OwnTracks – keep track of your own location | Hacker News Reader

OwnTracks – keep track of your own location

owntracks.org

152 pointspabs360 comments

An alternative is the Overland app for iOs [1] or Android [2], logging to compass [3]

Each has features that the other doesn't: OwnTracks can apparently determine a location using iBeacons, whereas Overland can't (though it can detect WiFi networks). Overland lets you record your mode of travel (e.g., driving, cycling, walking), whereas this still seems to be an unimplemented "idea" for OwnTracks [4]. Compass is also designed for tracking a single person, whereas OwnTrack can handle multiple.

[1]: https://github.com/aaronpk/Overland-iOS

[2]: https://github.com/OpenHumans/overland_android

[3]: https://github.com/aaronpk/Compass

[4]: https://owntracks.org/booklet/ideas/

What does determining a location via iBeacons mean? If overland is using the iOS API to determine the location, shouldn’t it also use Bluetooth and the likes (which would include iBeacons in my understanding).

It's a bit more in the user's hand. You could put a beacon in your garage and one in your kitchen and send different events with OwnTracks depending on which one is close. It's a bit more granular and hyperlocal than iOS' location API.

The ownTracks docs for beacons is at [1,2], whereas there an open issue on the Overland repo suggesting something similar [3].

Getting a location [4] and detecting the presence and proximity of beacons [5] use different parts of the Core Location API.

[1]: https://owntracks.org/booklet/guide/beacons/

[2]: https://owntracks.org/booklet/features/beacons/

[3]: https://github.com/aaronpk/Overland-iOS/issues/93

[4]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/getti...

[5]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/deter...

iOS apps can’t detect nearby access points, otherwise every app would be doing that; user location is valuable data to sell.

Apple applies a set of measures designed to make sure an app can only detect the users location if it has opt-in permission and if it is using Apples location services so they can control it. And if someone finds a way around it they might find it blocked in the next update.

I agree, Overland is good.

I recently added support for it to my blog (which uses twyne.rtfd.io) so I could more easily geolocate photos (from my non-GPS camera), and it was pretty easy to integrate. I tried GPSLogger too, but found that battery life was much better with Overland, and it also has a better system of queuing points when offline (with GPSLogger I found that it lost data at times such as when there was an internet connection but the server wasn't responding).

I used to use OwnTracks to avoid giving my location data to Google, and I'd like to note here that it still gives your location data to Google, as Google is your location provider. Ie it asks Android where you are, Android sends some stuff to Google, Google sends back some coordinates, and OwnTracks stores them wherever you tell it.

Since I didn't want Google to have my location at all, I now just turn off location services except when I need to use GPS. I just wish my device worked for me, instead of for Google.

I work on the OwnTracks Android client.

There is a build (the "OSS" flavour) that doesn't use any of the Google dependencies, and it's currently waiting to get merged into the F-Droid repo (https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/10698). If you can't wait for that, you can grab the APK from the releases on github.

That's fantastic, thank you!

I run graphene on my phone and AFAIK you can replace the location provider with a local-only version.

I haven't dug deeply into it yet because I keep location off, but I believe it is possible.

Tried to use it on a deGoogled phone and yeah, didn't work.

Then tried Nextcloud with the PhoneTrack plugin and bingo, succes. I recommend it.

It'd be awesome if I could import my Google Maps location history into something like this so I can stop giving them my GPS data forever. I just find it so damn useful, but I'd like to port it over, wipe it, and start on something privacy-respecting.

may i ask; why is your own location data so useful to you?

My Google Maps location data was very handy for me when I applied for my residence card and the form asked which countries I had visited in the last four years with dates.

Just to chime in as well -- it was useful to me for time tracking, "remembering" when exactly was that one event or when we last were in that one place, and retrospectively tagging places I liked for future reference.

For those of us who have multiple projects to visit, its good to know for billing purposes.

I honestly don't understand why personal location tracking is not a built-in feature of the modern mobile OS. I'd love to not even have to use a third-party app to work out where I was all week ...

I'd love for it to track offline. Shouldn't be any technical requirement for being connected to Google or anyone.

But if it's valuable to you, then surely it's equally (if not more) valuable to unknown 3rd parties. /s

To add another example: I've used Google location data in the past to geotag vacation photos from my camera

My life is a mix of The Hangover parts 1 & 2 (but not at all like part 3) and very occasionally Dude Wheres My Car (/s?)

It's useful for figuring out when things happened, and for figuring out when I was last where, very occasionally for finding 'what did I do on a given day'.

Without going into much detail, I needed to write a personal statement talking about events that took place in the course of three years, and Google maps storing my locations by the minute was very helpful. Example: I traveled to city A between two dates, I know I flew there then drove back. I knew I went to this coffee shop at a specific hour and stayed there for 43 minutes... Etc

My only wish is if I was self hosting all this and not relying on Google.

My girlfriend was hiking near snowmass Colorado and wasn’t sure which path to take at one point. I opened google timeline, browsed back to 4 years before when I did the hike and told her to take a left.

I also regularly use google timeline and web history to figure out what I was doing a few months before when I hade a cryptic credit card charge for example.

I've had this (perhaps strange) thought where I am able to see my entire life traced out as my wanderings in two dimensions across the surface of this planet. Others too, for example co-workers I would come to know, girlfriends (ex-girlfriends as well as the one that would become my wife) and friends, relatives too would be traced — synchronized in time.

Watching the whole thing sped up and perhaps you begin to see life, or parts of your life anyway, as the humdrum of commuting, daily to and from the same job, same grocery stores, etc. — back and forth. Then punctuated occasionally, briefly, by a road trip, a trip abroad, or a permanent move to a new city (and new routines, cycles).

And then you get to see if there were ever tiny instants where you crossed paths, unknowingly, with a future wife/lover/coworker. Relatives who die: their traces drop off....

I know, I'm on a tangent here and this app was probably not designed as a tool for some sort of avant-garde pipe dream. But when you asked about why I would be interested in location data, that's what crosses my mind. :-)

As far as I know, owntracks doesn't actually store location history, it only defines a protocol for exchanging current location info between programs. If you're using their "official" recording server, writing a script to import history looks super easy [1].

[0] https://github.com/owntracks/recorder/blob/master/doc/STORE....

This is totally off-topic but I'd like to draw attention to the above rare and wondrous URL longer-ing happening in the comment above

Suggestion: just start using something like this today (maybe in parallel with Google). In a few years, your Google location history will be less relevant, so importing it elsewhere will also feel less relevant.

When you want to migrate data, the trick is to first turn time on your side. As long as you keep using Google, you have time against you -- the longer you hold off on switching over, the longer you'll feel like you need to move the data over.

There's often something small one can do that changes the situation so that the passage of time doesn't make it worse anymore, but better. In this case, just starting to use something like this is it. Even if you continue to use Google at the same time.

I actually continue to use Google Maps for the opposite reason. The anonymous data aggregation across users is what powers features like traffic estimates and store busyness data.

Those are great to have, and I don't mind donating my information to keep them running.

It is possible. I have successfully migrated all of the data from Google Timeline to self-hosted owntracks. Quick and dirty conversion script is available here - https://gist.github.com/skrobul/bd1f64309123c34bf5cfcad144e6...

I have not looked into deleting data from Google yet as my free time is taken up by migrating from other Google not-really-forever-"free" services.

Is there an alternative FOSS Android app that record tracks but does not rely on a remote server? Only to keep tracks locally, on the mobile device, and if possible, to let the history file be synced (e.g with Syncthings)?

I can't recommend other than https://gpslogger.app/

GPS Logger

https://gpslogger.app/

There are many of those on F-Droid.

i.e. nexttracks, like owntracks, but without trackers

I am quite satisfied with FitoTrack. https://codeberg.org/jannis/FitoTrack

I've been using tiny travel tracker from fdroid.

If you'd like to contribute the OpenStreetMap community, I suggest OSMTracker. https://github.com/labexp/osmtracker-android/wiki

It keeps your traces local until you choose to share them. Uploading GPS traces helps with quality control in terms of road speeds and discovering trails.

There are a few OSM apps that make it easy to share tracks. I use OsmAnd, it allows easy recording, viewing, and uploading to OSM. OSMTracker probably has better battery life, maybe.

This app is a pretty cool idea, and I'm sure its users love it.

I wish open source software developers understood that if an app's UI is so unintuitive that it takes days worth of dedicated learning to figure out how to use it, it's never going to get adopted by the mainstream. I can't figure out how to use this app, and it's not because I'm stupid, I'm an app developer myself, it's because I don't have the time to invest in learning the unintuitive paradigms and labels used in this UI.

If the audience for this project is it's creators and dedicated hobbyists, then this comment doesn't matter. But if open source apps have any intention of becoming mainstream, they need to invest in UI design and usability. A user friendly UI is at least as important as the code and technical aspects, and open source software could reach so many more people if open source devs took some UI design courses or learned how to partner with UI designers.

/rant

Pull requests are welcome.

> if an app's UI is so unintuitive that it takes days worth of dedicated learning to figure out how to use it, it's never going to get adopted by the mainstream

There may be some rough edges, and it would definitely benefit from a quickstart help screen IMO, but days? If it takes you "days worth of dedicated learning" just to use the app, the app isn't the problem.

And to more gently push back on the general point: FOSS UX isn't always the best, but in my experience it's rarely notably worse than anything else. Typically, it's ugly but perfectly functional, and taking 5 minutes to poke around is enough to figure out how everything works (for Android apps, at least).

Similarly to OwnTracks, there's a NextCloud app called PhoneTrack (together with an Android app that has the same name) that provides location tracking. Been using it for some weeks and the NC integration is pretty neat. It allows separate and simultaneous logging of tracks, useful when you want to keep a full one for yourself and send a specific one (when driving long distances for example) to relatives.

https://gitlab.com/eneiluj/phonetrack-oc

If anybody is interested in tracking their own location with a sure way of it not ending up on a remote server somewhere: you can buy a number of GPS/GNSS data loggers, e.g. "Columbus GPS" with their V990-Mk2 or P-10 Pro are good. They store it on a MicroSD card as GPX tracks. Battery life is decent at >24h.

There's some info in the OpenStreetMap community and the "quantified self" communities.

Do you really want to carry around yet another gadget with you all the time? How about remembering to charge yet another gadget ~daily?

That's the downside and I'm by no means suggesting someone should do this unless they really want to! The comment was more for those who really do want to.

But yes: I do that. I personally think it's very interesting to see where I've been and to visualize the traces, especially when I'm traveling around the world.

When I originally started a few years ago, battery drain from running a GPS logger 24/7 on a phone was significant. This was a good alternative. I'm now used to it and appreciate that I'm fully in control of that data.

Similarly there's also https://fogofworld.app/en/

and also https://www.saashub.com/owntracks-alternatives

I am quite happy with Geofency on iOS for location logging for billing/time tracking purposes.

Seconding Geofency. I do a (very) wide variety of work and Geofency has been indispensable.

Related to OwnTracks I suppose... how does Google Maps on iOS know where I parked my car, if I've set it only use my location 'whilst I'm using the app' and I haven't used the app to navigate to my parked location?

As long as it has a location lock when you last were in your car, that's sometimes a good enough signal for "parking location" for Google. If you have location on for any other Google app/website I'm guessing they use that as well.

The Android app seems to require google play services. Quite ironic for an app that wants to give me back control of my data. I think this defeats the purpose of the app if I take steps to reduce my dependency on google services I might as well go the whole way; Whats the point of half measures like this. Checking the issue tracker the devs do not seem to agree, a shame really the app seemed interesting at first.

(I help work on the Android client)

The OSS build of the Android app doesn't depend on Google Play Services, and is currently available from the github release page: https://github.com/owntracks/android/releases (and has been since v2.4.0 released last year).

> Whats the point of half measures like this

Personally, I don't care about Google knowing my location. I care about having my location data on a system I control so I can do useful things with it.

Oh good, I will give it a try in that case. I just found a couple of issues and a merge request that was later reverted so I assumed the dependency was still there.

I used this in conjuction with home assistant to build location based automations. I'm glad this exists

I’m struggling to think of a reason I’d need this to be honest

I used to use google location history to track time I spent on site for creating invoices.

I don't use it personally, but I wish I did every time a visa application asks me to list where I've travelled in the last X years.

If you're a courier or a contractor getting paid by miles it will be a great way to log that. If you're into jogging or walking long hikes, good for that. etc etc. If you're a desk jockey you probably don't need it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com