So I've seen all the hype around the The new network location feature but personally i fail to see much of a use case.

In my experience the GPS pretty much always locks in on the location within a few sec.
Network location requires you to enable WiFi which would increase the attack surface, what would one need network location for when GPS location works flawlessly?
The only plausible scenario I can think of is if one would like to navigate inside huge buildings or underground structures which the GPS signal can't penetrate.

Community members, please tell my why you use network location and any benefits you've experienced by enabling this feature.

    yellow-leaves So I've seen all the hype around the The new network location feature but personally i fail to see much of a use case.

    In my experience the GPS pretty much always locks in on the location within a few sec.

    If one is outside with a good sky view, GNSS works well and quickly. It can work much less well in an urban-canyon situation (surrounded by tall buildings) or indoors (especially when several floors below the roof, or if the roof is metal).

    Cellular carriers spent lots of time and money developing assisted location technology based on cell-site information because GNSS by itself was felt to be insufficient in many situations.

    Both Apple and Google spent lots of time and money developing location technology based on Wi-Fi information because GNSS by itself was felt to be insufficient in many situations.

    Users in 19th-century wooden farmhouses sitting on farms (such as a member of my family) can get quick and precise indoor location via GNSS, but that experience isn't universal. Statistically, most people live in cities, where nearby Wi-Fi networks are common and sky view is often limited.

        de0u It can work much less well in an urban-canyon situation (surrounded by tall buildings)

        I've sometimes experienced a reduction in accuracy when walking close to tall buildings inside sush canyons.
        In my personal experience the reduced accuracy doesn't significantly affect the GPS navigation experience as the reduction is temporary and even at sush a reduced state it's often good enough, especially if you check landmarks.
        On the other hand I recognise that some peoples experiences may be different, for example if they travel at relativity high speeds inside of an automobile instead of walking.

          yellow-leaves Apart from better precision in very urban environments and not very open skies, even if a pretty aproximate precision may be ok depending on the use case, the other advantage is a reduction in battery consumption compared with GNSS, which consumes much more energy, this is perhaps the first advantage.

              Xtreix Are test results available? I think Wi-Fi scanning requires more power than idling while associated. And Wi-Fi localization involves some communication to look up information about access points, plus some computation... all of that might be cheaper than GNSS, or perhaps not?

                  Xtreix reduction in battery consumption compared with GNSS

                  I'd be curious to know weather the battery drain reduction when using network location compared to GPS only actually is significant.
                  I mean when your navigating you'll usually have your screen on and thus your screen will probably be your biggest battery drain at least during daytime.

                      Network Location is faster than GNSS which needs about 3 seconds to get current location in my case. Network Location can get my location almost immediately.

                      yellow-leaves requires you to enable WiFi

                      not true if you turn on WiFi scanning.
                      Even if you tun off Network Location apps with Location permission can scan WiFi and Bluetooth just like what OS does with NL on.

                          de0u yellow-leaves I don't have any test result and I don't know if they exist, I haven't been able to measure it myself either, what I've written comes from statements from the official GrapheneOS project account.

                          https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20369-grapheneos-version-2025022700-released/78

                          Upstate1618 not true if you turn on WiFi scanning.

                          Unless I'm mistaken, Wifi must be enabled for Wifi scanning to work, disabling Wifi and not being connected to Wifi is not the same thing, from what I understand, Wifi must be enabled.

                                  yellow-leaves it's good to have when you start driving in a garage house and want to setup navigation, there is no gps. of course it would adjust once the car is outside, but i want to review the routes, etc. still while i am in the garage, not when i am driving.

                                      andrej567 This is a perfectly concrete example of a real-life situation.

                                        yellow-leaves When traveling as a tourist in a large city, I found it much more convenient to use network location. When using only GPS, my phone would completely lose my location once I was inside a large building. Then, if I tried to use Google Maps or similar to find the nearest transit station, it would simply fail to return a result unless I manually told it where I was searching from. It wasn't an impossible problem, but it was much faster and easier to just let location work inside. Especially if it was extremely cold outside or raining or otherwise there was motivation to pre-plan a route before going out.

                                          Xtreix Unless I'm mistaken, Wifi must be enabled for Wifi scanning to work

                                          You might be mistaken ....

                                          Settings > Location > Location services > Wi-Fi scanning

                                          Allow apps and services to scan for Wi-Fi networks at any time, even if Wi-Fi is off

                                              wizoatk Settings > Location > Location services > Wi-Fi scanning

                                              That's what I did.

                                              wizoatk Allow apps and services to scan for Wi-Fi networks at any time, even if Wi-Fi is off

                                              I've just read it and you're right it is indeed that, it work great with a offline GPS application like Organic Maps, in my tests, Google Maps always asked me for an Internet connection to set up a route, I downloaded an offline map recently, I didn't know you could do that, I tried again and the application always asks me to be connected to a network, maybe I'm testing wrong.

                                                    Upstate1618 not true if you turn on WiFi scanning.

                                                    WiFi scanning requires the Wi-Fi radio to be activate, my assumption is that this would increase your attack surface.

                                                    Upstate1618 Even if you tun off Network Location apps with Location permission can scan WiFi and Bluetooth just like what OS does with NL on.

                                                    What do mean, the location permission does not grant the navigation app permission to access Bluetooth or WiFi.

                                                          On my side, I use an authentication application to login to my workplace that requires capturing my location, as I am not allowed to work from outside my country. The GPS does not function well indoors, it would be troublesome so to go near a window every time I need log in to my session.

                                                          Additionally, the GPS can take more time to acquire a signal in cities with tall buildings.

                                                          Xtreix You need either WiFi or WiFi scanning enabled for Network location to work.

                                                          If you do not have WiFi enabled, you need to enable WiFi scanning and you need an active network connection (mobile data) for the Network location feature to be able to fetch data on nearby WiFi access points. There is currently no offline database, but my understanding is that it's a planned feature.

                                                              fid02

                                                              Just wanted to add an informative source:

                                                              You can enable this feature via the toggle we added at Settings > Location > Location services > Network location. You can optionally enable the standard Wi-Fi scanning toggle in the Location services menu to allow Wi-Fi scans when Wi-Fi is otherwise disabled to keep network-based location working

                                                              and

                                                              Longer term, we'll be providing our own location service rather than only a proxy along with full offline support via database downloads. It already works offline for a while based on the cache. We'll be using data from Apple's service to bootstrap our service, but we'll also be using other sources.

                                                              source: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/21244-grapheneos-network-based-location-service-improvements