Life360 Showing Wrong Location? The Guide to Fixing It

Seeing a Life360 showing the wrong location for a family member can cause a moment of pure panic. One minute, you’re checking to see if your child arrived safely at school; the next, their icon is pinned to a strange house down the street. That jolt of fear is a common experience, born from confusion over why the app seems to be failing.

The good news is that a Life360 incorrect location is rarely a sign of a real emergency. More often, it’s a technical issue with a clear solution. This guide will walk you through tested fixes to diagnose and resolve these inaccuracies, helping you turn uncertainty back into confidence and trust the map again.

Before You Start: Whose Phone Needs Fixing?

When you see an incorrect location, your first instinct might be to check your own phone’s settings. However, in almost all cases, the issue isn’t with your device.

The location inaccuracy comes from the settings on the phone you are trying to locate.

This means the fixes we’re about to cover need to be applied to your family member’s phone. We understand this can require a conversation, especially with a teenager. We suggest approaching it as a team effort: “Let’s check these settings together to make sure the app is working right for both of us.” By making sure their phone is configured correctly, you ensure the whole family gets the peace of mind Life360 is meant to provide.

The 3-Step Quick Fix Checklist

Before diving into complex settings, run through this simple checklist. These three steps solve the majority of location issues without ever opening the settings menu.

• Check Their Battery Level (In the App): This is the #1 cause of sudden location problems. Tap on their icon in your Life360 app and look at their battery percentage. If it’s below 20%, their phone has likely entered a low power mode. These modes automatically restrict background apps and GPS usage to save power, causing significant location inaccuracies.
• Ask if They Have Wi-Fi On: A phone’s Wi-Fi radio is critical for getting an accurate location indoors. Even if they aren’t connected to a network, the phone scans for nearby Wi-Fi signals to help pinpoint its position. Ask them to ensure Wi-Fi is enabled on their device.
• Restart Their Phone: A simple reboot can resolve temporary software glitches that interfere with location services. It’s a classic fix for a reason—it often works.

If you’ve tried these steps and the location is still off, it’s time to check the phone’s core settings.

Learn More：Life360 GPS Tracker: The Complete User Guide>

Understanding How Life360 Finds a Location

Before changing any settings, it’s critical to understand that Life360 intelligently blends three technologies to find a person’s location, constantly switching based on signal strength. Most problems arise when a phone is forced to use a less accurate method.

Here’s the breakdown, from most to least accurate:

• GPS (Global Positioning System): The gold standard. By communicating with satellites, GPS can pinpoint a location to within 10-30 feet. It works best outdoors with a clear view of the sky.
• Wi-Fi Positioning: When indoors, a phone scans for nearby Wi-Fi networks and checks them against a global database to estimate its position. This is generally accurate to 50-200 feet, but a Wi-Fi positioning error can occur if a router’s location is outdated in Google’s or Apple’s database.
• Cell Tower Triangulation: As a last resort, the phone measures its distance from several cellular towers to triangulate its position. This is the least precise method, with accuracy varying from 600 feet to several thousand feet.

Decoding the Map: What the Accuracy Circle Means

The best clue to what’s happening is right on your screen. Life360 places a circle around each person’s profile icon to show its location confidence. The size of this circle tells you exactly which technology is being used.

• Small, Tight Circle (High Accuracy): When you see a very small circle around their icon, it means the phone has a strong GPS signal. This is the most accurate reading you can get, typically pinpointing them to a specific building or even part of a park.
• Large, Wide Circle (Low Accuracy): A large, “fuzzy” circle indicates that the app is uncertain. This almost always means the phone is indoors or has a weak signal and is relying on Wi-Fi or cell tower data. The person’s actual location is somewhere inside that larger circle.

Understanding this visual cue is key. If you see a large circle, you don’t need to panic that they’re at the neighbor’s house—you know the app is just making its best guess based on limited data.

Learn More：Life360 Not Updating Location? The Proven Fix>

How to Fix Life360 Inaccurate Location on iPhone (iOS 17+)

On an iPhone, location inaccuracies are often caused by default settings designed to preserve battery life at the expense of precision. To fix Life360 inaccurate location, you must review the settings on the phone that is reporting the incorrect location. Follow this procedure to configure the correct Life360 location permissions.

1. Enable Precise Location for Life360

This is the single most critical setting. When turned off, iOS only provides an approximate region, which can be thousands of feet wide.

• Open the Settings app.
• Navigate to Privacy & Security > Location Services.
• Scroll down and tap on Life360.
• Set location access to Always. This is crucial for the app to update when not actively open.
• Ensure the Precise Location toggle is switched ON (green).

2. Activate Background App Refresh

This allows Life360 to update location in the background, preventing stale data.

• Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
• Find Life360 in the list and make sure its toggle is ON.

3. Keep Wi-Fi Enabled

Even when not connected, the iPhone uses Wi-Fi to improve its location estimate. Disabling Wi-Fi severely reduces GPS accuracy indoors. Ensure it’s on from the Control Center or in Settings > Wi-Fi.

How to Fix a Life360 Wrong GPS Position on Android (Samsung & Pixel)

Android’s powerful battery optimization can be too aggressive, restricting apps like Life360 from running properly. A Life360 wrong GPS position is frequently the result of a power-saving mode interfering with the app. These steps will help you configure a high accuracy location mode.

1. Set Location Permissions to “Allow all the time”

Life360 requires constant permission to access location data to function reliably.

• Press and hold the Life360 app icon.
• Tap the ‘i’ (App info) button.
• Select Permissions, then tap Location.
• Choose Allow all the time.
• Make sure the Use precise location switch is enabled.

2. Enable Google Location Accuracy

This service uses Wi-Fi and mobile networks to drastically improve accuracy where GPS signals are blocked.

• Open your phone’s Settings app and go to Location.
• Tap on Location services.
• Select Google Location Accuracy and ensure the Improve Location Accuracy toggle is ON.

3. Disable Battery Optimization for Life360

This is the most common culprit for Android issues. You must tell the system not to put Life360 to sleep.

• Go to App info for Life360 again (Settings > Apps > Life360).
• Tap on Battery.
• Select Unrestricted. This prevents the system from limiting Life360’s background activity.

Common Scenarios: Why Life360 Shows the Wrong Address

Even with perfect settings, you may occasionally see that Life360 shows the wrong address. This is known as Life360 location drift and occurs when environmental factors weaken the primary GPS signal.

Remember the story of Mark, who saw his daughter’s location at a house near her school? His daughter was safely inside the building, but the concrete and steel blocked the GPS signal. Her phone automatically defaulted to Wi-Fi positioning. The strongest signal it detected was from a router in a neighboring home, causing the pin to land there.

Here are common real-world situations where you can expect location drift:

• Large Buildings (Schools, Malls, Offices): Building materials block satellite signals. Inside, a phone relies on Wi-Fi and cell data, which can result in the pin showing a nearby address.
• Dense Urban Areas (“GPS Canyons”): Tall buildings can block the phone’s view of the sky and cause signals to bounce, which can confuse the phone’s receiver.
• Apartment Complexes: In a multi-story building with dozens of Wi-Fi networks, a phone might lock onto a neighbor’s router one floor above or below, causing the location pin to appear slightly offset.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are direct answers to the most common questions about Life360’s location accuracy.

Q1: Why is Life360 showing the wrong location?

Most often, it’s due to restrictive phone settings (like Low Power Mode or disabled Precise Location) on the person’s device, or a poor GPS signal forcing the phone to use less accurate Wi-Fi or cell tower data.

Q2: How accurate is Life360 GPS tracking?

With a strong GPS signal, Life360 is accurate to within 10-30 feet. However, its accuracy depends on the technology it’s using. Wi-Fi positioning is accurate to 50-200 feet, while cell tower triangulation can be off by thousands of feet.

Q3: How do I fix an inaccurate location on iPhone or Android?

Start with the quick-fix checklist: check their battery, ensure Wi-Fi is on, and restart their phone. If that doesn’t work, enable Precise Location (Always) and Background App Refresh on an iPhone. On an Android, set location to Allow all the time and battery usage to Unrestricted.

By understanding how Life360 works and configuring your family’s devices correctly, you can dramatically improve its reliability. The goal is to move past the initial fear that a wrong location brings. Now, when you see a slightly off-pin with a large accuracy circle, you won’t immediately worry. Instead, you’ll recognize it as a sign of location drift due to being indoors. This knowledge transforms Life360 from a source of anxiety into a trusted tool for your family’s peace of mind.