Distance Niantic kilometers equal real world miles
CurieUSGlo21212
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in Report a Bug
Niantic kilometers equal real world miles. This morning when I walked 1.09 miles my Kinetic capsules gave me credit for a combined total of 1.1 kilometers. This is consistent with my previous experience walking my Niantic capsules, eggs, and formerly in HPWU. Note that km are are not and should not be equal to miles. I was hoping it would have been fixed especially since, like now with kinetic capsules, it is tied to a limited time event and an Ingress medal.
Samsung Galaxy S9+ ; Android 10; Ingress version Prime 2.67.1-2d5c7166; fully updated with all available updates; Mid-Atlantic USA
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Everything in Ingress is in metric. Use a larger scale to identify real comparisons. The recording method appears to have a low granularity, but they are not using Miles instead of Kilometers.
That would be why it's a bug if I have to walk 8 miles to get credit for 8 kilometers.
... you don't.
Your use of 1-2km values to compare is the problem. Walk 8kms and you'll get about 6.something kms in credit, not 5kms which is what you'd get if they were using miles.
The issue is granularity of polling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_rw-AJqpCM
This video provides the issue with winding line measurement.
When I walked 1.09 miles I got credit for 1.1 kilometers. This is consistent with my experience walking with a Niantic game open. It's also not my first time reporting it as a bug. This is why I included the screenshot showing I walked 1.09 miles. During my 1.09 mile walk I got credit for 0.3km to finish on capsule and 0.8km on a second capsule. The second capsule was started with 10 steps of completing the first.
I'm familiar with the timing issues as I have been running or walking with gps watches like the early Garmin Forerunners and the GPS Timex for over 15 years.
Then you should know that distance comparisons over only 1km are far too small a sample size to compare granularity.
Consider the sample size to be equal to the number of weeks they have tracked weekly distance walking capsules in PoGo. Same difference and consistent week to week. It is laughable when it's star dust. Not so much when an Ingress medal that theoretically should be able to be accomplished in a certain number of kilometers actually takes that number of miles which is significantly longer and there is a time limit.
I'm not saying you haven't done a lot of 1km movements. I'm saying that the way they sample movement, means that only doing short spurts will "miss" more than if you do long stretches. There is a definite complaint that the new Ingress method doesn't sample as well as an always on GPS. Don't disagree.
The original premise that they're somehow using using miles, thus only counting 60% of movement however, is completely wrong. Over longer distances the value comes out on average about 12.5% give or take 5%. It's definitely less, yes. It's actually better than the old system of point to point movement, because the intermediary sampling will take additional points except where you interact with the servers.
If you want to maximise the capsules, you should walk until a capsule is complete. Breaking it up, and not having the client open while answering messages etc, will definitely make the experience take longer.
Note too, that the main reason for a lower sampling method, is that it reduces battery use significantly. Perhaps they should implement a 'high accuracy' GPS mode that will burn more battery but will more accurately track distance travelled. But for now, the reduced sampling is in play.
But they're not using miles...
The whole kimetic capsule distance calculation should be done better. We definitely need to walk more for it to count the needed distances, so it doesn't work as expected, so there's something wrong and needs to be fixed.
But how much battery use is the average agent willing to take on. I know when I'm using a high accuracy GPS tracker my battery goes down much faster.
You already are using high accuracy GPS when you have the game open.
How do you know that you walked 1mile?
I see no reference to anything that can identify miles.
FYI, Niantic uses metric. They actually have to use metric as it is the international standard
See the attached screen shot of Samsung Health documenting my morning walks using Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 synced with my Samsung Galaxy S9+ while Ingress was open and in my pocket for the duration. The distance measured for the walk can also be verified using Google maps. The discrepancy in my experience is consistently 1mile in the real world credits about 1km in Ingress and PoGo.
I did some testing last night.
Scanner open, no actions at all, walking past a bunch of portals. I did my usual nightly recharge walk but taking no actions.
Total distance by GPS tracking: 7.4kms
So it captured 6.3kms out of 7.4kms. It is most definitely not "Miles instead of Kilometers", as I did not walk 10.139kms. It is still however, shaving ~15% off the movement due to recording granularity.
It's not that walking 1.6 kilometers=1 kilometer specifically. The issue has more to do with the general accuracy and precision of the way Ingress (and Niantic Games without Adventure Sync) calculate distance. Right now, as mentioned in the original bug report, Ingress is consistent with distance counted in other Niantic Games (without Adventure Sync), and this is currently working as designed.