I’m interested in understanding any intermittency in the Safegraph data. How common is it to lose signal from a device (i.e. not get any pings for a few days)?

Questions & Help
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Hi @Ryan_Fox_Squire_SafeGraph I’m interested in understanding any intermittency in the Safegraph data. How common is it to lose signal from a device (i.e. not get any pings for a few days)? Thanks!

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@Amanda_Stanford_RegLab This white paper talks about how SafeGraph cleans GPS data: Store Visit Attribution: Importance, Methods, & Where to Get Data | SafeGraph

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@Amanda_Stanford_RegLab I just found out that the white paper would take some time to get to your work email. Regarding your question, it seems to be more inherent in how GPS signals get collected. The white paper states that “If a device loses GPS signal, it can either fall back to WiFi or the nearest cell tower. If WiFi is unavailable, it’s not uncommon for the horizontal accuracy to spike up above 1000m. ” And this creates a spiky pattern that SafeGraph handles in the data cleaning phase by “filtering horizontal accuracies above a tuned threshold”.

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Thank you, that’s very helpful!