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Tracking your Adventures

StratTuner

StratTuner

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When you go on a long ride, wouldn't it be nice if your spouse could track you? (now and then?)
If you go on a big ride and want to share it with many people, wouldn't it be fun if many could follow your progress?

I've run into both situations this year, and yesterday, I came across a smart phone application called "Glympse".
(forgive me if you already know about this one.)

It allows the rider to:
- set how long you will be visible
- set a tentative destination
- generate a real-time online map for people to see
- let you choose who gets the web link for that map

The interface is very simple, and the result was one of those "wow" moments!
Mrs. StratTuner and I practiced by having her watch me walk around the high school where I work.
She could see me walking from building to building (map view not satellite) at 3mph.

She needed no special software. I set up the app on my phone (android), and it texted her the web page link.
That was it. She goes to the link, and there I am!
The software also lets you post to social media.

It says it's FREE, and so far it hasn't asked for more money for more features or anything like that.
It does require data transmission over cell towers and not WiFi alone, so maybe Verizon figures it will be good for business.

Still, for the situations I described, it tracks and displays a rider's progress for one or many with ease.

thanks for reading.
(I have no affiliation with "Glympse". I just think it's a good application.)
 
53,000 reviews with a 4.5 star average. Must be a pretty good app. I'll have to check it out although I don't want my wife tracking me most of the time. Not for any bad reasons. My geocaching addiction. I tend to wander on the way home from work. I could see this being a piece of mind for her on the occasions where I go somewhere on the weekend.
 
Fascinating :cool:

Gives me the heebie jeebies somehow, and an almost irresistable urge to flee in terror from such a device, but still appreciative fascination.
 
I have been using glympse to track my daughter when she rides. She got her licence two years ago and for the first year she would send me a glympse every time she went riding without me. It was nice to have that peace of mind.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 
Glympse is sometimes called the poor man's spot device. A spot device is a tracking device used by many distance riders that constantly updates the location and has a few preprogrammed text messages it can broadcast when the user choose to send them

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I just installed it on my phone. One thing that looks like a shortcoming, is in the description it says it requires a data connection. Some places I like to go, there is no signal.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
What JDE said. The benefit to a spot over this is that it runs on satellites, and is therefore (theoretically) useful everywhere. While cell coverage has improved a lot ober the last few years, there's still areas without any signal at all, let alone reliable data coverage. I'll probably download it and check it out anyway, see how it works next weekend when we head to the Horizons Unlimited meet and Yosemite (one of those aforementioned cell phone black holes).
 
for the church fund raiser Saddle Sore 1000, it would have been fun for the folks at home.
Most of the long distance riding I do is on Intersate Highways, so the coverage is... OK.

and like Netizen said... "it's a poor man's SPOT"... Spot is decidedly more reliable but it costs.
 
It would cost me to have this, because first I'd have to get me one of them fancy smart phones instead of the drug dealer model (pre-pay) that I have now.
 
Like chestnut I will give it a try going to Horizons Unlimited meet and Yosemite using ATT. I have had a lot of problems with ATT when riding the West coast in the past.
 
I've used 3 different methods to let my wife know where I am and that I'm ok.

First was the cell phone, google+ has a location tracking system on it, best thing about this is that it works both ways, she can see where I am, and I can see where she is. Worst part is that you need to have data coverage, not a problem most of the time though for me at least.

Second was the spot, which I still have, I got it for when we were hiking in yellowstone, works well enough provides my wife with updates when ever I hit the OK button (usually when I stop) and gives me the option to call for help, but it's only ever one way communication (newer ones allow for two way texts)

Final and most recent option is getting a ham license and radio and hooking up to APRS... aprsdriod on my phone provides the GPS, and then bluetooth box hooked up to the radio sends the data packets that get picked up and repeated by other stations and eventually posted to the internet. This works even in places where I don't get cell service, but it is dependent on infrastructure from other hams to be around, I've been places where my 5w handheld didn't have the power to send a signal clear across lake superior to some one who was listening...

current thought is that some time this winter I might upgrade my ham license and built a small high frequency broadcast system (put some of that electrical engineering schooling to use) from what I gather a good antenna and a couple of watts on the 30m band can get a few thousand miles of range, that means I'm dependant on some infrastructure that is much more rare than my current setup, but if there is one station listening some where in the country I'll probably get through to share my location via the internet... That system would have it's own issues, mainly that I'd have to build it more or less myself to get something that is fairly integrated, and since it takes 4-5 seconds to broadcast a message and there is only one channel people are listening for messages on, odds of my signal getting through are how many other people are broadcasting... I'd probably keep the APRS system I have now, for when I'm in populated areas (highways through out most of the country) or near mountains where receivers are thousands of feet up and switch to the HF system when I'm in remote places (remote northern (upper) Michigan, or in the Dakotas). That way I can stop paying for the spot, and still be in touch even when I'm thousands of miles away from any thing that looks remotely like civilization. I'll keep you posted if I actually follow through with this plan.
 
StratTuner said:
for the church fund raiser Saddle Sore 1000, it would have been fun for the folks at home.
Most of the long distance riding I do is on Intersate Highways, so the coverage is... OK.

and like Netizen said... "it's a poor man's SPOT"... Spot is decidedly more reliable but it costs.
Click to expand...

Church fundraiser saddle sore 1000? I wish my church did a saddle sore 1000! What a cool church

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 
Might be the same as the Google plus method, but with an android phone someone could log into your Google account and go to "Google dashboard". It shows the location of all of your devices available. I used it to find my girlfriend's lost phone.
 
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