MyDrive Doesn't Get My Location Right

[CatNav]

I've got the MyDrive utility installed on my PC (Windows 7) and my Home location in Epsom is correctly marked on the map. However, the arrow which is meant to show the TomTom's current location is showing it as being at Worcester Park some 7 miles or so away, despite the fact that my TT 6100 is switched on, sitting right beside me at home and correctly showing it's location arrow over the Home icon as you would expect.
My TT knows where it is, why on earth does the MyDrive map think my TT is somewhere else entirely, I haven't ever taken it to Worcester Park? Is there anything I can do to correct this?

 

[dhn]

It will pick up the signal from your IP's closest server to your location.

 

[Arno]

Mine does that every so often but then gets back to the proper location.
I don't know why it does that and have not received any explanation from TomTom for it.

Make a test by sending a Favourite from MyDrive to your device and check the distance suggested on the device.
If it is the correct one just shrug it off as a temporary nuisance.

 

[canderson]

Mine does that every so often but then gets back to the proper location.
I don't know why it does that and have not received any explanation from TomTom for it.

There are multiple sources available for the geolocation of an IP address, and TomTom cycles between them either intentionally or by necessity (don't know which), and the accuracy of the different services can vary a bit. So what you're seeing are the assumed locations presented by different companies.

What can really trash the location is when a VPN or a remote proxy is being used for some reason. Obviously, what's recorded for an IP address at that point can move you around quite a lot.

 

[CatNav]

Thanks for some interesting replies. I did wonder canderson if there might be multiple sources at work.

What I should have probably mentioned in my first post is that this is the second false reported position on MyDrive that I have experienced. On the first day I had the 6100, I took it for a test run around some of my local back roads. At one point I stopped the car, then requested a route home. When I did get home, MyDrive on the computer was then showing the exact point at which I had stopped the car as the new false location for the 6100. It was only several days later that it changed to the new false location of an address in Worcester Park for no obvious reason.

I had assumed from this that when I stopped the car the 6100 had relayed it's position via The Cloud to MyDrive and updated the map with this position.

All very puzzling.

 

[CatNav]

What can really trash the location is when a VPN or a remote proxy is being used for some reason. Obviously, what's recorded for an IP address at that point can move you around quite a lot.

I don't use a VPN but even so, location by IP address can clearly be a lottery. I'm with Virgin Media cable for broadband, and whilst their WAN IP addresses do tend to be 'sticky' whilst you remain a VM customer, they are recycled to new customers whenever someone leaves VM. Looking at various IP locater websites, the WAN IP that I was assigned has obviously had numerous previous owners since 'my' location comes up in several different towns in Surrey depending on which locater's website you check ... only a couple get anywhere near my address and not one is accurate ... their databases are woefully slow to get updated.

 

[Arno]

I made a reset on my GO 600 a couple of days ago and MyDrive, except for 60 metres further south than the actual driveway it got it pretty close.
Arriving from a northern approach just now the route did not go away and I had to delete it manually.

Bell Canada uses dynamic IP addresses, or so they say, as I found to have the same address for up to 6 weeks.

 

[canderson]

I'm with Virgin Media cable for broadband, and whilst their WAN IP addresses do tend to be 'sticky' whilst you remain a VM customer, they are recycled to new customers whenever someone leaves VM. Looking at various IP locater websites, the WAN IP that I was assigned has obviously had numerous previous owners since 'my' location comes up in several different towns in Surrey depending on which locater's website you check ... only a couple get anywhere near my address and not one is accurate ... their databases are woefully slow to get updated.

None will ever be specific to the location of the user of the IP address -- it's the reporting company's best guess of location based upon a given node location, though it's typically one step removed even from the location of the local node. All of the customers on a given node will show the same location by any particular reporting company. The reporting companies do not have access to subscriber addresses.

I understand what you mean by 'sticky'. Here in Colorado, off of a particular node, a Comcast dynamic address tends to 'stick' to a MAC address until Comcast does some sort of reorg or build-out or whatever every few years, at which time the whole address block changes. Again, none are specific to the user's actual location.