Smartphone Electronic Compass Accuracy - Is it important?

[Jim Dow]

I'd like to take a poll (using the forum) to determine how important smartphone compass accuracy is to the deer hunters on this forum.
How important is smartphone compass accuracy to your deer hunting success, convenience, and safety?
Not at all!
Low?
Medium?
High?
Essential?

Thanks for your time and consideration.

 

[yoderjac]

Not at all. I don't use one. We only own a few hundred acres and I know which direction north is from just about anywhere on it.

 

[Drycreek]

I would have to say low. I hunt on my own place and two different leases but I know all three very well. Now, the wind compass is a different story. I use that very often to reaffirm wind direction. I’m so paranoid about wind direction that I not only use a puff bottle, I use two different phone apps for wind direction. This is in addition to the daily weather forecast.

I told y’all I was paranoid about wind direction !

 

[TreeFan]

My phone compass saved me from a panic lost in the woods situation at night and I use it to determine the exact southern exposure for tree planting.. High importance in that regard..

 

[T-Max]

The compass, no. The GPS? Invaluable with OnX.

 

[RGrizzzz]

If I'm going somewhere that I'm worried about getting lost, I take a handheld GPS unit. Phone batteries don't last nearly long enough, and get wiped quickly if there's no cell signal. So, I don't worry about my phone's compass.

 

[yoderjac]

The compass, no. The GPS? Invaluable with OnX.

I use apps that use the GPS constantly at the farm. Whether I'm figuring out the size of a field for planting, or measuring firebreaks for reimbursement, there is always something I'm using the phone GPS for.

If I'm hunting in places I don't know well (which is rare since we bought the pine farm), I use the phone GPS for location, but I always carry a physical compass that doesn't have a battery for emergency purposes.

 

[HuronMtn]

I'd like to take a poll (using the forum) to determine how important smartphone compass accuracy is to the deer hunters on this forum.
How important is smartphone compass accuracy to your deer hunting success, convenience, and safety?
Not at all!
Low?
Medium?
High?
Essential?

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Mixed answer regarding smart phone compass ...

Medium Importance:

In a low risk convenience situation (hiking in an area with defined boundaries where the consequences of being disoriented/lost are very limited) I will use it if I happen to have the phone out for another reason, such as taking a picture. Otherwise, it is usually easier to glance down at the compass pinned to my shirt pocket.

Low-to-No Importance:

When it really counts (wilderness excursion, marine navigation when shoreline is not in sight) I don't fully trust anything electronic for directional navigation, unless I have an old fashioned manual compass as backup. Why? Because I don't want to get myself into a bad situation and the batteries die, and I don't want to take the risk of being misinformed by a low quality direction when the unit is out of calibration. In these situations if I use an electronic device, it won't be a smartphone, it will be a dedicated GPS unit and I will be using it in a mapping mode not a compass mode, and verifying orientation with the manual compass.

 

[Jim Dow]

My phone compass saved me from a panic lost in the woods situation at night and I use it to determine the exact southern exposure for tree planting.. High importance in that regard..

Everyone knows that most all existing smartphone compass apps are notoriously inaccurate - mere simulations. You can do better with AugView Compass!

AugView Compass stands alone as the ONLY accurate smartphone compass app available - with or without internet access. You can correct your own (device-specific) smartphone sensor errors using Augview Compass. Also, you have a moving map with GPS location.

AugView Compass is available on both the Google Play store and the Apple store.

AugView Compass will benefit personal, commercial, and military applications that make use of accurate compass azimuths.

Research, documented at http://www.tru-path.org, proves that AugView Compass is capable of a) analyzing any type of compass [electronic, military rangefinder, smartphone app, or magnetic] and b) prescribing the parameters necessary and sufficient to correct the residual [after calibration] compass azimuth errors for such compass.

In particular, take a look at this link: https://tru-path.org/2025/02/06/fixing-rangefinder-smartphone-residual-compass-azimuth-deviation-errors-military-rangefinder-errors-vectronix-plrf25c/

Everyone has a smartphone; and the "find-my-car" / "find-my-spot" feature is a favorite.

 

[yoderjac]

Makes very little sense to me. I simply carry an orienteering campus in my pack for emergency situations. Most smartphone map apps will now let you download the map for your area of interest and then don't require an internet connection for use. I think for most hunters, the GPS and Map are far better than a compass. We now have good GPS coverage in most all areas that don't have cell phone service.

Since a smart hunter will carry a physical compass in case of emergency (dead battery, broken phone,...), I see little advantage in any compass app, accurate or otherwise.

Just one man's perspective...Perhaps others can think of a legitimate use case.

 

[Drycreek]

My iPhone compass is spot on if all you need is a direction. I don’t explore new territory and can’t get lost on the places I hunt. In fact, when I was younger I used to squirrel hunt in unknown places that encompassed thousands of acres. Walked in many times a half hour before daylight so I could be well away from the road(s). I never got lost and had no compass (that was 50 years before iPhones). I know that some people don’t believe in the “sense of direction “ thing, but I’ve been pretty good about knowing which way was up all of my life. As a little kid I rode my horse over most of our 1200 acre dairy farm and only got lost when I was preschool age. The goat weeds were taller than I was !

 

[yoderjac]

My iPhone compass is spot on if all you need is a direction. I don’t explore new territory and can’t get lost on the places I hunt. In fact, when I was younger I used to squirrel hunt in unknown places that encompassed thousands of acres. Walked in many times a half hour before daylight so I could be well away from the road(s). I never got lost and had no compass (that was 50 years before iPhones). I know that some people don’t believe in the “sense of direction “ thing, but I’ve been pretty good about knowing which way was up all of my life. As a little kid I rode my horse over most of our 1200 acre dairy farm and only got lost when I was preschool age. The goat weeds were taller than I was !

Same when I was young, but a sense of direction was easy. When I hunted in PA there were two basic directions, uphill and downhill.

 

[Drycreek]

Same when I was young, but a sense of direction was easy. When I hunted in PA there were two basic directions, uphill and downhill.

If you sidehilled very much did you have to change directions often so one leg wouldn’t be shorter than the other ?

 

[yoderjac]

If you sidehilled very much did you have to change directions often so one leg wouldn’t be shorter than the other ?

Maybe that is why I just had to have me knee replaced!

 

[catscratch]

Phones have a compass?

 

[Drycreek]

Maybe that is why I just had to have me knee replaced!

I go in on the 20th for mine Jack, and I’m not looking forward to it ! I am however, looking forward to a couple months from now.

 

[TreeFan]

Phones have a compass?

Click on "Extras" - click on "Compass"

 

[catscratch]

Click on "Extras" - click on "Compass"

Sorry, I was being facetious.

I put the compass so far down the "importance" list that I pretend that it doesn't even exist.

 

[TreeFan]

Sorry, I was being facetious.

I put the compass so far down the "importance" list that I pretend that it doesn't even exist.

No issues.. Thought that might be the case.. ... I never used it until one fateful night when my hunting buddy shot a buck in the evening. We waited for awhile to go track it. It was dark and we jumped on my ATV, tracked the blood trail and found the deer a ways off of my property. I had concentrated on the tracking and thought I knew which way to go to get out. Strapped the deer to the ATV and kept going and going until it was apparent we were lost. I used my iphone to call a hunter, new to my property, at my cabin, asking him to drive to the back where we started tracking and honk the horn. He was not familiar with the property and declined... So, I called my brother 2 miles away to do it and he came over and honked his horn. I heard it but it sounded a long way off and was no help with direction. It sounded like one of those hearing tests you get at the doctor! Panic was setting in when my buddy informed me that there was a compass on my phone.. I used it to go in the proper direction and we found our way out.. That is the story of how the phone compass became important to me..

 

[catscratch]

No issues.. Thought that might be the case.. ... I never used it until one fateful night when my hunting buddy shot a buck in the evening. We waited for awhile to go track it. It was dark and we jumped on my ATV, tracked the blood trail and found the deer a ways off of my property. I had concentrated on the tracking and thought I knew which way to go to get out. Strapped the deer to the ATV and kept going and going until it was apparent we were lost. I used my iphone to call a hunter, new to my property, at my cabin, asking him to drive to the back where we started tracking and honk the horn. He was not familiar with the property and declined... So, I called my brother 2 miles away to do it and he came over and honked his horn. I heard it but it sounded a long way off and was no help with direction. It sounded like one of those hearing tests you get at the doctor! Panic was setting in when my buddy informed me that there was a compass on my phone.. I used it to go in the proper direction and we found our way out.. That is the story of how the phone compass became important to me..

Lol, I got lost in Maine once. They found me several hrs later and over 7 miles from where I should have been. Before phones.