Simple, battery-efficient APIs for location and context

The location and context APIs harness the sensors and signals of mobile devices to provide awareness of user actions and their environment, enabling delightful and engaging experiences that simplify user interactions, provide assistance, and help users to better understand themselves.

They intelligently combine signals from over a dozen sources to maximize accuracy and provide simple API surfaces that you can use to build experiences based on where your users are, what they’re doing, and what's around them — all in a way that respects their privacy and reduces battery drain.

Dive deep to understand your users

Give your users contextual information about where they are, when they’re there. Access detailed information about 100 million places across a wide range of categories.
Geofencing combines awareness of the user's current location with awareness of the user's proximity to locations that may be of interest.
Get location data for your app based on combined signals from the device sensors using a battery-efficient API.
Enable your users to record their fitness activity and track their fitness and health goals. Fit is a universal platform that lets users access their fitness data across multiple apps.
The Activity Recognition API processes low power signals from multiple sensors in the device to accurately detect your users' current activity.
Access raw data from all device sensors, as well as fused information from multiple sensors.
Determine when the user goes to sleep and wakes up, to help users understand their sleep habits.
Allow your users to find nearby devices and share messages in a way that’s as frictionless as a conversation. Enable rich, collaborative group interactions.
Discover other devices nearby and create connections that enable real-time cross-device experiences.
Nearby Notifications is an upcoming feature for contextual discovery. Associate your website or app with beacons, to provide low-priority notifications when scanned by devices that are nearby.
Access seven different types of context signals in a single API that is battery efficient and simple to use. Combine these signals to build experiences that are tailored to the current situation of your users.
Standardize requests to enable location settings and provide a consistent experience by using the location settings dialog, which you can use to prompt users to turn device settings on for the best experience with your app.
The Time API provides access to time signals and alternatives to System.currentTimeMillis() and Instant.now() that cannot be affected by end-users.