How to emulate GPS location in the Android Emulator?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2279647

Question

I want to get longitude and latitude in Android emulator for testing.

Can any one guide me how to achieve this?

How do I set the location of the emulator to a test position?

Was it helpful?

Solution

You can connect to the Emulator via Telnet. You then have a Emulator console that lets you enter certain data like geo fixes, network etc.

How to use the console is extensively explained here. To connect to the console open a command line and type

telnet localhost 5554

You then can use the geo command to set a latitude, longitude and if needed altitude on the device that is passed to all programs using the gps location provider. See the link above for further instructions.

The specific command to run in the console is

geo fix <longitude value> <latitude value>

I found this site useful for finding a realistic lat/lng: http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html

If you need more then one coordinate you can use a kml file with a route as well it is a little bit described in this article. I can't find a better source at the moment.

OTHER TIPS

I was looking for a better way to set the emulator's GPS coordinates than using geo fix and manually determining the specific latitude and longitude coordinates.

Unable to find anything, I put together a little program that uses GWT and the Google Maps API to launch a browser-based map tool to set the GPS location in the emulator:

android-gps-emulator

Hopefully it can be of use to help others who will undoubtedly stumble across this difficulty/question as well.

android-gps-emulator

No one here mentioned the built in solution of the emulator itself, so for future visitors, I'd like to share it with visuals.

First, run your Android Emulator and click on the menu button (3 dots) shown below:

emulator with menu button

Then from the left pane, select Location and change the coordinates according to your needs. After pressing Send button, changes will immediately take effect (I recommend you to open up Google Maps for better understanding).

enter image description here

Android Studio Version: 2.3.3

In addition, to make your different locations coming to your application in real time, you can use GPX file. It's very easy to create this file from Google Map direction link:

  1. Go to google map, choose a location, then press "Directions" and enter the second location.
  2. After route is created, copy a link from the browser
  3. Go to this website: https://mapstogpx.com and paste the link to "Let's Go" box
  4. Press the "Let's Go" button and GPX file will be downloaded

Use "Load GPS/KML" button to load the created file to your emulator, choose speed, and press green play button on the bottom. Locations will be sent in real time as shown on the picture below.

enter image description here

If you're using Eclipse, go to Window->Open Perspective->DDMS, then type one in Location Controls and hit Send.

For Android Studio users:

run the emulator,

Then, go to Tools -> Android ->Android device monitor

open the Emulator Control Tab, and use the location controls group.

Assuming you've got a mapview set up and running:

MapView mapView = (MapView) findViewById(R.id.mapview);
final MyLocationOverlay myLocation = new MyLocationOverlay(this, mapView);

mapView.getOverlays().add(myLocation);
myLocation.enableMyLocation();

myLocation.runOnFirstFix(new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
        GeoPoint pt = myLocation.getMyLocation();
    }
});

You'll need the following permission in your manifest:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION"/>

And to send mock coordinates to the emulator from Eclipse, Go to the "Window" menu, select "Show View" > "Other" > "Emulator control", and you can send coordinates from the emulator control pane that appears.

For the new emulator:

http://developer.android.com/tools/devices/emulator.html#extended

Basically, click on the three dots button in the emulator controls (to the right of the emulator) and it will open up a menu which will allow you to control the emulator including location

1. Android Studio users.

After running the emulator goto Tools->Android->Android device monitor

Click the Emulator Control Tab change from the location controls group.

2. Eclipse users.

First In Eclipse In Menu Select "Window" then Select "Open Perspective" then Select "DDMS". i.e Window->Open Prespective->DDMS.

You will see on Left Side Devices Panel and on Right Side you will see different tabs. Select "Emulator Control" Tab.

At bottom you will see Location Controls Panel. Select "Manual" Tab.

Enter Longitude and Latitude in Textboxs then Click Send Button. It will send the position to you emulator and the application.

3. Using telnet.

In the run command type this.

telnet localhost 5554

If you are not using windows you can use any telnet client.

After connecting with telnet use the following command to send your position to emulator.

geo fix long lat    
geo fix -121.45356 46.51119 4392

4. Use the browser based Google maps tool

There is a program that uses GWT and the Google Maps API to launch a browser-based map tool to set the GPS location in the emulator:

android-gps-emulator

Using the "geo" command in the emulator console

To send mock location data from the command line:

  1. Launch your application in the Android emulator and open a terminal/console in your SDK's /tools directory.

  2. Connect to the emulator console:

    telnet localhost 5555 (Replace 5555 with whatever port your emulator is running on)

  3. Send the location data: * geo fix to send a fixed geo-location.

    This command accepts a longitude and latitude in decimal degrees, and an optional altitude in meters. For example:

    geo fix -121.45356 46.51119 4392

I wrote a python script to push gps locations to the emulator via telnet. It defines a source and a destination location. There is also a time offset which lets you control how long coordinates will be pushed to the device. One location is beeing pushed once a second.

In the example below the script moves from Berlin to Hamburg in 120 seconds. One step/gps location per second with random distances. 

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import sys
import telnetlib
from time import sleep
import random

HOST = "127.0.0.1"
PORT = 5554
TIMEOUT = 10
LAT_SRC = 52.5243700
LNG_SRC = 13.4105300
LAT_DST = 53.5753200
LNG_DST = 10.0153400
SECONDS = 120

LAT_MAX_STEP = ((max(LAT_DST, LAT_SRC) - min(LAT_DST, LAT_SRC)) / SECONDS) * 2
LNG_MAX_STEP = ((max(LNG_DST, LNG_SRC) - min(LNG_DST, LNG_SRC)) / SECONDS) * 2

DIRECTION_LAT = 1 if LAT_DST - LAT_SRC > 0 else -1
DIRECTION_LNG = 1 if LNG_DST - LNG_SRC > 0 else -1

lat = LAT_SRC
lng = LNG_SRC

tn = telnetlib.Telnet(HOST, PORT, TIMEOUT)
tn.set_debuglevel(9)
tn.read_until("OK", 5)

tn.write("geo fix {0} {1}\n".format(LNG_SRC, LAT_SRC))
#tn.write("exit\n")

for i in range(SECONDS):
    lat += round(random.uniform(0, LAT_MAX_STEP), 7) * DIRECTION_LAT
    lng += round(random.uniform(0, LNG_MAX_STEP), 7) * DIRECTION_LNG

    #tn.read_until("OK", 5)
    tn.write("geo fix {0} {1}\n".format(lng, lat))
    #tn.write("exit\n")
    sleep(1)

tn.write("geo fix {0} {1}\n".format(LNG_DST, LAT_DST))
tn.write("exit\n")

print tn.read_all()

I use eclipse plug DDMS function to send GPS. enter image description here

In Linux where communication ports are blocked. navigate the terminal to platform-tools folder inside android sdk and fire this command:

./adb -s #{device_name} emu geo fix #{longitude} #{latitude}

In Mac, Linux or Cygwin:

echo 'geo fix -99.133333 19.43333 2202' | nc localhost 5554

That will put you in Mexico City. Change your longitude/latitude/altitude accordingly. That should be enough if you are not interested in nmea.

The following solution worked for me - open command line and write:

adb emu geo fix [longtitude] [latitude]

See Obtaining User Location

Look under Providing Mock Location Data. You will find the solution for it.

First go in DDMS section in your eclipse Than open emulator Control .... Go To Manual Section set lat and long and then press Send Button

I was trying to set the geo fix through adb for many points and could not get my app to see any GPS data. But when I tried opening DDMS, selecting my app's process and sending coordinates through the emulator control tab it worked right away.

Dalvik Debug Monitor > Select Emulator > Emulator Control Tab > Location Controls.

DDMS -- android_sdk/tools/ddms OR android_sdk/tools/monitor

If you are using eclipse then using Emulator controller you can manually set latitude and longitude and run your map based app in emulator

If you're using Android Studio (1.3):

  • Click on Menu "Tools"
  • "Android"
  • "Android device monitor"
  • click on your current Emulator
  • Tab "Emulator Control"
  • go to "Location Controls" and enter Lat and Lon

Just make Alberto Gaona's answer into one line

token=$(cat ~/.emulator_console_auth_token); cat <(echo -e "auth $token \n  geo fix 96.0290791 16.9041016  \n exit") - | nc localhost 5554

5554 is the emulator port number shown in adb devices.

It would have been better if adb emu work.

If the above solutions don't work. Try this:

Inside your android Manifest.xml, add the following two links OUTSIDE of the application tag, but inside your manifest tag of course

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" ></uses-permission>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" ></uses-permission>

I was unable to get a GPS fix on the emulator when emulator was running Android image without Google APIs. As soon as I changed the image to contain Google APIs all of the here mentioned ways to get a GPS fix worked.

Make sure you select an image with Google APIs when creating AVD.

The already mentioned multiple times answer to use the shell command "geo fix..." is the correct answer. But in case you use LocationClient.getLastLocation() to retrieve your data it is worth to mention that it will not work at first. The LocationClient class uses the Google Play Service to retrieve the coordinates. For me this started working after running the emulators maps app once. During the first start you are asked to allow google apps access to your location, which I guess does the trick.

For a project of my own, I developed an online service which can provide simulated location to the Android emulator.

It uses geo nmea rather than geo fix which allows it to set speed, course, precise time etc. in addition to just lat/lon.

The service requires the nc (netcat) command line utility and nothing else.

http://www.kisstech.ch/nmea/

You can use an emulator like genymotion which gives you the flexibility to emulate your present GPS location, etc.

There is a plugin for Android Studio called “Mock Location Plugin”. You can emulate multiple points with this plugin. You can find a detailed manual of use in this link: Android Studio. Simulate multiple GPS points with Mock Location Plugin

Open Android studio->Tools menu->Android-> Android Device Monitor->Emulator Tab->Location control-> Set your required latitude and longitude and check your project as per your need

In eclipse:

You may have to drag the DDMS window down. 'Location Controls' is located under 'Telephony Actions' and may be hidden by a normally sized console view ( the bar with console, LogCat etc may be covering it!)

~

Can't comment yet, so updating @ectomorphs answer here, which when telneting now requires to have an auth token. In linux that's under /home/username/.emulator_console_auth_token

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import sys
import telnetlib
from time import sleep
import random

FILE = open('/home/username/.emulator_console_auth_token', 'r')
AUTH_TOKEN = FILE.read()
FILE.close()

HOST = "127.0.0.1"
PORT = 5554
TIMEOUT = 10
LAT_SRC = 52.5243700
LNG_SRC = 13.4105300
LAT_DST = 53.5753200
LNG_DST = 10.0153400
SECONDS = 120

LAT_MAX_STEP = ((max(LAT_DST, LAT_SRC) - min(LAT_DST, LAT_SRC)) / SECONDS) * 2
LNG_MAX_STEP = ((max(LNG_DST, LNG_SRC) - min(LNG_DST, LNG_SRC)) / SECONDS) * 2

DIRECTION_LAT = 1 if LAT_DST - LAT_SRC > 0 else -1
DIRECTION_LNG = 1 if LNG_DST - LNG_SRC > 0 else -1

lat = LAT_SRC
lng = LNG_SRC

tn = telnetlib.Telnet(HOST, PORT, TIMEOUT)
tn.set_debuglevel(9)
tn.read_until("OK", 5)

tn.write("auth {0}\n".format(AUTH_TOKEN))
tn.read_until("OK", 5)

tn.read_until("OK", 5)

tn.write("geo fix {0} {1}\n".format(LNG_SRC, LAT_SRC))
#tn.write("exit\n")

for i in range(SECONDS):
    lat += round(random.uniform(0, LAT_MAX_STEP), 7) * DIRECTION_LAT
    lng += round(random.uniform(0, LNG_MAX_STEP), 7) * DIRECTION_LNG

    #tn.read_until("OK", 5)
    tn.write("geo fix {0} {1}\n".format(lng, lat))
    #tn.write("exit\n")
    sleep(1)

tn.write("geo fix {0} {1}\n".format(LNG_DST, LAT_DST))
tn.write("exit\n")

print tn.read_all()

From a shell script one can set the coorinate like so

#!/usr/bin/env bash
export ATOKEN=`cat ~/.emulator_console_auth_token`
echo -ne "auth $ATOKEN\ngeo fix -99.133333 19.43333 2202\n"  | nc localhost 5554
Licensed under: CC-BY-SA with attribution
Not affiliated with StackOverflow
scroll top