Speedometer not working? Here’s how to fix it

Location permission is blocked

This is the most common cause. Browsers require you to explicitly grant location access before any speedometer — ours or anyone else’s — can read your GPS. If you tapped “Block” or “Never allow” once, the browser keeps denying access silently from then on — reloading the page alone won’t prompt you again, so you have to fix it in settings directly. Here’s exactly where to look.

On iPhone (Safari)

On Android (Chrome)

Menu wording and icon placement vary slightly by browser version and phone manufacturer — these illustrations show the general pattern, not a pixel-exact match for every device.

Stuck on “Acquiring GPS signal…”

This means your browser has permission but hasn’t gotten an accurate enough fix yet. GPS needs a clear view of the sky to triangulate your position from satellites.

• Move outdoors, or as close to a window as possible — GPS is unreliable indoors.
• Tall buildings, dense tree cover, tunnels, and covered parking all degrade or block GPS signal.
• The first fix after opening the page can take a few seconds to a minute; this is normal.
• On Android, make sure your device’s location mode is set to High accuracy (uses GPS, Wi-Fi, and mobile networks together) rather than GPS-only or battery-saving mode.

The reading stays at zero on iPhone specifically

There’s a real, documented reason for this: iOS Safari’s Geolocation API never populates the direct GPS speed value (coords.speed) — it always returns null, on every version of iOS. Speedometer sites that only read that one value will show 0 or nothing at all on iPhone, permanently, even with a perfect GPS fix.

This speedometer works around it: when the direct value is missing, we calculate your speed ourselves from the distance between consecutive GPS readings divided by the time between them. If you’re still seeing zero on iPhone after a few seconds of movement outdoors with permission granted, try closing and reopening Safari, or confirm Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Safari Websites is set to While Using the App.

Using a desktop or laptop

Most desktops and laptops have no real GPS chip — the location a browser reports usually comes from nearby Wi-Fi networks instead, which is far too imprecise and slow to update for a meaningful speed reading. The exception is laptops with a built-in cellular (4G/5G) modem, which usually include a real GPS receiver as part of that same chip. Outside of that case, a GPS speedometer is fundamentally a mobile-device tool.

Permission prompt never appears

• Geolocation only works on secure (HTTPS) pages. If you somehow reached a non-HTTPS version of this site, the browser will refuse to even offer the permission prompt.
• Some browser privacy extensions or hardened browser settings block the Permissions API outright. Try disabling extensions for this site if the prompt never shows up.
• In-app browsers (opening a link from Instagram, TikTok, etc.) sometimes restrict geolocation access. Open the page in your regular browser (Safari or Chrome) instead.