Tracking where I am for others

[johnberman]

Hi


I want to be able to let my friends see my live location as i hike, im sure i did this years ago using viewranger on my phone and i created a website and added a link and they could see my progress - cant seem to make this work anymore - pointers appreciated




Regards
John B

[sussamb]

You need to set up buddy beacon on ViewRanger


https://www.viewranger.com/en-GB/about-us/blog/2018/11/13/how-to-share-your-location-with-viewranger-buddybeacon

[ninthace]

Or the equivalent in OutdoorActive, which is derived from ViewRanger.  Both will record your position but will require a data signal to report it to anyone else.  If there is a break in mibile phone coverage, historical data will be sent once the signal is re-established.
In the good old days, I used to leave a map of my intended route at home and then text to management the time I passed significant waypoints plus news of anything affecting progress.  That way, if I was overdue, people would at least know where not to look.

[gunwharfman]

I use the Real Time GPS 2 tracker and it works very well. I used it in 2015 when I walked across the Pyreneeswhen I was raising some money for our local hospital Da Vinci Robot fund, just to prove to the people that paid up that I wasn't sunning myself on a beach somewhere.

My wife can also track me, using the same programme on her laptop and we have an agreement that if I don't move in daylight for 12 hours then she assumes I should be in trouble. No problems so far.

[johnberman]

Hi thanks for all the replies, i played with View ranger (out door active) works well but I anyone who wants to see my progress needs an account, Ideally i was after a weblink that that I could add to a website so anyone can see where i am (you could do that with view ranger once upon a time)


Kind Regards
John B

[ninthace]

Not sure I can help with that.
I like to keep knowledge my actual location to a trusted few, in fact normally none.  Anyway, according to Facebook and my mobile phone, I have no friends.

 It is amazing how many folk on Viewranger have their Buddy Beacon set to start every time they move and not to have it PIN protected.   Always struck me as a burglars' and muggers' bonanza.

Is the location sharing function in GoogleMaps any use?
https://www.chipin.com/best-location-sharing-apps/

[forgotmyoldpassword]

http://www.viewranger.com/buddybeacon/v2/


Add Buddybeacon button


Username and PIN (you choose this in the app)


Give it to someone you want to be able to track you, and provided you have data left on your phone contract + battery saving isn't throttling ViewRanger from sending updates - this should work fine.

[sussamb]

Hi thanks for all the replies, i played with View ranger (out door active) works well but I anyone who wants to see my progress needs an account

No account needed, not for VR, just need your user name and buddy beacon  pin and link to the buddy beacon page.

[Eyelet]

There's also an app called Followmee: https://www.followmee.com/default.aspx which might be worth checking out.

[jimbob]

No account needed, not for VR, just need your user name and buddy beacon  pin and link to the buddy beacon page.

This,

[fernman]

There's also an app called Followmee: https://www.followmee.com/default.aspx which might be worth checking out.

Followmee does work well - providing you have got a signal! I used it on my last trip in north Wales in September 2019, where all that my family saw was a short track of me leaving my starting place and an equally short track of me returning to it three days later.

Since then I have tried LocaToWeb which claims that when a trip is started on the phone, you can log in to the website on a computer and see the location on a Google map. Used once on the edge of suburbia on the northern lip of the London basin it was a disastrous failure for me. It lost my phone's GPS after 2.6km and it never reconnected, while what route showed on the map (Google) was long straight lines.

I currently have an app called TrackMe installed, unused as yet, but I'm not holding my breath that it will be any better.

[GoneWest]

No account needed, not for VR, just need your user name and buddy beacon  pin and link to the buddy beacon page.

I believe that the Buddy Beacon became a premium feature at some stage, but it remained freely available to people (like you and me) who installed VR before then.

Followmee does work well - providing you have got a signal! I used it on my last trip in north Wales in September 2019, where all that my family saw was a short track of me leaving my starting place and an equally short track of me returning to it three days later.

Since then I have tried LocaToWeb which claims that when a trip is started on the phone, you can log in to the website on a computer and see the location on a Google map. Used once on the edge of suburbia on the northern lip of the London basin it was a disastrous failure for me. It lost my phone's GPS after 2.6km and it never reconnected, while what route showed on the map (Google) was long straight lines.

I currently have an app called TrackMe installed, unused as yet, but I'm not holding my breath that it will be any better.

I've been using APRSDroid, which does the job well but that's only for holders of Amateur Radio Licences, even though it works much better over the phone network, in many areas, than via a ham radio. However, your post (and Eyelet's) prompted me to look at FollowMee and TrackMe as well. On the strength of the reviews and the information on the developer's website, I, too, have installed the latter and look forward to comparing notes with you on the forum in due course.

[sussamb]

I believe that the Buddy Beacon became a premium feature at some stage, but it remained freely available to people (like you and me) who installed VR before then

Just looked and you're quite correct. What's more you can no longer get it if you don't already have it. See https://docs.viewranger.com/article/34-sending-and-resetting-your-beacon-android-and-ios

[fernman]

Just looked and you're quite correct. What's more you can no longer get it if you don't already have it. See https://docs.viewranger.com/article/34-sending-and-resetting-your-beacon-android-and-ios

I think you might have misinterpreted that, I read it as saying that you can't take out a subscription with Viewranger but you can with OutdoorActive.

What does seem to have changed is that with VR you used to be able to have BuddyBeacon for £4.99 a year, something I intended to do but never got around to thanks to lockdown, and now it seems you must have a premium subscription.

Worth mentioning also is that VR used to state clearly that "In order to share your BuddyBeacon location, you will need internet connection on your mobile phone".

[Patrick1]

Something a little bit different - for anyone a little bit nerdy, the Android macro programming app "Macrodroid" allows you to write a macro which will send your GPS position in a text on receipt of a text (which can be only from a specific number) containing a keyword. It obviously still needs a mobile signal, but not necessarily a data signal - an increasingly minor distinction these days, but there are still parts of the country where you can just about get a mobile signal, but no data - I was in one in Torridon just last weekend! I've used this facility occasionally, and it does work!