MongoDB $near query accuracy issue - mongodb

Question

In my application I would like to query items that are close by (e.g. within 5km) to a coordinate and I tried to use $near to achieve that. With a quick look I thought it worked but after I tested it further it seems the query is somewhat inaccurate. Here is my setup:
I selected 2 coordinates that are a bit less than 5km apart from each other:
61.4644750214197, 23.8426943813556
61.497133399999996, 23.778528100000003
(At least according to tools like this, this or this the distance between those coordinates should be about ~4,99km)
I added one of the coordinates into empty "items" collection:
db.items.insert({
"geo" : {
"type" : "Point",
"coordinates" : [
61.4644750214197,
23.8426943813556
]
}
});
I added "2dsphere" index to the collection make geospatial queries possible:
db.items.createIndex( { geo : "2dsphere" } )
Finally, I used the other coordinate with $near query:
db.items.find({geo: {
$near: {
$geometry: {
type: "Point" ,
coordinates: [ 61.497133399999996, 23.778528100000003 ]
},
$maxDistance: 5000 // according to docs with '2dsphere' index and GeoJSON this is is meters
}
}}).count()
I expected the result to be 1 but instead it is 0. Even if I set $maxDistance to 7000 the result is still 0, but if I set it to 8000 the result will be 1.
Am I doing something wrong or are MongoDB geospatial queries (or just $near query?) that inaccurate? If so, is there a better way to get accurate results for this kind of query? This is my first time dealing with geospatial queries in MongoDB so there is probably a trivial explanation for my problem.
EDIT:
Basically I was dreaming of a functionality to show all items in map within X kilometres from users current location and X could be determined by user. It would be awkward if an item within 5km would not be visible even when the user wants to filter items within 7km.
I have tried most of the options for doing this query, like $centerSphere, $nearSphere and geoNear with similar results. They all seem to claim that the distance between my earlier mentioned coordinates is somewhere between 7-8km. I'm starting to think either 1. I'm missing some key peace of information about how distances work in general or 2. it simply is not possible to solve my problem with mongodb. Below are my queries for the other options:
$centerSphere (0 results with 5, 6 and 7km but 1 result with 8km):
db.items.find( { geo: {
$geoWithin: { $centerSphere: [ [ 61.497133399999996, 23.778528100000003 ], 5/6378.1 ]
}
}}).count()
geoNear (0 results with maxDistance 5000, 6000 and 7000 but 1 result with 8000):
db.runCommand(
{
geoNear: "items",
near: { type: "Point", coordinates: [ 61.497133399999996, 23.778528100000003 ] },
spherical: true,
maxDistance: 5000
}
)

Answer 1

I understand I am late to the party, but for all those who are facing similar issue
The problem here is that when you store that data into "coordinates", it must be in the [longitude, latitude] order because this is how mongodb works. https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/geospatial-queries/#spherical I just ran your example with reversed order of coordinates and it worked as expected.
db.items.insert({
"geo" : {
"type" : "Point",
"coordinates" : [
23.8426943813556,
61.4644750214197
]
}
});
And then i ran
db.items.find({geo: {
$near: {
$geometry: {
type: "Point" ,
coordinates: [ 23.778528100000003 , 61.497133399999996]
},
$maxDistance: 5000
}
}}).count()
The count here is 1:
Hope it helps