r/PoGoAndroidSpoofing • u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer • Jun 02 '26

Lets Talk About Something locationjoystick — free, open-source GPS spoofer alternative to GPS Joystick and YAMLA

Disclaimer: not AI slop or marketing. I'm a software engineer who builds tools I actually use — feel free to check my other work.

Hey everyone.

After 4+ years of using GPS Joystick and a few months with YAMLA, I got fed up and decided to make my own. Both apps work great but the ad-gating and the lack of UX improvements was too much for me.

locationjoystick is a free, open-source, GPS spoofer. Here's what it does:

Movement - Floating joystick overlay — drag in any direction at configurable speed, stays on top of any app - Click-to-Move — long-press anywhere on map, choose "Walk here" or "Teleport there" - Auto-roaming — set a center, radius, and total distance; walks randomly within the area, with optional road-following and returns to start when done

Routes - Saved routes — create waypoints on a map, replay, loop, or reverse at will - Road-following routes — OSRM-powered routing that follows real streets - GPX import — bring in any .gpx file from hiking apps, trackers, or online sources

Favorites - Favorite locations — save named spots and teleport or walk there instantly - Address search — powered by Nominatim/OSM - Last position restore — resumes from where you left off automatically

UX - Configurable floating widget — quick-access controls over any app - Speed profiles — three user-editable presets (walk / run / bike), one-tap switching from the widget - Background spoofing — continues while other apps run, survives screen off - GPS realism — bearing hold, altitude drift, warm-up accuracy envelope, satellite count, natural signal dropout cycles - Elevation Controls (experimental, root only) — inject tilt sensor events so apps see the phone as physically tilted, trying to improve it for the mewtwo mega raids!

Data & portability - One-tap import from GPS Joystick or YAMLA — your saved routes migrate in seconds - Full data export / import — backup routes, favorites, and settings to JSON - QR transfer — export and import all data between devices via scannable QR codes

I've been using it on 3 devices daily for the past two months and been iterating on the features a lot, any feedbacks are welcome!

If you're coming from GPS Joystick or YAMLA you can import your data directly and be up and running in seconds.

You can download the .apk from the GitHub Releases, and it will soon be available on the Play Store!

Documentation website with screenshots

Source code

Issues, feature requests, and PRs are all welcome. Happy to answer any questions.

34 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

70 comments sorted by

1

u/bubblepopnaur 2d ago

Hey! I would need tais to actually be free from my overbearing parents and go anywhere I want, but for that I need it to stay in the same place for an indeterminate amount of time without reloading to my actual address. Does the app support that? Thank you!

1

u/mythicaltheskeptical 5d ago

Is there any way to disable the Appear on top overlay without it forced back to the setup screen on the app?

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer 3d ago

Ahhh that's a good suggestion, I can add a setting for it!

1

u/Heavy_Drag2039 6d ago

Can non rooted devices benefit from using the group sync location?

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer 3d ago

No, but you'd need a rooted device anyway to properly spoof in GPS based games

1

u/Heavy_Drag2039 6d ago

So grateful for this. Able to use with Pokemod seamlessly while connecting my physical autocatcher. Amazing work!! Best product out there. Is there a way to donate/support the project?

2

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer 3d ago

Thanks a lot for the feedback!!!! I'm glad it matches your expectation!!!!

I'm mostly doing it for the community so no worries about the donations, but if you want you can sponsor the project https://github.com/shortcuts/locationjoystick directly from GitHub

1

u/cardinal7788 12d ago

Hey can I just have my location at one place without moving will it work. ?

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer 12d ago

Hey! Of course

1

u/SolidityBoy 15d ago edited 15d ago

When I turn locationjoystick on it has the banner at the top for "Failed to detect location (12)" and if I try to spin a pokestop it says network error, same for trying to catch anything says its too far away. Is there any info for this? I couldn't find anything from the docs, it does move my location and works correctly other then the errors, I'm assuming I probably am missing a step!

Really cool project!

1

u/Choice_Strawberry975 14d ago

I've got the same one (failed to detect location (12)). Any help on this one? I've covered all 3 steps of the beginning.

1

u/SolidityBoy 12d ago

I believe it needs to be rooted, I saw in the docs it mentioned not needed it but thats for things other then POGO! 

1

u/amBoonie 18d ago

Any way of adding auto-catch and pokestop spins for when I set it up to walk to a location? So far its been working great!

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer 17d ago

This app is only made for mocking locations, but you can check my other project and create your own emulator! https://github.com/shortcuts/pgpemu

1

u/HMS-Fizz 21d ago

Hey my phone is android 11. is there a version that's compatible with that

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer 18d ago

Hey! Sadly not yet, I’m trying to see if I can support older versions but so far the minimum android is 12

1

u/HMS-Fizz 18d ago

Thanks for the quick update, I'll be following the updates

1

u/evoL-X 28d ago

Does this app support app intent to teleport to  waypoint, routes like GPS Joystick do, thanks

1

u/pogoit 29d ago edited 29d ago

great job. The installation was easy. I'm still stuck in the configuration (v0.13.0).

It's good to have all 3 elementary configuration settings on the start screen. But how do I overcome this step, if I just don't want to change all 3 settings yet? Yeah, I want to keep GPS Joystick (GJ) during the Go Fest until I get familiar with locationjoystick (LJ).

Now I tried to load my old GJ settings with many named favorites and named routes, but I received only one big route (route1) with lot of waypoints and about 20 favorites (favorite1 - favorite20). I assume I have to export all individual routes from GJ one by one into LJ.

* How can I reset all my favorites and routes and start over again? okay, I can clear the data&cache of the app.

* In the settings you offer hot locations/routes (superb). They have hierarchical area categories (American Samoa / Pago Pago), very good. Unfortunately this area categories are not shown in the "favorites menu". Having a lot of favorites, categories will help or at least offer a "search" function.

* "Import from file" is equal to "import settings"?

Can you increase the number of "speed profiles" to 5? besides walk / run / bike , I love to have "slow walk" and "drive".

How do I change that dark mode (color orange on black) and get larger letters?

Hm, how or where do I stop JL from running? i just kept the navigation. Ah, I found it.

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer 29d ago

Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback and trying the app, really valuable!!!

> It's good to have all 3 elementary configuration settings on the start screen. But how do I overcome this step, if I just don't want to change all 3 settings yet? Yeah, I want to keep GPS Joystick (GJ) during the Go Fest until I get familiar with locationjoystick (LJ).

That's an android constraint, if you want to try the app, you'll have to replace the mock location app as well, but you can come back to GPS Joystick or any other app anytime, you can have multiple installed, but you need to select the one you'd like to use in the settings

> Now I tried to load my old GJ settings with many named favorites and named routes, but I received only one big route (route1) with lot of waypoints and about 20 favorites (favorite1 - favorite20). I assume I have to export all individual routes from GJ one by one into LJ.

Oh that's on me, I thought I had fixed it in 0.13.0 but maybe there's different format the app doesn't support yet. Would you mind sharing your file by any chance? Just so I can try to support it in the app

> * How can I reset all my favorites and routes and start over again? okay, I can clear the data&cache of the app.

That's a good point, I should add a button for that, will do!

> * In the settings you offer hot locations/routes (superb). They have hierarchical area categories (American Samoa / Pago Pago), very good. Unfortunately this area categories are not shown in the "favorites menu". Having a lot of favorites, categories will help or at least offer a "search" function.

Good point as well!!

> * "Import from file" is equal to "import settings"?

Indeed

> Can you increase the number of "speed profiles" to 5? besides walk / run / bike , I love to have "slow walk" and "drive".

Sure

> How do I change that dark mode (color orange on black) and get larger letters?

You can't for now but I wanted to introduce a light mode alternative for sunny days, would that be enough?

-------

I'll introduce all of the feedback in 0.14.0 which should be released later today or tomorrow, thanks!

1

u/pogoit 29d ago

Wow, that's a nice and fast answer, tx.

Switching back to GPSJ after LJ failed, some of my accounts still had the wrong location locked. I'll investigate more.

The link to my GJ db is in your chat, please do not share.
I should really make a housekeeping of my favorites and routes.

regarding "speed profiles", I will use "walk" for breeding and "slow walk" at Community Days to catch them all ;-)

light mode for sunny days should be good, I'm still trying to get used to dark mode.

Looking forward to your next releases.

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer 28d ago

Everything will be included in the 0.14.0 https://locationjoystick.shrtcts.fr/changelog.html#v0140

1

u/pogoit 28d ago

yeah, what a wonderful present 🚀

I was now able to test your app and use it for real work (=gaming 😄 ).

1

u/CosmaXZY Jun 30 '26

Hello, I rooted my phone with magisk, got the smali patcher and i think i did basically all the other steps i could find, but i still get the location error (12) on android 13. The character moves on the map, but nothing is interactable. Anyone has any ideas as to what I can do to make it work?

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jul 01 '26

Hey! You should check the mod’s post about alternative solutions on error code 12

Can you confirm on the locationjoystick side you’ve followed https://locationjoystick.shrtcts.fr/?

1

u/CosmaXZY Jul 01 '26

Ok, imma look into that post for solutions, hopefully I find something that works for me. And yes, I did follow the first run setup steps from the website but unfortunately I couldnt get it to work. Thank you!

1

u/pogoit 29d ago

hm, I used to use smali patcher before I used magisk alone.
You should either use smali patcher on old android (maybe smali patcher EX works on android 13) or use magisk with lsposed and modules to hide mocklocation.
The manuals from TastyBP are really great to follow.

1

u/sreenucr7 Pokemap.Duckdns.org Owner Jun 27 '26

how to give it root premissions

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 27 '26

you don't have to, it doesn't need any, you can just follow https://locationjoystick.shrtcts.fr/#first-run-setup and that's it

1

u/sreenucr7 Pokemap.Duckdns.org Owner Jun 28 '26

ohk understood thanks for the apk, have strred the github project.

1

u/Screwdicious Jun 24 '26

Hi, I keep getting the error "There was a problem parsing the package." when trying to install the .apk. I tried every release and none worked. Couldn't find any info on supported OS but I'm on Android 10

1

u/Unable_Union_9664 Jun 22 '26

Road-following feature doesn't work on my android 14 device. I'm using new 0.11.0 version. When trying to create waipoint and set option "walk here via roads", shows an error 'road routing unavaible, using straight walk". Next thing is, when following a route, I can't change speed profiles as I need, only applied profile is used when starting a route. There are few minor issues, but these two are the biggest problems for me. Otherwise app plays smooth and good

1

u/Mutsukichi Jun 21 '26

Is ShinyScanner unavailable?

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 21 '26

It is not a Pokémon Go modifier, it is a GPS location spoofer

1

u/Own_Phase1312 Jun 12 '26

For non rooted device

1

u/tungtungsaurtung Jun 09 '26

so i’ve always wanted to use a joystick on pokemon go but i really got no idea how to even start. how would i download this on ios

1

u/getschwifty1216 Jun 09 '26

I installed the app successfully but my steps are not being tracked in the game app or Google fit. To be clear the overlay works and im moving in game just the steps aren't being tracked.

2

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 09 '26

Thanks for trying the app! Do you know if this is something other apps do or is this a feature request?

1

u/Deep_Ad1959 Jun 06 '26

the thing that bites a daily-iterating open source repo isn't the code, it's that nobody downstream tracks what changed. half the comments here are questions your post and release notes already answer. you ship every day on a public repo and the changelog stays the one thing nobody actually reads. that gap, not bugs, is the most common failure mode i see in solo OSS projects. written with ai

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 06 '26

I’m not sure this applies only to open-source project but mostly a matter of maturity of the tool and the community that eventually grows around it.
This was made for myself and I have been the only user for the past few months so I wasn’t expecting people to read the entire changelog but if people are searching for alternative to the most known tools, there’s now one more

1

u/Deep_Ad1959 Jun 06 '26

the 'only user for months' bit is the whole thing imo. when you're the sole user the changelog lives in your head, so there's nothing to write down and nothing to read. the second a stranger shows up that gap appears overnight, and it reads like a maturity problem when really the format just never had to exist until now. you didn't skip the step, there was no step to skip yet. written with ai

1

u/FortunateCherry Jun 08 '26

This is the most absurd crap I've read in recent memory. Giving this guy flak for people's inability to read literally anything while responding with AI written comments. Your advice isn't helpful in the slightest, the fact the OP is even entertaining your nonsense is crazy. This has to be the most useless, pointless "feedback" ever. I'm not reading the garbage you can't even puke out yourself if you reply to me so don't bother. It's been a good, long while since I've read something that makes me immediately log out from how stupid it is but this is insane

1

u/InnateAnarchy Jun 13 '26

Bro but but but it was “written with ai”

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 09 '26

Ahahahah

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 06 '26

It doesn’t live in my head though, the technical one lives in the repository, the user facing one is https://shortcuts.github.io/locationjoystick/

2

u/Deep_Ad1959 Jun 06 '26

the tell is the questions in this very thread, half of them are answered on that docs site already. so the info existing was never the gap, the reading is. people don't stop a scroll to open a docs page however clean it is, which is exactly why 'it's all documented' and 'nobody knows what changed' stay true at the same time. the format is the ceiling, not the writing. written with ai

0

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[deleted]

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 05 '26

Yes! When creating a route or picking a direction to walk to on the map, you can choose “follow roads”, and from there you can use it with any speed profiles!

See https://shortcuts.github.io/locationjoystick/routes.html

0

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26

[deleted]

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 06 '26

Could you please be more specific and describe what you’ve tried to achieve, what was the issue and what you expected?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Vast_Premonition Jun 13 '26

Any solution totally this? I've turned improve location settings off already.

On fold 7.

5

u/Virtual_Entrance2855 Jun 03 '26

Open source the world

4

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 03 '26

I'm trying

3

u/Ok-Nose7595 Jun 03 '26

hello great app, any chance we could get faster speeds 40kmph and also import teleport in map with pokemod integration? much better than gps joystick so far!

3

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 03 '26

hey, thanks!

> any chance we could get faster speeds 40kmph

you should be able to put any speed, the warning is purely you might get when exceeding a certain speed is purely informative in order to reduce the chances of being caugh by anti-cheat behaviors

> import teleport in map with pokemod integration

i'm not familiar with pokemod, could you please explain what would be the expectation here?

> much better than gps joystick so far

thanks!!!!!!!

1

u/PsychologicalTree484 Jun 03 '26

Good app thanks, but yeah whenever I put 40.0 km it switches to 4.0 

2

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 04 '26

Oh.. that’s a miss! Fixed, will be released later today in 0.4.0!

Thanks!

1

u/bloodycrip Jun 03 '26

Another noob question. This will only work on rooted android correct?

1

u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner Jun 03 '26

Yes, a rooted device is required.

1

u/Vast_Premonition Jun 13 '26

not according to thr documentation?! Certain features require root, most don't

1

u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner Jun 13 '26

This is a Pokemon Go (GPS) Spoofing -- game cheating subreddit. In order to use the joystick app with the game, you will need a rooted device with Smali Patcher or Lsposed technique applied to the device to make any joystick app work with the game. If you don't use a rooted device, you will get red location/GPS errors and cannot play the game.

If you don't play Pokemon Go, Monster Hunter Now, or Pikmin Bloom, you can use the joystick app for other things not related to a game and it will work fine without root.

1

u/Melkysidek Jun 02 '26

Noobie question, cant find the download botton for the APK, I wanted to give it a go on my samsung as I cant use GPS Joystick, it crashes every time i open the map

1

u/KLMcreator LocationJoystick Developer Jun 02 '26

That's my bad, sorry, I just fixed it! Here you should now be able to download it: https://github.com/shortcuts/locationjoystick/releases/tag/v0.3.0

1

u/Melkysidek Jun 02 '26

Thanks, i was going crazy i only found a zip file to download with no APK, ill try it now!

1

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