of precise survey work, under dense canopy, or when you're mapping. Bring a power bank.
- Balanced or below — for a long day where you read more than you create. Your tasks will be attached more loosely.
Don't go below Balanced if you're creating tasks. A position accurate to a hundred metres triggers a two-hundred-metre search, and the suggested trail will often be the wrong one.
Three things to know
Tracking only moves when you do. The position is only re-recorded past three metres of movement. A "last update" from ten minutes ago while you're sitting down is therefore not a sign of failure.
Reported accuracy isn't real accuracy. Under dense canopy or at the bottom of a valley, your phone may claim five metres and be thirty out. That's another reason checking the suggested position stays worthwhile — see reporting a problem from the map.
Refusing location doesn't block the app. You can still read and edit; you lose creation at your position, automatic trail attachment and the proximity scan. The permission button stays available on this screen.