Huh, that actually kind of makes sense. Why use GPS which is for pin point accuracy and was developed by NASA, when you can just get an approximate location based on IP address. You only need to know the weather for your area, not your exact house. I don't know the inner workings of android's "location" function though, just that there are different levels of it.

Edit: still shitty about the outcome though, and that VPN breaks the feature for you.