Major problem with Bing AND Nokia HERE maps.. and Cortana's geofencing as a result.

[Ed Boland]

"Geofencing" AKA location based reminders are never going to work right….

…until they fix street addresses in Nokia's HERE maps AND Bing Maps!

That's right, I'm having a major problem with street addresses being wrong in both Nokia HERE maps AND Bing maps on my Windows Phone 8.1 DP device. The problem has been there all along, ever since I got my first WP, the Lumia 920. Now using a Lumia 1020 on AT&T in the U.S. So in other words, the problem isn't 8.1DP specific… Also because I have the same exact problem with Nokia HERE map AND Bing Maps on my Surface 2 (RT)8.1

It's just been bugging me as of late, since I've been trying to use Cortana's location based reminders. How can I expect this to work if the freakin addresses are wrong?!! I can't set a reminder for when I get "home" because according to this, I'm never really at home (unless I go to the neighbor's house a few doors down!) Same thing with work…. The address is off by a few doors! WTF??

My position is correct, mind you, as I have a tight green dot for my position and a solid internet connection with Xfinity WiFi at home and at work. And a very good coverage area for AT&T's LTE ( I always have 5 bars around town here) The position shown is always dead on... if I walk out into the back yard for example, the position marker follows as it should.

How can a mapping company, (Nokia) one who's supposedly been in the mapping business for 25 years, have the addresses wrong? What really steams my oysters is that if I look at Google maps on my girlfriend's iPhone, the address is correct!

This kind of stuff makes for a sad Windows Phone user….

Here are some screen shots showing the problem. Keep in mind, my real address is 139 But for some reason, when I'm at home and ping my current location it shows me at 143... Incorrect!

HERE's Nokia's HERE map screenshot on my Lumia 1020 of my location at home: The green dot is on the correct house... but it is NOT 143.

Here's a screenshot using Bing Maps on my Lumia 1020... shows the same wrong address! (again, the red position marker is correct, but the address is NOT!)

And it's not just my device... because I have the same problem in Bing maps on my Surface 2 (Windows RT8.1)

Here I "nicknamed" my "home address" as "139" (see underneath it still says 143)

And HERE it is... a screenshot of Nokia's HERE maps (with the latest update!) for Windows 8 on my Surface 2 (RT)

Same wrong freaking address!

This is SOOOO aggravating.....:unhappy::unhappy:

This house has NEVER been 143... it's 139!!!! And yes, as I said, my work address is wrong too, so how can I count on any other addresses being right? How can I count on Nokia or Microsoft if I'm lost somewhere and I need to find a place or an address? WHat if it's IMPORTANT??

This is really starting to **** me off the more I think about it... almost enough to the point of abandoning the whole platform.... I mean... This MAP thing... the worst part of it all was when I said to my girlfriend "lemme hold your iPhone" and I pull up Google maps and sure enough... our address is correct.

Screenshot of Gmaps on the iPhone... finally! A map that has my correct address!!!!

Isn't this sad?

 

[bilzkh]

Sounds like Cortana's already going rampant.

 

[Ed Boland]

Sounds like Cortana's already going rampant.

Well, it's not Cortana's fault. She'd probably work fine if she had the correct addresses to work with...

I could make location based reminders work by lying to her and telling her the wrong address... but I'm sure that would lead to problems down the road in the ecosystem as a whole.. ****, I might even start believing I actually live at 143 after a while!

 

[Ed Boland]

I know I can't be the only one with this problem..

 

[hotphil]

If you arrive somewhere and it's the other side of a residential street than you expected, I'd still say that's pretty impressive tech. If it was hundred miles out it would be different. And have you submitted a correction to Bing?

 

[teckris]

i too had this issue lastly.. Here Drive+ takes me mostly to back side of the Locations [Stadium Exits, Hospital Exits] i thought it was so because I live in India where Maps are updated too slow

 

[d_abbatelli]

IMHO, errors have always been, and probably will always be in the maps.
Mapping the world is already a fairly hard task, and mistakes happen. Plus, things change fast and it is difficult to stay up to date.

But Nokia really needs to find a system to stay up to date. As example, listening to what the users have to say, and letting them fix what is wrong.
In my area, Nokia maps plain suck. I'm not talking street numbers moved some meters, but missing streets.
I signaled it many times through the Here website, but months have passed, nothing have changed and I never got not even a thank you. For comparison, Open Street Maps (completely run by users) is way better in my area.

 

[Ed Boland]

If you arrive somewhere and it's the other side of a residential street than you expected, I'd still say that's pretty impressive tech. If it was hundred miles out it would be different. And have you submitted a correction to Bing?

I have, and have received no response.

I can see directions taking me to the opposite side of the street, but 139 and 143 are on the same side (odd numbered). I just find it very frustrating that google or even "Apple maps" nail the addresses perfectly, but our "legendary" Nokia mapping technology misses the mark.

 

[Ed Boland]

I've even posted on the Nokia Discussions board (what a terribly old forum platform!) and haven't gotten anywhere with that either. They suggested making sure I had a good signal (ie outside under a clear sky) but my position is NOT the problem... my position is exactly correct.. Its the shown street address for a given location that is not correct.

 

[mozman68]

So don't use the street address....just make sure your current location is represented properly on your phone (looks like it is) and then just save that location as "Home"...you don't need an address. You can do the same for work.

For many, work addresses are where you actually drive to...especially with larger company campuses. So, even if whatever maps program as the actual roads within your company's property, you can set your work location to be the intersection of "Company Road" and the entrance to the parking lot you normally use. For some, that could be 5 or 10 minutes from the main entrance or the official address.

 

[mary beth hale]

I know I can't be the only one with this problem..

Yes. Terrible. My home, work, friends, retailers...addresses show up perfectly in my CoPilot GPS app. Not one address shows up correctly with Here Maps. Especially frustrating because I very much like using location based reminders. They work poorly/inconsistently as a result of the map inaccuracies.

 

[mary beth hale]

Wish there was a way to hook Cortana up to my CoPilot app

 

[xrs22]

I switched my address so it doesn't show up in the back of my 2.5 acre lot to one in the front of the house. I mean I know my address but just wanna see if this works.

 

[Malcolm Clement]

It works fine for me. The mapping apps, Bing and Nokia, don't necessarily get my address correct but my L1020 never fails to give me a geofence based reminder when I set one up... Sometimes it takes a little while after I get home or it activates it when I get close to my house but I do get a reminder.

I honestly think it's more of a "how close are you" to the location you requested the reminder for, not waiting till you're at that precise location. I dunno though

 

[Ed Boland]

So don't use the street address....just make sure your current location is represented properly on your phone (looks like it is) and then just save that location as "Home"...you don't need an address. You can do the same for work.

For many, work addresses are where you actually drive to...especially with larger company campuses. So, even if whatever maps program as the actual roads within your company's property, you can set your work location to be the intersection of "Company Road" and the entrance to the parking lot you normally use. For some, that could be 5 or 10 minutes from the main entrance or the official address.

Yes, that's what I've been doing. The location based reminders (geofencing)do work, I just have to ignore the addresses and use only the saved positions.

But I worry, in the grand scheme of things down the road, aside from these simple position triggers (or location reminders) as more features come into play with Cortana; say for example a shipping address (or MY shipping address to be exact) what happens if I want to tell Cortana that I want something shipped to my address? (my location?) That would be just one example of conflicts that could arise from the street addresses not being correct.

I just don't get how what's supposed to be the "best" mapping technology (NAVTEQ?) Nokia HERE or Bing maps can't get frikin street addresses right? In the U.S. Even!?? I mean this isn't a new street or newly built subdivision here in Florida, it's a county road that's been here forever.. hell, my house was built in the 70's and has had the saaaaaaaame street address all along..... So, if I can't even count on doing a simple address search, then what good is it?

And it really REALLY irks me that the maps on the iPhone (google or apple maps) get the addresses exactly right! Grrrrr what's up with that?

 

[Ed Boland]

Yes. Terrible. My home, work, friends, retailers...addresses show up perfectly in my CoPilot GPS app. Not one address shows up correctly with Here Maps. Especially frustrating because I very much like using location based reminders. They work poorly/inconsistently as a result of the map inaccuracies.

Thank you! As mentioned above, you can make the location based reminders work by simply using the actual position markers only. Yes, you'll be lying to Cortana (and yourself) by agreeing that the address is correct when you ask "Where am I?" and she responds with "well, it appears that you're at 123 Main St." (when you actually live at 127 Main St.)...

I think it's sad as I had the vision of all this (the Microsoft ecosystem) working in harmony together with Cortana one day... but I know it never will. Not until they fix the street addresses.

 

[Ed Boland]

It works fine for me. The mapping apps, Bing and Nokia, don't necessarily get my address correct but...

That's where the whole system fails.

Yes, your saved position markers work with Cortana and reminders just fine. But what if you want to set a reminder at a place you've never been. Just type in the address? Nope, don't count on getting that reminder...

 

[hotphil]

What did Navteq say when you submitted a correction?

 

[Cleavitt76]

FYI, HERE maps and Bing use the same underlying data. That is why you get the same results on each one. It's Nokia's data that is driving Bing Maps. I have noticed the same thing about the address numbers being slightly off, but it hasn't ever caused an issue for me since they are pretty close. I'm guessing those numbers are estimates. Perhaps every so often they mark the exact address and everything in between those points is extrapolated.

The address number are usually only off by a couple of houses. You can still use address searches to get you within a few houses of your destination so it's not like it's unusable for navigation.

As far as your home/work location for Cortana, did you manually set those locations by typing a street address? I ask because I never did that. After a couple of weeks Cortana just showed me a map one day and asked me if that was my home. The arrow on the map was directly above my bedroom. About a week after that she did the same for my work. Cortana reminds me to do stuff when I get home all the time with no issues. If you just mark your house on the map it should work. The estimated street address number is irrelevant for the purposes of geofencing. A GPS coordinate is universal and it's not subject to renaming issues, etc.

 

[Ed Boland]

What did Navteq say when you submitted a correction?

It's strange, because things have changed... I mean recently! Seriously, things changed within the last couple days really, I was on the Navteq Mapreporter site a week or so ago and made a report., then just now checked it, and it goes to my "Nokia account" sign in page, with a brand new EUA check box by "Microsoft Mobile" at the bottom of the page.

Anyway... I'm going to submit another report and see what happens