How does the Travel Tracker work? Does it use GPS?

We created the Travel Tracker so that you can travel and easily track your trip, without having to open your phone all the time. When you use the Polarsteps app, we automatically track your route by placing little, white dots on your map, which we call Travel Tracker steps.

Polarsteps is not a live tracker. Your locations are not synchronized and updated in real-time as we don't want to drain your battery. More about battery consumption can be found in this article: How much battery does the app use?

In this article:

How to enable the Travel Tracker

You can enable or disable your Travel Tracker anytime. To check your Travel Tracker settings, open your trip in the app and tap on the Trip Menu in the top corner. Then, tap ‘Trip Settings’. Here you will see your Travel Tracker settings; enable to toggle to have your route tracked automatically.

For a quick demonstration, check out Video Tutorial

The Travel Tracker for Android phones

Android users can choose between the following Travel Tracker modes:

1. Ultra light

  • Battery usage: Very low
  • Accuracy: Low
  • How it determines your location: Mostly cellular signal & WiFi
  • When to use? We advise to use this mode when you are visiting very remote locations and don’t have the option to charge your phone for a while. Ultra light mode uses very little of your battery.

2. Balanced (Recommended)

  • Battery usage: Low
  • Accuracy: Medium
  • How it determines your location: Mostly cellular signal & WiFi
  • When to use? Balanced mode is the most-used of the three options. Use it during hikes, road trips, backpacking adventures, etc. We recommend this mode if you know you will have a power resource to charge your phone at the end of the day.

3. High accuracy

  • Battery usage: Very high
  • Accuracy: Very high
  • How it determines your location: Mostly GPS
  • When to use? For the most detailed tracking of your route, you can choose High accuracy mode. Make sure you have access electricity to charge your phone during the day.

Please know that the detail of your route can vary due to multiple factors; for instance, how you're using your phone, the current battery level, and settings such as Battery-saving Mode, Airplane Mode, or automatically ‘optimizing’ battery use for specific apps by your device. All these factors can influence how often the Travel Tracker will update.

The Travel Tracker for iPhones

On iOS devices, Polarsteps tracks your trip primarily using WiFi and cellular signals to determine your location. We do not actively use GPS in our iOS app, but we can receive GPS updates from the operating system itself if another app is using GPS on your phone. This means we depend on iOS to determine when and how many updates are received.

This can vary due to multiple factors; for instance, how you're using your phone, the current battery level, and settings such as Low Power Mode or Airplane Mode. All these factors can influence how often the Travel Tracker will update.

Pro Tip: If you turn on a navigation app, such as Google Maps, and use navigation in the background of your device, then Polarsteps can also use these GPS locations to track your route more accurately. It is up to the operating system to decide how frequently to send updates though.

Can I add Travel Tracker steps manually?

It is not possible to add Travel Tracker steps on your map manually. These are added automatically when your Travel Tracker is enabled, and we currently can't add them afterward.

Tip: You can decide to add a manual ''big'' step in between the locations so that your route will be more accurate. You don't have to add any photos in this step if you don't want to. You can just create a step on your timeline by clicking on the little blue + icon and add an extra location to your route.

Temporarily disabling the Travel Tracker

There can be moments where you would like to disable the Travel Tracker for a while. Maybe out of privacy considerations or when you're in the same place for a longer period of time. To do this simply visit your trip settings and hit the Travel Tracker toggle.

Please know that when turning the Travel Tracker back on afterwards, Polarsteps will not add the locations you visited while the tracker was off.

Troubleshooting

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