20
Jun

How to calibrate the HTC Magic compass

Posted by: Ichimusai in English, Swedish

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If you have like me used the HTC Magic built-in magnetic compass for a while you might have noticed that it is not always properly aligned. Here is a procedure to re-calibrate the compass and accelerometers in the mobile so that it should give you pretty accurate readings once more:

  1. It does not matter if you are running any special software or not but I recommend you put the phone in the desktop home state.
  2. Make sure you are standing in an open space, preferably out doors, away from power lines, rail roads, large magnetic objects.
  3. Hold it flat with the display facing the sky. Hold it steady and make sure you do not drop it in the next moment!
  4. move it in front of you in large figure-8 patterns in five complete rounds.
  5. Hold the phone upright with the display facing your belly.
  6. Repeat the figure-8 movement again for five complete rounds.

The calibration of the compass and accelerometers should now be pretty good.

If at any time you feel the compass is not showing you the right direction or seems “stuck” even if you are turning, then repeat this calibration and it will come alive again. Certain applications such as the metal detector application may also screw the calibration and you might need to repeat this after using such software.

 Om du som jag har använt dig av HTC Magics inbyggda kompass ett tag så har du kanske märkt att den inte alltid visar så rätt. Här nedan följer en procedur hur man kan få den kalibrerad enkelt och visa rätt igen:

  1. Det spelar ingen roll om du kör någon sorts mjukvara eller inte men jag rekommenderar att du stänger av program och låter den vara på den vanliga desktopen.
  2. Se till att du står bra i ett öppet område, helst utomhus och inte i närheten av kraftiga magnetiska fält eller objekt.
  3. Håll telefonen platt i handen med displayen rakt upp mot himlen. Tappa den inte i nästa moment!
  4. För telefonen i stora åttor framför dig i åtminstone fem hela varv.
  5. Håll telefånen nu med högtalaren rakt upp och displayen mot din mage.
  6. För telefonen återigen i åttor framför dig.

Accelerometrarna i telefonen skall nu ha hittat sin jämvikt och kompassen bör stämma relativt väl. Du behöver göra om denna kalibrering ca 1 gång om dagen i normalfallet.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 06:17:26 and is filed under English, Swedish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 comments so far

Han-Droo-ïd
 1 

May be i’m blind, but it seems that this calibration can be done without tools or software ? Do you know if I can find a “calibration” settings file ?

July 10th, 2009 at 16:45:08
Ichimusai
 2 

The “calibration” is done by turning the device on, then holding it flat facing up and moving it in figure-8 circles for a while. Then hold it upright and repeat. That will help the accelerometers and magnetic compass to find the resting point and the north direction after which you can use the device with pretty good accuracy.

I am not aware of a file where the calibration data is stored in unfortunately.

July 11th, 2009 at 00:24:52
Usus
 3 

I really did not expect this to work. Don’t know how you figured it out but thanks a lot my friend!

September 25th, 2009 at 12:58:03
Ichimusai
 4 

I had similar problems so I started testing various applications. Some said “your compass need calibration” but there was nothing in the manual that explained how to do this.

So eventually I started figuring that you needed to let the accelerometers find a null point. The way to do this is to move something in a circle but since it is a 3 axis accelerometer you need to do it both counter-clockwise and clockwise and then repeat in another plane.

So I tested the figure-8 movement and it worked really well. Later I tested another compass application and lo and behold, in the instructions it said “to calibrate compass north, hold the device flat and move in figure-8 circles for about 30 seconds”.

So others have figured the same thing.

September 25th, 2009 at 19:26:17
tkid
 5 

I suspect that strong magnets can also influence phones like the HTC Desire. I have a case that has a magnetic latch, and i notice if i hold the phone near while looking at the compass app it goes crazy. I think this may also screw up the calibration. But your method of recalibrating does seem to work well. Thanks.

May 16th, 2010 at 04:52:13
Ichimusai
 6 

Cetrainly, all compasses except those that use dead GPS calculations, are magnetic in origin and will of course sense other magnetic fields as well. The effects should be temporary however, removing the case and then re-calibrate it should make it work properly again.

May 16th, 2010 at 09:22:52

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  1. Galaxy compass broken, or just bad sw? - Android Forums    Sep 15 2009 / 8pm:

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