topic Re: Use current location as input to Near Me widget in ArcGIS Experience Builder Questions

Use current location as input to Near Me widget

MappyIan — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 12:30:49 GMT

I'm creating an Experience that will be used on mobile devices to help students find nearby study spaces (buildings). The problem I'm having is that I can't get the Near Me widget to use the users current location. This seems like a basic requirement for the Near Me widget, so I presume it's something I'm missing or not doing right (unless this functionality doesn't exist?).

I'd like the Near Me widget to find all buildings within a set distance (100 metres) from the users current location. The map is configured with the 'Locate' tool which works fine:

But I can't find any where of specifying that the users location should be used as the location to use in the Near Me widget. It feels like we need another option/setting in the Inputs area for 'Users current location':

Does anyone know if this is possible in the current version of ArcGIS Online? Or any workarounds?

Re: Use current location as input to Near Me widget

JeffreyThompson2 — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 14:11:40 GMT

Near Me isn't exactly the best name for this Widget. It's a proximate location search tool. At the moment, you could maybe hack something with another app and URL parameters to set the initial location, but there isn't something for updating it.

The next update, in Q1 2026, should include an option for live tracking the user's location. https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-experience-builder-ideas/add-location-tracking-widget-to-experience-builder/idc-p/1664309/highlight/true#M4726

Re: Use current location as input to Near Me widget

MappyIan — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 15:55:27 GMT

Thanks @JeffreyThompson2. After a bit more digging I came across this blog post, where it explains that you can use the users current location as the location to use in the Near Me widget. It's a bit convoluted in terms of having to set up a trigger on the map to pass the location to the Near Me widget but it seems to work the first time it's pressed. If you clear the results then press the Near Me button again, nothing happens, which seems like a bug to me.

There are already a couple of separate (but related) ideas in here: