If your child's Bark Phone location tracking is inaccurate, check the settings below.
Note: If Power Saving Mode is enabled, location updates will only come through about once per minute by design. If that's acceptable, no changes are needed.
On the Bark Phone, open the Settings app.
Tap Location.
Tap Location Services.
Turn on Emergency Location Service, Google Location Accuracy, Wi-Fi scanning, and Bluetooth scanning.
Tap < back twice.
Tap Apps > Bark Guard Dog.
Enter a device code if prompted. Then, tap the ||| button on the bottom navigation to go back to where you were in Settings.
Tap Mobile Data.
Toggle on Allow background data usage and Allow data usage while Data saver is on.
Tap < back.
Tap Battery > select Unrestricted.
Tap < back twice and tap the
Bark Kids app.
Tap Mobile Data.
Toggle on Allow background data usage and Allow data usage while Data saver is on.
Tap < back.
Tap Battery > select Unrestricted.
Tap < back a few times to get to the home page of the Settings app.
Tap Battery. Power Saving is optional here. Leave it on if once-a-minute location updates are acceptable. For the most frequent updates, turn Power Saving off.
Then, tap Background usage limits.
Tap Never auto sleeping apps.
Tap the ➕ to add Google Play Store app as an exception to deep sleep. Alternatively, you can choose to turn off the "Put unused apps to sleep setting" entirely on the previous page.
That's it! You've now checked that they have the best settings for location accuracy.
Getting repeated alerts even when the device hasn't moved?
If you're getting a bunch of arrival or departure alerts even though the device is staying in one place, it could be due to small changes in how the GPS is reporting the location. This can happen when signal is weak — like inside buildings or during bad weather — and may cause the location to "jump" slightly on the map.
A quick fix is to increase the radius of the favorite location. That way, small location shifts won’t trigger unnecessary alerts.