Online compass for your true direction, not just magnetic north.

A magnetic compass is an instrument that finds direction by letting a magnetised element align itself with the Earth’s magnetic field, so that it settles pointing toward magnetic north. Every other direction is then read off the dial around it. A traditional magnetic compass does this with a pivoted needle floating in liquid; a phone does it with a magnetometer chip that measures the same field electronically, which is what the compass on this page reads.

A compass direction is the direction you are facing or travelling, expressed as an angle measured clockwise from north. It is written either in degrees — 0° is north, 90° east, 180° south and 270° west — or as a named point such as NE or SSW. A compass direction of 210° and south-southwest describe the same line; the degree figure is simply more precise. A compass direction is only complete once you say which north it was measured from, magnetic or true.

A compass card is the rotating dial inside a compass that carries the direction markings: the cardinal letters N, E, S and W, the intermediate points between them, and the degree graduations from 0 to 360. On a traditional magnetic compass the card is fixed to the magnet and turns with it, so the heading is read where the card passes a fixed reference called the lubber line. The dial on this page is a compass card drawn in software.

Hold the compass flat and level, away from metal, magnets and electronics, and let the reading settle. Read the heading where the dial meets the index mark: that number, in degrees clockwise from north, is the direction you are facing. To follow a bearing, turn your whole body until the heading matches the number you want, then pick a landmark in that direction and walk to it rather than watching the dial. To use the compass here, tap Start compass, allow motion access, and hold the phone flat.

The best compass app is whichever one tells you the two things most leave out: how far magnetic north sits from true north where you are standing, and how far the sensor reading can be trusted. Without declination a heading can be more than 20 degrees wrong in some regions, and an app that hides its accuracy estimate gives you no way to judge it. For most uses you do not need an app at all — an online compass reads the same magnetometer, asks for no storage or background permissions, and works the moment the page opens.

What matters for Vastu is not the make of compass but whether it gives you true direction rather than magnetic. The traditional directions were established from the sun’s shadow, which fixes geographic north, while a handheld magnetic compass points at magnetic north instead — and the gap between the two, magnetic declination, changes with where you stand. A compass that applies declination and names all sixteen points, as this one does, reports the direction the system is actually describing. Take the reading outdoors, away from steel, reinforced concrete and wiring, all of which pull a magnetic reading off.

A phone compass normally fails for one of five reasons: the device has no magnetometer, which is common on budget phones and on tablets; motion access was denied, so the browser never receives sensor events; the page is not served over HTTPS, which browsers require before releasing sensor data; the magnetometer needs calibration, which a figure-eight motion fixes; or something magnetic is close by, such as a case with a magnetic clasp, a car mount, a laptop or a speaker. Work through them in that order.

An online compass is a compass that runs in your web browser instead of as an installed app. It reads the same magnetometer your phone’s built-in compass uses, through the browser’s device orientation API, and draws a dial from it. Because it is a web page, there is nothing to download and nothing to update — you open a URL and get a live heading.

Open this page on a phone or tablet, tap Start compass, allow motion access, and hold the device flat. The dial rotates with you and the readout shows your compass direction in degrees, from 0° at north through 90° east, 180° south and 270° west. Allowing location as well gives you true compass direction rather than magnetic.

Yes. It reads your device’s magnetometer, which measures the Earth’s actual magnetic field, exactly as the needle in an analogue magnetic compass responds to it. It is not an estimate from your IP address, your timezone or a map — turn your device and the reading changes immediately, because the sensor is genuinely measuring the field around it.

True north is the direction of the geographic North Pole, and it is what maps, property surveys and GPS coordinates are drawn against. Magnetic north is the direction a compass needle points, toward the wandering magnetic pole. The angle between them is called magnetic declination, and depending on where you stand it can be anything from nearly zero to more than 20 degrees. A compass that ignores declination will send you off course by that much.

Yes, once you allow location access. Browsers only ever report magnetic north — on iOS the webkitCompassHeading value comes from Core Location’s magneticHeading, and on Android the absolute orientation event is referenced to magnetic north as well. We take that magnetic heading and add the declination computed for your coordinates from the World Magnetic Model 2025, giving a true heading. You can switch between the two references at any time.

A well-calibrated phone magnetometer is typically accurate to within a few degrees. Accuracy depends far more on your surroundings than on the website: steel structures, vehicles, speakers, magnetic phone mounts and even some phone cases will pull the reading off. Where your device reports its own heading uncertainty, we show it next to the dial so you can judge whether to trust the number.

Only for true north. The compass works without it and will simply show magnetic headings. If you do share your location, the coordinates stay on your device — the magnetic model runs inside the page, so nothing is sent to a server.

Almost no desktops or laptops contain a magnetometer, so there is no heading for the browser to report. This is a hardware limitation rather than a browser setting. Open the page on a phone or tablet for a live reading.

Hold the device flat and move it through a figure-eight motion a few times, rotating your wrist as you go. Step away from cars, desks with metal frames, laptops and speakers first. The compass will prompt you automatically when its reported accuracy drops far enough to matter.

A magnetometer measures a three-dimensional field, and the heading is derived by projecting that field onto the horizontal plane. The further you tilt from flat, the more error that projection carries. Hold the device level with the ground for the most reliable reading — the page warns you when it detects significant tilt.

After the first visit, yes for the compass itself: the magnetic model and all of the logic are part of the page, with no server calls while you use it. You need a connection only to load the page the first time.

Any modern mobile browser with sensor access over HTTPS: Safari on iOS 13 and later, and Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Samsung Internet and Opera on Android. iOS requires you to tap a button before it will grant motion access, which is why the compass starts on a tap rather than automatically.

A compass online loads in seconds, needs no storage, asks for no contacts or background location, and cannot send telemetry home between uses. Most compass apps want permissions a compass has no need for. The trade is that a web page cannot run in the background or wake your screen on its own — for a tool you glance at, that is not much of a trade.

Yes, entirely. There is no account, no paid tier, no trial and no ads. The compass runs in your browser, so it costs nothing to serve beyond the page itself.