I had this same idea when I was in university and built one in my embedded systems class. It was pretty cool to use when I was on my motorcycle.
In addition to a north facing mode, I also added a location mode which would always point to a specified lat/lon location. This was cool for just randomly exploring while always knowing where home is.
I wonder what else you can trigger like this to get a sense of something? Like having it buzz when you are near a taco stand, maybe that would give you a sense for finding nearby tacos over time through some latent factors that are common between taco stands? Probably a more useful case than the taco stands would be having it buzz some time before it rains. Then you can really develop that sense of feeling weather come "through your bones."
In addition to a north facing mode, I also added a location mode which would always point to a specified lat/lon location. This was cool for just randomly exploring while always knowing where home is.