Online Compass: Find North on Your Phone

How a phone compass works

Phones contain a magnetometer that senses the Earth's magnetic field. Combined with the accelerometer and gyroscope, it tells the phone which way it is pointing. This page reads that heading from your browser and turns the compass rose so that north on the dial lines up with north in the real world.

The large number is your heading in degrees, measured clockwise from north: 0° is north, 90° east, 180° south and 270° west. The letters below show the nearest of the 16 compass points, such as NE or SSW.

Getting an accurate reading

• Hold the phone flat, screen facing up, with the top pointing the way you want to measure.
• Keep away from magnets, metal tables, laptops and car dashboards, which bend the magnetic field.
• If the reading looks wrong, move the phone in a figure-of-eight a few times. This recalibrates the sensor on most devices.

Magnetic north and true north

A magnetic compass points to magnetic north, which is not quite the same as the geographic North Pole. The gap, called declination, is a few degrees in most places. Some phones correct for it automatically. For everyday orientation the difference rarely matters; for map and compass navigation, check the declination printed on your map. To see where you are rather than which way you face, use My Location.

Using a compass with a map

To follow a bearing, turn until the heading on screen matches the bearing you want, then walk towards a landmark straight ahead and repeat. To find the bearing to a landmark, point the top of your phone at it and read the degrees. On a paper map, north is at the top, so you can line the map up with the compass to see which way roads and paths actually run.

A compass also works where GPS struggles, such as in deep valleys or between tall buildings, because it reads the magnetic field rather than satellites. It does need the phone to be still for a moment to settle, so stop briefly when you check your direction.