Online compass to determine cardinal directions in an apartment

One of the basic principles of the Taoist practice of space exploration, known as “Feng Shui,” is the correct location of your home, as well as the interior inside it, relative to parts of the world. Where is your bed and other pieces of furniture, how is a person positioned while sleeping, where are the flowers, which way do the doors open, and so on. All this, according to Feng Shui, is important for our lives, contributing or hindering our happiness and prosperity. But how can you determine where your apartment is north and where it is south if you don’t have a standard compass at hand? In this article I will tell you how to determine the cardinal directions in an apartment, what tools will help us with this, and also how to work with a compass online.

Using the compass online

To determine the location of your apartment relative to the cardinal directions, and also to understand where the windows of your room face, you can use the online map from Google below.

This map with cardinal directions works correctly with the Google Chrome browser and other browsers based on the Chromium core, but when working with Firerox the resource has problems.

The operating principle of this service is as follows. There is a large compass on the screen, you just need to find your city on the map, and then your house, and in accordance with the compass image (N - north, S - south, W - west, E - east) see which side of the world you are facing the windows of your home are directed. Then, in relation to this, you can understand how correctly you are sleeping.

Feng Shui believes that if your head is positioned on:

North - this helps the development of intuition;
Northeast - will help in scientific activities;
East – guarantees a restful sleep;
Southeast - will help in developing determination;
South - will give fame and reputation;
South-West - will give help in Love;
West - bestows fertility;
North-west - will ensure true friendship.

Where should the apartment windows face: north, south, west or east?

When buying a home, you should think about an important parameter such as insolation (natural light). By law, when constructing an apartment building, the developer must comply with SanPiN (sanitary rules and regulations) for lighting residential premises. According to these requirements, studios and one-room apartments cannot face north, and in 2 and 3-room apartments at least one room must be south.

Sanitary and epidemiological services closely monitor compliance with all standards, but it should be noted that the apartments, although suitable for long-term living, can be built without taking into account the “requirements for insolation of residential premises.”

Regardless of what you are planning to buy - housing or apartments, it is worth figuring out where it is preferable to place an office or a bedroom, because the lack of light directly affects a person’s mood and health.

The “northern” room will be comfortable for people who cannot stand the heat. Here you can enjoy the coolness at any time of the year. A properly selected design will help to visually enlarge a poorly lit room: light wallpaper, a minimum of furniture, a large amount of artificial light. It is not uncommon for a developer to design non-residential rooms on the north side that are suitable for short stays - a kitchen, a bathroom, a wardrobe/storage room, etc.

“Southern” rooms are suitable for those who like to enjoy the sun. Heat-loving plants grow well in such rooms. The sun's rays illuminate the room all day, so you will definitely save on your electricity bills. In summer, this amount of light can cause inconvenience - the room will heat up. In this case, the heat in the room will remain all day. But if you remember how many sunny days there are in Yekaterinburg a year, then the south side is suitable for a living room or nursery.

If you are a night owl, then a bedroom in the west will allow you to sleep well, because... These rooms are illuminated by the sun from noon until sunset. It’s also a good place for an office; here you can avoid using artificial light for a long time.

The eastern side is considered the most universal. There will be no constant hot sun here, and you won’t notice a shortage of light. The East is a good place for your bedroom if you have to get up early every day. Otherwise, either take care of thick curtains in advance, or choose the west.

Our experts confirm that many apartment buyers pay attention to the direction of the world where the windows of their future home face. But there are several more factors related to the lighting of the room: the choice of floor, the view from the window (are there trees or buildings opposite), the size of the window openings and the presence of a loggia or balcony are important.

“At the design stage, we provided some options that increase the amount of light and sun in the apartments. Firstly, these are expanded window openings. Both in width and height. Agree, when the window is “to the ceiling”, the perception of the world is completely different. Secondly, this is the presence of upper panoramic floors, when the balconies and loggias are glazed from floor to ceiling. This, of course, further increases the value of such apartments; people are willing to significantly overpay for them. Thirdly, this is work with lighting the space of small apartments. For example, the format of studio apartments is now very popular, where the cooking area is located in a single living space. At the same time, there are a huge number of studios on the market designed as elongated “carriages”, where the light at the end of the tunnel enters the room through one small window on the far wall. In Astoria, all the studios have a regular, almost square shape, and each one has two windows. This way, the studio spaces are well lit.”

“In our projects, we pay great attention to architecture and design, including thinking through interesting windows that residents will appreciate from both a practical and aesthetic point of view. For example, in the first building of the Newton Park residential complex there are apartments with large-format panoramic windows 5.2 m wide. Window sills in all apartments are 70 cm from the floor (standard window sill is 90 cm from the floor). In apartments on high floors, we installed window sills even lower - at a level of 40 cm. It is very convenient to admire the view from the window - your gaze does not rest on the window sill. The second house has even more different windows in location and design. There will be floor-to-ceiling French windows, apartments with panoramic windows in the kitchen, a window in the bathroom, and double narrow and tall windows in the New York style.”

Google Maps - will help you determine the cardinal directions in your apartment

To determine the direction of the world, users use various applications, programs and services. But you can do it even easier - determine it using Google maps.

The search with this service is simplified by the fact that at any time, if you have an Internet connection, you can open a map and find out the direction you need. Maps can always be found at the same address: https://www.google.ru/maps/. A map will appear on the main screen with the screen focused on your host country.

It is enough to know one feature - Google maps always open in such a way that the north is exactly at the top, the south is at the bottom, the west is on the left, and the east is on the right. You don't just need to rotate the map while holding down the CTRL key on this online compass (or with several fingers on the touch screen). Otherwise, you will change its location and the cardinal directions will change direction on the screen. To search for your locality or place of residence, it is better to use the search bar. You need to write in it, for example, Voronezh. And then a more precise address, street, avenue, district, and so on.

When you enter a locality, hints appear in the line. From them you can choose what you need. After enlarging the map to a more detailed overview of the settlement, the parties will maintain their direction.

And you can find your house, street or building where you are on the map. Navigate by nearby streets and other objects on the map. This way you can easily determine your location or an object you want to visit in the near future. Notice the direction of the streets. They will help you navigate.

Mobile application Best Compass for Android

Another simple option is the Best Compass mobile phone application, which will help you accurately determine the cardinal directions in your apartment online. There are many advantages to this method. Firstly, you don't have to carry around a device that takes up a lot of space in your backpack, bag or pocket. Secondly, your mobile phone is always at hand. Most people don’t part with it even when going to the bathroom, not to mention long hikes. But there is also a disadvantage of this method to determine the direction of the world in an apartment or on the street - GPS technology must work in the phone.

It is based on receiving data over the network and processing it to output the result. In other words, without mobile Internet or Wi-Fi access, the application is practically useless. Don't be so quick to be disappointed.

After all, it contains a lot of useful text information on how to find the cardinal direction without navigating in the application. In the menu you can select “Guide”, which outlines ways to find any direction in the world in different situations. For now, these notes are useless to you, but in emergency situations, people always turn to them.

The compass app can not only show four directions: south, east, west, north. It also indicates angles and azimuths in more detail. You can also create your own compass based on the places you enter into it. Built-in air quality indicator. Thanks to it, you can determine air pollution where you live. Lots of useful information if you give the program access to the user's location. You can find out the time of sunrise and sunset. Built-in flashlight and useful guide.

How to determine where north, south, west and east are without a compass: practical advice

How to calculate cardinal directions without a compass, smartphone and map?

Now that we all have GPS and Google Maps with Yandex.Maps on our phones, which are always with us and ready to serve us at any moment, we have already forgotten many useful techniques that we were taught back in school during geography lessons and which they helped us navigate space so well in any conditions, without maps, without compasses and, of course, without these same smartphones.

And okay, we, those who managed to enjoy a non-synthetic life without the influence of smart phones, all kinds of electronic assistants and all kinds of electronic devices, but the new generation born in the early 2000s and later, unfortunately, did not come into contact with those rules of the game , which were used before the Apple electronic revolution. But even though they were more complex, they could perfectly develop logic and ingenuity in a person, teach intelligence and help in difficult times. Because they were really useful.

But sometimes without knowledge and without your favorite smartphone you simply cannot survive! For example, you are walking in the forest, winter. At some point, you lose sight of the trodden path and realize that you are lost. It doesn’t matter, you reason, and, taking your phone out of your pocket, you try to enter the “maps” application. And suddenly. realize that your phone is not working. From the word “in general”! The battery is low. What will you do to get your bearings, to find where north, south, west and east are?

Okay, let's not even take such an extreme example, let's say you're just curious about which cardinal directions are located? You cannot pick up a smartphone. Maps and compasses too. What will you do? We will tell you how to act correctly in such a situation.

Here are some strategies that will point you in the right direction, and you will find it solely through your knowledge and not through assistive devices.

Do compasses on smartphones generally show the direction correctly?

In fact, I don’t know a single person who would go mushroom hunting with a smartphone with a compass turned on. Normal people always take a real device with them, and those who know, in addition, take with them a map of the area, matches, a knife and a fully charged phone (in order to call and call rescuers in case of problems, if Network coverage allows).

So, if maps via GPS actually show locations with an accuracy of several meters, then there is a problem with the operation of electronic compasses. Here is an example of how compasses work on two Apple devices: iPhone 6 and iPhone 7:

And who to believe? The settings for both are set to “True North”, yes, the measurements were taken in a room where interference from electronic devices, plus reinforcement and a layer of concrete, has a significant influence, but still the difference on the devices is obvious. The most interesting thing is that the discrepancy with magnetic north on a real compass is from 60 to 120 degrees for both devices.

In general, I honestly wouldn't rely on phone readings in the field. Moreover, this “compass” drains the battery very quickly. A toy, nothing more.

Use the sun to calculate cardinal directions

This is a fairly simple, even basic part of orienteering knowledge. There is hardly a person in the world who does not know such fundamental truisms that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. And at 12 noon the luminary crosses the geographical meridian.

If you're trying to figure out whether your gaze is directed toward sunrise or sunset, paying attention to where the sun is moving is your best bet, during the daytime, of course. And also if there are no clouds in the sky.

At the same time, knowing that the sun rises in the east, you can stand facing it and find out that north will be on your left, south on your right, and west, respectively, behind you.

However, we should also not forget a number of nuances.

So, for example, in the northern hemisphere (in which our country is located), the sun rises in the east and disappears behind the horizon in the west only two days a year: March 21 and September 23. These are the days of the so-called spring and autumn equinox.

The rest of the time, the position of the luminary shifts slightly to the north (spring-summer period), to the south - with the approach of winter, to the northeast and northwest, on June 21 - on the day of the summer solstice and southeast - southwest - in winter, on the day of the so-called winter solstice.

In general, it is not located exactly on the sky, but a general understanding of the direction of movement will allow you to find it, especially if you know the indirect signs of north and south. For example, moss on trees that stand alone will most likely grow on trunks on the north side. the same thing will happen on the northern walls of the stones.*

*Here we emphasize an important nuance. Moss may also grow over the entire circumference of the trunk, or there may be no moss at all. It can grow in dense thicket and on lonely trees, while it can be on different nearby trees on different sides of the trunk.

It is important to find a certain pattern here. Only in this way can this natural sign be a good help in determining a more accurate direction of movement.

How to determine the direction of the parts of the world at noon?

Ok, at the very least you can calculate at least the location of parts of the world when the sun has just come out or is already setting below the horizon. But what to do when it is at its zenith? That is, above your head?

There is also a calculation method for this. In short:

We need to find a clean piece of land that receives enough direct sunlight. Then we need to find a straight stick and stick it at a 90 degree angle into the ground.

A shadow will fall from the stick. Let's put a mark where the edge of the shadow falls (mark this place with a pebble or peg). After about 15-30 minutes the shadow will move, mark the edge of the shadow again.

Now that we have two points, we can connect them with a line. This line will give us a rough idea of the east-west direction. In this case, the first point placed will point to the west, the second - to the east.

Unfortunately, this option will only work on a sunny day, but it will allow you to quickly navigate the terrain during a rest stop with greater accuracy than simply navigating by the sun at sunrise or sunset.

Another logical piece of advice. Never look at the sun directly. Even with sunglasses. This can cause eye injury.

Use your wristwatch to determine cardinal directions

Telling time using analog watches (wrist watches with hands) is becoming less and less relevant, but if you need a compass and wear a watch with hands, consider yourself lucky. In fact, even if you have a fancy digital watch on your wrist, all you need to do is visualize the hands on the dial, and if you have a smart watch like the Samsung Galaxy Watch or Apple Watch, then you won’t even need to use your imagination – just change the virtual dial to a pointer one.

Take off your watch and align the hour hand with the Sun (point it towards the sun). Imagine a line that divides the space between the number "1" (hour) and the hour hand (it still points towards the sun). This line will point south. For example, if the clock shows 16:00, then the line halfway between 13:00 will indicate 14:30.*

The line dividing this angle indicates the approximate direction in which the Sun is at noon, that is, the direction south.

Before noon, we divide the sector of the dial that the hour hand must pass before the “hour”; after noon, the sector that it passes after the “hour”:

*Important! Since winter time has been in effect throughout Russia since October 26, 2014, the sector must be counted from “1”.

Briefly and succinctly on the topic:

Find a church

Another option is to get to the bottom of where the horizon goes - to the west, east. Not always exactly correct, but as an auxiliary guideline it can complement the picture.

So, if you are in a village or an abandoned village, perhaps you will find a temple there, or rather a church. You need to know that in Orthodox churches the altar will most often face the east. The bell tower will be facing west.

Christian churches are generally aligned from west to east, with the altar at the eastern end of the temple facing the sunrise. Headstones in cemeteries are also usually aligned from west to east.

Look at the stars

Night option. It's night outside. What to look for in the sky? Constellation Ursa Minor:

You need to find the North Star, which is located in one of the constellations familiar to every schoolchild: Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The North Star is located in the constellation Ursa Minor (the constellation “hangs” higher above the Ursa Major bucket and seems to represent the bucket inverted from left to right). The uppermost star (the brightest of all) is the North Star. She points north.

And then it’s a matter of technology: behind is south, on the right hand is west and on the left is east.

And finally, a few auxiliary signs:

anthills are most often located to the south of the nearest trees, stump cuts have a denser arrangement of annual rings on the north side than on the south, the bark of trees on the north side is, as a rule, “coarser” (has a larger pattern) and darker than on the south sides of the tree.

Digital Compass application - quickly shows the cardinal directions

This application, which will help you determine the cardinal directions in the house or in an open area, is completely free. But it contains a lot of useful information for those who want to determine the direction of the world at home or in the country. The Digital Compass app has several modes. The program will show the correct cardinal directions using GPS technology or based on online maps, which it uses by default. This means the user does not need to provide any data on the card or use additional applications. You can see landscapes and mountains if you enter the appropriate geographic data directly into the program.

The app works according to the earth's magnetic field. And it is able to determine north based on it with great accuracy. The user can switch between the electronic compass itself and the online map.

Which displays the realistic relief of the earth's surface. If necessary, you can find out the distance between geographical objects or user-specified points on an online map. There is a built-in night mode with a change of color scheme, where light landmarks are displayed on a dark background.

The user can view the weather for several days in advance from the Digital Compass program without visiting third-party resources. When determining cardinal directions or using a map, you can create a photo and share it in other applications. The compass will work on all devices with Android 4.4 and higher. And also it does not take up much memory in the mobile device. Can be used offline, but with limited functionality.

Product from Google Corporation

First of all, it must be said that Google Compass is the best resource in this area today. It should be immediately noted that it is English-language, but at the same time it can offer a convenient interface and great information content. The instructions for using the service are simple; first you need to switch to the developer.

In the upper left area there is a description of the site’s functions, the main ones:

firstly, there is no need to manually search for declination, Google’s tool does everything automatically and accurately determines the difference between real and magnetic north;
secondly, it is possible to save and, if necessary, use routes created while working with the service.

There are 2 important tabs in the lower right corner:

Test Yourself - to test your own skills in using this compass, you need to answer five questions;
Using Compass - contains usage data, a trial version of the tool from Google.

If you decide to use an online compass to determine the sides of an apartment, use the following algorithm:

Watch the sunrise and sunset

As you know, our star rises in the east and sets in the west. Therefore, if you stand in such a way that your right hand points to the place where the sun rises (to the east), and your left hand points to the place where the sun sets (to the west), then north will be in front of you, and south behind you. And no online compass is needed to determine the direction of the world in an apartment.

Watch where the sun rises and where it sets

There is also a calculation method for this. In short:

We need to find a clean piece of land that receives enough direct sunlight. Then we need to find a straight stick and stick it at a 90 degree angle into the ground.

Another logical piece of advice. Never look at the sun directly. Even with sunglasses. This can cause eye injury.

Use a regular needle to determine the part of the world in the apartment

This method involves using a regular magnetized needle instead of an online compass. To do this, you will need NOT a metal bowl with water (or oil), or some kind of floating material (for example, a piece of wood, polystyrene foam, a piece of bark, etc.). And also a pre-magnetized ordinary small needle (instead of a standard magnet, you can use ordinary scissors with which you can magnetize the needle). Place a buoyant material (for example, a leaf) on the liquid in the vessel, and then place a magnetized needle on this buoyant material.

The needle will turn its sides north-south. You can see what it looks like in this video.

We use mobile applications

For mobile gadgets, there are a sufficient number of applications that demonstrate a digital semblance of a compass on user smartphones and can set part of the light in your home. This can be “Compass 360 Pro Free” (Android), “Compass” (Android), “Compass” (iTunes), “Free HD Compass” (iTunes) and other analogues. This mechanism works due to the magnetometer, accelerometer, gyroscope and GPS navigator built into the phone, allowing you to fairly correctly display the location of parts of the world.