I am a bit curious to find you thoughts on this issues.
I have an app which needs to track the user all the time. It needs to read a location every 50 meters and this is a parameter when I register a location listener. The reading is done in a background service all the time. There is no need to worry about battery usage.
Here comes the interesting part, I thought of trying to use the Network location and when the accuracy is big, fire GPS readings instead. The app is used most of the time in cities where there are many cells and wifi networks so the Network reading is pretty accurate.
The problem is: the Network location readings are made very rare, for instance 4 times in 1 kilometer, so basically this is not suitable for tracking. This happens even if I give the listener the hint for 50 meters.
My question is, am I doing something wrong? If I switch the provider from Network to GPS the readings are correct and happen as expected. As a conclusion, Network location is not suitable for tracking ? And another short question: Network location in order to be more accurate would require Wifi module to be enabled, right ? This means it will use more battery than the GPS module ?
Yes, you are correct. Network location is not suitable for tracking (at least not with the level of accuracy that you require). Yes, if you want more accuracy with Network location you need to have the wifi enabled. Whether this will use nore or less battery than GPS is very much dependent on the device and the situation.