Hi

Im still dithering about which fancy, unnecessary and overcomplicated phone to buy (prob an HTC Hero actually)

Anyway it has occurred to me that as a solo night rider it would be handy if home could vaguely see where I was when out at night which would be especially handy if the unexpected ever happened

Also if I ever missed the start of the roadie posse and one or two of my roadie mates had similar apps on their phones it would be a lot easier finding them than making a whole heap of calls travelling at 25mph (in my dreams)

Ive tried Googling this and as well as the old doggy GPS tracking gag website have only found one other app which came with a heavy subscription

Can anyone tell me if there are apps available for less – or preferably free please?
And better still where to look

I currently have no affinity for any brand of phone or OS and which one I buy may even be down to the availability of this app, I really do go out at night a lot on my own and have often thought it would be potentially useful

Cheers!

Google Latitude?

Thats what I was thinking ebygomm, doesn't work with every phone but in town (useless for mtb) it is surprisingly accurate without GPS but using WiFi point recognition instead.
Needs mobile coverage obviously but anything else would without getting specific hardware.

Viewranger has this feature if you've got a Symbian OS phone with gps. You can track your mates like you've said or you can be tracked from home.
I mainly use it when riding alone – you set the phone to transmit your location (like a beacon) and you can be tracked from a website using a pin code. So if I ever came off and didn't turn up at home my missus would be able to log on and find me in whatever ditch I'd fallen into.

I was hoping she would also keep an eye out and put the kettle on when I'm getting close to home – not happened yet though!

It's pretty cheap unless you want to map the whole UK at 1:25000. I spent £25 and have all my local riding area covered at 1:25.

Lots of Iphone apps available to find your friends, but that requires then to have iPhones too.

Google Lattitude is the best cross-platform one I know and works with GPS on phones that have it.

i've used copilot live in the past.
left the laptop in the kitchen signed so the wife can check on my location when I first started going out on night rides, don't bother now as it was a pain and I don't think she's bothered anyway. 😐

Not cross platform and only any good for the first part of your requirement (letting the wife know where you are) is Nokia Sportstracker.

Iirc nokia sportstracker allows real time position posting which anyone with an Internet connection can follow.

Bizarrely, I was writing an email to a mate about this just the other day. He's cycling in a race in South Africa and wanted to be able to have his family track his position on a website. I've just pasted the email, below. Hope it is of help:

The software I had mentioned that allows for real time tracking on a website if you have built-in GPS on your phone or GPS connected via a puck is this:
http://www.mapmytracks.com/
The software is really comprehensive, allows tracking from any GPS enabled cellphone, provides loads of statistics as well as a simple map that can be viewed by anyone with internet access. It's probably the best solution I know of. It does rely on there being contant 3G cellphone reception between PE and Durban (for your friend's event) but I think that exists anyway.
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Here is some additional software that is free and would allow for real time tracking from any number of GPS enabled phones:

http://www.instamapper.com/

It would be compatible with the following phones:

http://www.instamapper.com/phones.html

….and as long as your friend was willing to pay for the data usage (over 3G signal, which should be available between PE and Durban) he should be able to be tracked real time by anyone who could get onto a computer with internet access.
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I've found a couple of devices along the lines of what we were talking about the other day that are built in single device solutions:
http://www.spyreview.co.uk/2007/05/14/real-time-remote-gps-tracking-solution/

I second viewrainger 🙂 it is great tracks the route you are doing and you can also upload a GPX file so you can use it to follow a route on the 1/25000 or 1/50000 OS maps 🙂

Not to power hungery, i used it on a 7 hour ride and still had pleanty of power left.

my phone: Nokia N96 (probably recomend the n95 8gb) but i am waiting for a new non touch screen Nokia to replace the N96 (maybe with more power and memory)

Been using this on my Nokia and it free:

http://www.trackr.eu/

You can set it to live track your phone, or it will save your route and send it at the end of a ride. route is only visible on a pc I think, but you can register other users as friends, which could make for some interesting viewing 😉

Also using http://www.trackr.eu but when i go cycling the application that i use for measuring distances, mapping routes and so on, is http://www.sportypal.com
It is a cross platform app. and free to use with simple registration. By the way i have HTC Touch Pro2, and i'm very satisfied from this two apps.
Great thing behind the "cross platform" is that i can share the tracks with other people and finding easily people around me that have been on the same tracks. Clear recommendation.

Problem with many of these is that they need the observer to be in a web connected PC, not a mobile phone.

Google latitude removes this issue, but isn't very good. It has frequently given HUGE position errors when I've used it. I think largely because it often selects cell tower position rather than GPS location, and gets it wrong. For instance I was in Cwmbraun and it told my wife I was in Bristol. Another time in Wales it told her I was on the Paris ring road! Problem is that whilst the server is reporting to your friends your WRONG position, it is reporting to you your correct position, so there is no way of knowing that it's up the creek.

I have tried Phonelocator with some success, and also Viewranger which worked OK (but it needs a subscription to their maps).

Nokia Sportstracker works OK if you want to observe with a PC, but there is no sensible option for tracking your friends from your phone, the web app is very heavy and crashes many phones. You also ned to switchnit on to start a record, rather than allowing it torun all the time.

Battery life will be somewhere between slightly reduced, to appalling, depending on how you set up any of these apps.

I'm going to try some of the others mentioned here now! – Thanks.

Both iphone and google android (what the HTC hero runs) have apps that report your gps position in response to a text with a code word in it.

There are designed to find you phone if you lose it, but could also be used for the OPs other half/mum to check wheer he is if he's late back.

+1 glenh's recomendation

the always on and uploading gps style trackers will kill the battery pretty quickly where as the ondemand ones wont

Google latitude removes this issue, but isn't very good. It has frequently given HUGE position errors

I think latitude just uses the GPS position reported at the time you load the app, so with my iPhone this means the GPS hasnt yet been activated and has not narrowed down my location. If i check my location in maps first then load latitude it works perfectly, its not great but then like most things im sure itll get better. Seems to work ok-ish on my mates mokia tho, maybe the GPS is active all the time on that?

If you have the phone fixed on a holder on the bike, on a clear sky, not cycling in the city or some place where the gps signal can be bounced from, there is small chance to give you wrong position. Here you can check how accurate i this(with the phone attached on the bike in front of me) on clear sky. http://sportypal.com/Workouts/Details/65632