Survey 123 vs Collector GPS Accuracy

Question

I'm trying to find the best way for my Fire Department to collect data from buildings in town. Survey123 is the easiest to set up, but when I compare the points I collect using Survey vs the exact same points I get using Collector, the Collector points are by far the most accurate. I wonder what setting I'm missing that Survey would be so much less accurate. I just have an LG phone using Android. Thanks!

DarlaPyron2 · Answer

Thanks for the responses, the problem was I had not added a Geopoint to the survey so there was no way to monitor when GPS was most accurate. When I added that the points are much more in sync.

IsmaelChivite · Answer

Hi. To ensure you have the best possible fix in Survey123, tap on the 'center' button in the map widget. This will cause the application to retrieve the latest location from our device. In cases where your phone's GPS is not 'warm', the initial location may not be the most accurate. You can also trigger GPS averaging by tapping and holding the 'center' button in the map widget.

You can use the pulldata() function to warn the user if the horizontal accuracy is not good enough. See more details in https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2016/11/03/extracting-information-from-geopoint-questions

If you still do not get a good fix, please provide more details on the differences you observe, so we can look in more detail into the problem.

Brandon Armstrong‌

Anonymous User · Answer

That sounds really strange.

In what order did you collect the Points? Did you first use Survey123 and then Collector? It could take some time to get an accurate fix and the first app did get a less accurate fix.

Did you have the same settings for the accuracy in Collector and Survey123? In collector you could set the needed accuracy in the settings when you collect features. In Survey123 you could set the needed accuracy in the field: body::accuracyTreshold:

Hope that helps

Edit // In Survey123 on iOS i got a reported accuracy of 1.5 meters on my Iphone 8 during my lunch break. Very strange behaviour. //