UnifiedNlp is part of the microG project and provides location services to Android from various proivders. As WundermentOS has, until this time, only provided GPS location services, the addition of UnifiedNlp is useful when GPS is not available, or for aquiring aproximate location details faster than GPS can provide.
The UnfiedNlp service will included in the May release of WundermentOS, however if you wish to use any of the location providers, you’ll have to download them from F-Droid.
From the UnfiedNlp github page:
UnifiedNlp alone does not provide any features, but acts as a middleware for multiple backends. Most of them can be downloaded and updated using F-Droid. Here is a list of backends known to me.
List of backends for geolocation:
- AppleWifiNlpBackend – Uses Apple’s service to resolve Wi-Fi locations. It has excellent coverage but the database is proprietary.
- OpenWlanMapNlpBackend – Uses OpenWlanMap.org to resolve user location but the NLP backend did not reach release-quality, yet. Users interested in a freely licensed and downloadable database for offline use should stick with openBmap for now – Last updated in 2015
- OpenBmapNlpBackend – Uses openBmap to resolve user location. Community-created, freely licensed database that can optionally be downloaded for offline operation. The coverage varies from country to country (it’s best in central Europe).
- MozillaNlpBackend – Uses the Mozilla Location Service to resolve user location. The coverage is OK. Only the cell tower database is free.
- LocalWifiNlpBackend – Local location provider for Wi-Fi APs using on-phone generated database.
- LocalGSMLocationProvider – Local opencellid based location provider backend. Has been surpassed by LocalGSMBackend which also has an OpenCellID option – Last update in 2014
- LocalGSMBackend – Local location provider for GSM cells. It works offline by downloading freely licensed database files from Mozilla, OpenCellID, or lacells.db.
List of backends for (reverse) geocoding:
- NominatimGeocoderBackend – Address lookup backend.
You can choose to use any of the above providers, or leave it unconfigured if you prefer.