One UI 6.1 on the Galaxy S24 series suffers from many optimization issues. The major patch for February is already out. It fixes some problems with the cameras and also changes the vibrancy settings of the display so that the colors finally look significantly different in both Normal and Vibrant modes.
However, the update is not yet available everywhere. Samsung’s updates depend on your region and carrier; not all their phones get the update simultaneously. Samsung also didn’t specify anything about fixing a GPS bug, and there are plenty of reports about GPS connectivity issues on the Galaxy S24 series on the Samsung Community Forums and Reddit.
The complaints say the phone keeps randomly pinning users to a random home location. In one case, it was Vacaville, CA, when the original location was Toronto, Canada. It’s not just with one app; it’s on the device level since all apps with location show the same problem. Turning off the location services fixes the issue temporarily.
Because of this issue, alarms don’t go off at the right time if you set alarms to go off depending on your time zone, and it’s highly inconvenient. We’re not sure if a hard reset will solve the problem. The number of kilometers or miles it calculates is also wrong.
There are other GPS problems, too, where it continuously keeps re-routing or randomly bounces you from one side of the road to another. There are also problems with Android Auto. Sometimes, Google Maps moves rapidly and fails to register one location even when the user is actually standing still. The GPS sensor randomly moves by itself, and it’s a software-controlled hardware issue in this case. This was apparently a problem on the S22 series, and it was fixed.
The GPS detection of satellites is also apparently poor. Thankfully, Samsung is apparently aware of the problem. The Support team claims that Samsung will fix this soon with a software update. We’re not sure whether it’s a software or hardware issue entirely. If it’s a broken GPS sensor, Samsung must replace some affected units for free. Many are considering returning their phones because of this problem.
I contacted Samsung. They still say they don’t know of any GPS issues. I don’t believe it will fix the problem.