# How often does Uber ping your location?



## semi-retired (Nov 21, 2017)

In my short 2 months as a driver for Uber I have noticed on several occasions that Uber thinks I am in one location when I am actually in another.

What this means is after I drop of a pax I will go to a local Quick Trip or strip mall parking lot and wait between 15 - 20 minutes for a new ride if I do not have one right away after dropping off the pax. A few times I have driven away from an area and can be 15 minutes away from my previous camping spot and I will get a ride back in the general area of the previous spot and the Uber Nav app will start the "routing" from that position until it finally finds out I am further away. This does not happen all the time, but it has happened frequently enough for me to wonder about how often we are pinged, this could impact why rides are not being sent my way in a new camping area where I know it is busy.

So does anyone know how often Uber pings our locations to see where we are? I would assume it is was every 5 minutes or so, but maybe that is too frequent when not driving a pax, especially with all the data being transmitted for an actual live ride.


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## The Gift of Fish (Mar 17, 2017)

GPS navigation is conducted client-side (on your phone) not server-side (at Uber HQ). Therefore it looks like your phone may be having GPS lock issues. Is it an LG phone?


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## semi-retired (Nov 21, 2017)

Samsung Galaxy S6

I understand GPS is conducted client-side. However the Uber system needs to know where we are at to be able assign us a ride. In some way it needs to send and receive a signal as to our location to assign that ride.

The ping in my opinion would be originating on the server side to see available receivers in a location for a request, or is the driver app sending a keep alive message to the servers with geo information?

I must be missing something in the logical layer of how the process works...


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## The Gift of Fish (Mar 17, 2017)

I'm no expert but it sounds like your phone isn't reporting the correct GPS position.

Lyft pings the driver's phone for location data every 2 seconds when on a ride; I assume Uber would be similar. Don't know how often when not an a ride, though.


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## semi-retired (Nov 21, 2017)

The Gift of Fish said:


> I'm no expert but it sounds like your phone isn't reporting the correct GPS position.
> 
> *Lyft pings the driver's phone for location data every 2 seconds when on a ride*; I assume Uber would be similar.


That makes sense, but it is when no ride is assigned that has me wondering.

I am going to look to see if there are any known GPS positioning issues for my phone or just GPS locking concerns in general and try to resolve potential conflicts from this perspective.

Thanks for your feedback.


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## OrlUberOffDriver (Oct 27, 2014)

When waiting on a ping (stationary)for a ride the app refreshes location, surges every 15 seconds. 
If movement is detected then is a constant pinging, also when on an active ride. 
With Android only, you can disable location services thus your vehicle is now at point A, travel to point B your vehicle will still be at point A. 
This does not work on IOS. If you disable location services on an iPhone it will take you “OffLine”


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## semi-retired (Nov 21, 2017)

Thanks to both of you for your feedback. I have turned on the "Highest Accuracy" setting for my phone. It will be next week before I can tell if this improves the experience. It was only using Wi-fi and Mobile Network, satellite was not turned on.


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## SurginGeneral (Aug 9, 2017)

semi-retired said:


> It was only using Wi-fi and Mobile Network, *satellite was not turned on.*


There was your problem


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## semi-retired (Nov 21, 2017)

SurginGeneral said:


> There was your problem


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## beezlewaxin (Feb 10, 2015)

Both Uber and Lyft apps send location data to the server in the same way.

1. In 1 second intervals the driver app records your GPS location, _as reported by the OS._
2. The driver app uploads this data to the server API in batches every 5 seconds. Each batch contains GPS data for the previous 5 seconds. _This is why your car icon on the rider app map is 5 seconds behind your blue dot._

The specifics on how fresh the location data is, or how often it is refreshed and which geo location sources are used depends entirely on the OS.

Regardless of anything else both driver apps query the OS for this data once per second. This data includes heading, speed and accuracy and that data is collected and uploaded to the API along with coordinates and a timestamp.

This whole process also serves as a heartbeat sent by the driver app to the server so it can determine exactly when a driver is online or not.

Incoming pings arrive as a push message over GCM on android and apple stuff on i devices.

Fyi "push messages" still rely on your phone sending out a heartbeat message to check (pull) for new push messages or to keep a persistant 2-way connection alive...


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## MasterOfWoke (Jan 25, 2018)

beezlewaxin said:


> Both Uber and Lyft apps send location data to the server in the same way.
> 
> 1. In 1 second intervals the driver app records your GPS location, _as reported by the OS._
> 2. The driver app uploads this data to the server API in batches every 5 seconds. Each batch contains GPS data for the previous 5 seconds. _This is why your car icon on the rider app map is 5 seconds behind your blue dot._
> ...


Informative.


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## semi-retired (Nov 21, 2017)

Thank you beezlewaxin that is the type of information I was looking for.


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## KD_LA (Aug 16, 2017)

beezlewaxin said:


> Both Uber and Lyft apps send location data to the server in the same way.
> 
> 1. In 1 second intervals the driver app records your GPS location, _as reported by the OS._
> 2. The driver app uploads this data to the server API in batches every 5 seconds. Each batch contains GPS data for the previous 5 seconds. _This is why your car icon on the rider app map is 5 seconds behind your blue dot._
> ...


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## semi-retired (Nov 21, 2017)

You Sir are a geek!


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## Spork24 (Feb 5, 2018)

I was deactivated for 30m cause Lyft could not determine my location. I'm assuming opening another app is the culprit otherwise I am at a loss.


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## Ride Nights & Weekends (Jan 5, 2018)

semi-retired said:


> In my short 2 months as a driver for Uber I have noticed on several occasions that Uber thinks I am in one location when I am actually in another.
> 
> What this means is after I drop of a pax I will go to a local Quick Trip or strip mall parking lot and wait between 15 - 20 minutes for a new ride if I do not have one right away after dropping off the pax. A few times I have driven away from an area and can be 15 minutes away from my previous camping spot and I will get a ride back in the general area of the previous spot and the Uber Nav app will start the "routing" from that position until it finally finds out I am further away. This does not happen all the time, but it has happened frequently enough for me to wonder about how often we are pinged, this could impact why rides are not being sent my way in a new camping area where I know it is busy.
> 
> So does anyone know how often Uber pings our locations to see where we are? I would assume it is was every 5 minutes or so, but maybe that is too frequent when not driving a pax, especially with all the data being transmitted for an actual live ride.


This happens often when leaving Logan and going in the Tunnels. Use Maps or Waze.


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