Loved this phone until now, the compass is absolutely useless.

[EricGagne]

I got this phone for less than two weeks and I really loved it....until now. I have been trying to get the compass to work properly for over an hour now and it just won't calibrate properly and keep its calibration.

I tried windows maps app, then HERE maps, the the compass calibration tool from Jack of Tools, then another tool, and yet another tool and no matter which one I try and how many times I do it, the results are inconsistent and the compass cannot be trusted.

Jack of Tools shows the precision of the compass, the best I got is +- 7 degrees, and most of the time it's more like +- 13. Another very annoying thing is that every single time I tried to use the compass, I had to calibrate it. Now maybe this is normal with Windows phone but I never had this issue on my Google Nexus 4, why won't the BLU keep its calibration ?

But the worst issue with it is how it is so innacurate that it becomes completely useless. The pictures below show the compass with the phone pointing toward the north and after rotating it 180 degrees.

For some reason, my compass won't properly show south, no matter what app I use, north is fairly accurate but when I point it south it always shows south-east. And like I said, that makes it absolutely useless because it can never be trusted.

 

[Harrie-S]

Hi Eric,
I also do not know why your compass has this problem but here a few tips.
- Are you using a case or flip with a magnet clip. (this clip could interfere with the compass.)
- I am not sure how you do the calibration but have a look to this . http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sP3d00Hr14o
- Did you try a soft reset to see if this helps.

Good luck.

And no you do not need to calibrate the compass on a windows phone all the time.

 

[EricGagne]

I should have thought of the soft reset, I will try it.

I think I am doing the calibration correctly, I move the phone in a 8 shape until it stops telling me that calibration is required. I wonder if something in my appartment could make it go a little nuts when pointing south, maybe I would be best to do this outside. But then, I would thing my Nexus 4 would be affected as well.

As for the case, no I am not using anything magnetic, just the plastic/rubber/silicon/whatever case came with the phone.

And btw, I still like my new windows phone very much, I don't regret buying it, I'm just a bit disappointed about this compass problem

 

[libra89]

Sadly I think this is a common issue with this phone, because I have had others say similarly.

 

[EricGagne]

It's definitely not working. I hold the phone pointing to the North and it shows different directions depending on where I stand. In the middle of my bedroom, it shows 0 degrees, I move 3 feet to the right and it goes to 11 degrees, 3 feet to the left brings me back to 0 and another 3 feet left gives me 346 degrees.

And in all cases, If I turn around 180 degrees, the compass only moves about 160 degrees.

I emailed BLU about it, I will see what they say.

 

[EricGagne]

Wow, that was not too long.

I emailed them using a mailto link on their web site. Within minutes I got an automated email with a link back to their web site to a form for contacting support. I submitted it and less than a minute later I got another automated message with hard reset instructions. Nothing that addresses my particular issue, just an automatic email on how to hard reset the phone.

I am flabbergasted.

 

[Philip Hamm]

This may be what is causing the poor GPS performance I've seen.

 

[phatboy66]

Yup this issue happens to me a lot too when using HERE Maps. Very frustrating at times.