Every Vastu question starts with a direction, and most people are unsure how to read one. This tool turns your phone into a compass for the three things people measure most: the way the main door faces, the zone a room sits in, and the way a bed points. Press the button, hold the phone flat, take a reading and the page names the direction. If your phone has no compass, or you already have a bearing, type it in.
Nothing is scored and nothing is predicted. It is a measuring aid, and the notes below explain how far to trust it.
How to use it
Choose what you are measuring, press Start the compass and, if your phone asks, allow motion and orientation access. On an iPhone this is a one-time permission request from Safari. On an Android phone with Chrome the compass starts at once.
Calibrate before you read. Move the phone slowly in a figure of eight for a few seconds, then hold it flat and level, with the top edge pointing the way you are measuring. A dial turns on the screen and the number settles. When it has been steady for a couple of seconds, press Take this reading. Take two or three readings from slightly different spots. From the second reading on, the result uses their average and tells you how far apart they were.
The page does not ask where you are and does not send the reading anywhere. The compass is read inside your browser, as the rest of the tools here are.
What to measure, and from where
The main door. Stand in the doorway, or just inside the door, and look straight out, the way a visitor faces you on arrival. Hold the phone flat and point its top edge the same way. The reading is the direction your house faces. The result then shows the entrance pada that bearing falls in, as the entrance checker does, with what the Brihat Samhita says about it.
A room. Stand in the middle of the home, face the room, and read the bearing. A room that spans two zones takes the zone that holds most of it. The result names the zone and points you to the room placement guide, which keeps the classical texts and modern Vastu apart.
The head of a bed. Point the top edge of the phone along the bed, from the foot to the head, so that it faces the direction the head end points. The result tells you which direction that is and how it sits against the one classical sleeping rule, in the sleeping direction checker.
How the reading is worked out
Phones carry a magnetometer, a small sensor that feels the Earth’s magnetic field, and a gyroscope. The browser combines them into an orientation. Android Chrome gives it as an angle from magnetic north, and the tool turns that into a compass heading. Safari on an iPhone gives the heading directly. Browsers that give only a relative angle, with no link to north, are not used, because the reading would be meaningless.
The dial is smoothed, so the number does not jitter. The heading is then placed in one of eight sectors of 45 degrees, centred on the compass points: north runs from 337.5 to 22.5 degrees, north-east from 22.5 to 67.5, and so on round the circle. The entrance pada uses 32 equal sectors of 11.25 degrees, as in the entrance checker, which is exact only for a square plot.
Magnetic or true north. A phone reads magnetic north. In India the gap to true north, called declination, is a degree or two at most, well inside the error of a phone. Elsewhere it can be much larger. If you want a true-north bearing, enter your local declination in the box: east is positive, west negative. The directions do not reverse in the southern hemisphere. North is still north.
Why a reading goes wrong
A phone compass is rarely better than five to ten degrees. Steel grilles, fridges, cars, speakers, laptops and magnetic phone cases all pull the needle, and so does steel reinforcement in a concrete building. Stand a metre or two clear of metal, take the reading at a window or in the middle of a room rather than against a steel door, and remove a magnetic case.
If the readings you take differ by more than about 15 degrees, the tool says so rather than hiding it. Calibrate again and try a different spot. A reading close to the edge of a direction could go either way, so repeat it.
If nothing happens when you press the button, your device may have no compass. Most laptops and desktop computers do not. The tool waits a few seconds and then suggests the typed bearing. If you refused the permission on an iPhone, you can allow it again in the browser’s settings for this site.
What the tool leaves out
It cannot tell you whether a direction is good for you. The classical texts, chiefly the Brihat Samhita, judge a house square by square, and modern Vastu adds many room and facing rules of its own. The tools that follow this one say which is which. The result is a direction and nothing more. See how to find which way your house faces for a longer walk through the measuring, and the house facing checker for the facing on its own.
Frequently asked questions
↳ Why does my phone compass not work in the browser?
Many computers have no compass sensor, and an iPhone asks for permission the first time. If the dial stays blank, allow motion access in the browser settings or type the bearing in the box. Hold the phone flat and calibrate it with a figure of eight.
↳ How accurate is a phone compass for Vastu?
Usually within five to ten degrees, and worse near steel or electronics. That is enough to name a direction of 45 degrees, but not to be sure about a reading near the edge of a sector. Take two or three readings and use their average.
↳ Should I use magnetic or true north?
In India the difference is a degree or two, which does not matter. In other parts of the world it can be much larger, so enter your local declination in the box, east as positive, to get a true-north bearing.
↳ Which way should the phone point at the main door?
Stand in the doorway and point the top edge of the phone straight out, the way a visitor faces you. The bearing is the direction the house faces. Read from outside looking in, add or subtract 180 degrees.
↳ Does the compass send my location anywhere?
No. It reads only the phone's orientation sensor inside your browser, never asks for your location and sends nothing to us. The first time you use a tool we ask for an email address, as the privacy page explains.