Live Location

JohnB7777

Hello everyone,

I had an idea recently and I wondered if it would be possible to make a module that would probably be based on google maps and that would indicate the live position of each member of the family (with the name or the address).
Example: John is on Liberty Street.

It would be a module that would update every 5 minutes (for example) and that would use the position sharing google maps (or something like that).
Would that be possible?

Than you !

@JohnB7777 I have no idea how to track their position. Everybody has GPS device?

JohnB7777

Yes, everybody have a smartphone with GPS activated. I think the module must send a request to the phone to update the location, right ?

@JohnB7777 personal location is very sensitive and important private personal information. I cannot believe there could be easy and automatic way to get that data from HW or telecom or phone OS.
Anyway, there is some possibility that an app could tell its location to server. But I believe that kind of app would be rejected from Appstore, absolutely in IOS(i dont know about android)
The only way as I know, user should send his location with app manually(by some kind of actions - app opening or refreshing, button pressing, some data posting,… anything else) but not automatically in background. In IOS, only Apple itself has that permission. But I might be wrong. Anyway, that is not easy.

barnosch

BigBrother is watching you. No thanks!

Sajk

@Sean There are apps that track your position and update this information online. A very popular one is Endomondo, a sports activity tracker. When someone is doing an activity his/her Endomondo contacts can see where that person is in real time. Similar thing is available in Strava, however in this case it is a premium (paid) feature.

I’m a Starva user and my first attempt to make my own module will be to enable showing my position on the mirror to my wife, who is always calling when I’m commuting back from work on my bike and asking me about my arrival time… So I strongly support any advancement in other users’ efforts in this respect.

@Sajk
Interesting point.

I didn’t use Endomondo, so I might be wrong. But I believe that would be not REAL TIME - it means your position should always be reported to server in background without any user interaction -, but as you said, When someone is doing an activity could make this trigger.

Back to my point.

user should send his location with app manually(by some kind of actions - app opening or refreshing, button pressing, some data posting,… anything else)

Anyway, If there be any good App and opened API, someone might be able to build that kind of module for Mirror. As I know, Endomondo doesn’t support official public API.

@Sajk
I found Strava has good public API. Is Strava always tracking your position? or just when you activate it for exercise?

Sajk

@Sean
Both Endomondo and Strava are tracking your position only when you activate the exercise.

In Endomondo users get this feature for free - they can open their browsers or run the smartphone app to see which of their Endomondo friends do something and where they are. However, as you mentioned, Endomondo has no API available for public.

In case of Strava, when you start your activity you can select an option for Strava to send by text message to predefined contacts a link to a website with your activity, map and position online. It is called a Beacon and it is paid. Users have checked that in fact anyone who has the link can visit this page and see the location. Whereas all other features are well described in the API manual (http://strava.github.io/api/partner/) the Beacon feature is empty. Maybe if you are a premium member they will reveal the contents of this part.

In my opinion you are not limited to these two apps. There must be plenty of others, particularly those designed to track children etc.