Can anyone recommend a good tracking app for the iphone.

Maybe I'm a worrying over protective dad, but I would really like to keep track of where my son is. He's 14, and goes out over the moors on 50 mile + rides, and it would bee nice just to know where he is.

Me been stupid , but do all tracking apps need a phone signal (very patchy where he goes), or do they use gps ?

Thanks

thers one built into the iphone called find friends.

i use it with my sone and wife, she often checks where i am if i am travelling home from business etc

"find iPhone" is an Apple service and you can track all your devices via the app store (as long as they have an itunes account name ) on any of your other apple devices or PC by downloading the application on there too.

PC =

https://www.icloud.com/#find

Its pretty good / accurate but not GPS based, just phone signal triangulation. GONE 2010 Facelifted 3.6 TDV8 - Stornoway Grey + 22" Overfinch Olympus
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Is this any use?

http://www.strava.com/

I know a lot of my work mates use it on there bike runs. If it dont work.......burn it!

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Johnte wrote:

Me been stupid , but do all tracking apps need a phone signal (very patchy where he goes), or do they use gps ?

Thanks

iOS has a free app called Find Friends, that is pretty good and is intended for people to share their location so that they can meet up with nearby friends from a social networking perspective. The smartphone GPS chip calculates the x and y coordinates based on the position of surrounding satellites and GSM (GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSPDA, 4G) is used to transmit that data back to a server which turns the raw x and ys into something meaningful e.g. An overlay in google maps.

So to answer your question, yes you do need GSM phone coverage for any tracking application to work (including the traditional vehicle black box) and that will be a problem on the moors. This is why the military and other bodies use companies like www.inmarsat.com to bypass the GSM network and communicate via satellite which is a very reliable but expensive communication tool.

The other challenge (without wishing to sound the voice of doom!) is that any GPS app is going to seriously eat into the battery so it wouldn't last very long in any case! 2006 4.2 SC
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Thanks.. we did try the 'find friends' this morning, but to be honest, didn't work that well. I think our problem is that the places he likes to ride tend to be very remote, so a lot of the time you struggle to get a signal.

I know he likes Strava for tracking and downloading rides when he gets home - can It be used for tracking while he's out ? Or is it as I suspected, and nothing will work where there is no/poor phone signal

Most telematics boxes and smartphone apps (the better ones you pay for generally) have a store and forward facility where all of the data is collected, stored on flash and sent in via GSM or Wifi. So you don't lose anything, it's all there you just have to wait for coverage before the data can be transmitted.

What you are looking to do is a "live ping" to see where he is on an ad-hoc basis. That's where you and everyone else has a challenge but when he gets home and back in coverage everything should upload just fine.  2006 4.2 SC
2019 Renault Zoe Dynamique Nav

Garmin 810 and Garmin 1000 allow live tracking but the problem will be that it relays the signal via an iPhone so if signal is poor then you lose the tracking or it just stops where the signal last was. Both expensive bits of kit as well.

At the least get him to show you what route he is doing and if he doesn't deviate then at least you could go out and drive the route if the worst happens. If it is on a Garmin or something of that ilk then you can plot a route and download that to the bike computer so that you have an agreed route that you both know about.

cheers Alex

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Battery life is an easy fix, I bought an extended battery pack for mine which is just a slide on sleeve so actually adds a bit of protection as well. You do need a phone signal but I regularly mountain bike in some wild areas and you would be pleasantly surprised about just how much coverage there is nowadays judging by the amount of phone calls and texts that my mates receive on the trail - not a problem for me - Billy No Mates  Geoff