Location Accuracy - Lost iPad

[WPS-IT]

Hi,

I work for a country school - we have a few 7th gen iPads (WiFi only) that are DEP enrolled and on Meraki SM.

Recently one of our iPads been stolen and the location is showing within a couple of kilometers of our school. I'm confused about the accuracy of this missing device. The accuracy of our other iPads are quite accurate (down to a few meters)

I don't understand how this is so accurate. We don't have any Meraki infrastructure equipment on-site so its not using that to determine location.

I'm wondering how accurate the location is of the missing iPad and confused about how it determined the particular address that it's showing. The blue shaded area in the location map was quite small initially - but is now quite large.

Can someone enlighten me? I know BSSID geolocation is one way of gathering location, but would that be Meraki BSSID's only?

Thank you,

Michael

[PhilipDAth]

https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Monitoring_and_Reporting/How_Systems_Manager_Approximates_the_Lo... 

[WPS-IT]

Yep I've read that article. I guess my query then comes down to the 4th and 5th point then, as the others don't apply.

Bssid geolocation (via WiFi)
Location based on the bssid (the address of the WiFi network).

IP geolocation (via IP)
Location based on the device's most recent IP address. This is our fallback mechanism, and the one that's most likely to be inaccurate. The results of a geoIP lookup can depend on a variety of factors, including where the owner of the IP (not the user of the IP) has it registered, where the agency that controls the IP is located, proxies, and cellular IPs.

How is the BSSID geolocation determined? If its using the IP geolocation of an internet connected BSSID isn't that just the same as the IP geolocation?

If the BSSID is geolocation is determined via the location of Meraki APs, isn't that just the same as the third point?

Location of Meraki products (via AP)
If your organization has other Meraki products, such as WiFi access points, we can use their location as part of the calculation.

[merakichamp]

@WPS-IT  did you try to check this document

Using Lost Mode to Recover Missing iOS Devices

[WPS-IT]

Yes the iPad is in lost mode and the location has been requested. The location is showing some addresses within a couple kilometres of the school. it pinpointed a particular address and I'm just wondering how accurate that data might be. Location has been determined "via IP".

I've just had a look and one of our iPads that we have in our possession has a very accurate location data says our address "via GPS" under "devices" in the Meraki dashboard - but it's a WiFi-only iPad.

Then some of our other iPads connected to our WiFi that all have the same public IP address, show locations that are capital cities 100 kilometers, and several say 2000 Kilometers away

So confusing

[merakichamp]

hi @WPS-IT  in that case i would suggest you  contact meraki support team 

[WPS-IT]

Thanks. But whenever I have spoken to Meraki support in the past they haven't been much help and take a long time to respond. I'm assuming they're just going to link those articles.

I might try them though.