Installation

The FE Tracking App is available for Android 9.0 and later and IOS 13.0 and later.

../_images/Tracking-Android.png ../_images/Tracking-IOS.png

Battery optimization

Unfortunately, some Android device manufacturers have made a sport of optimising battery usage by forcing apps running in the background (such as (such as FE Tracking when it is recording) are forcibly shut down. Alarm Apps, Health Apps and Location Apps are then the victims of this policy, while the standard version ofAndroid usually handles this well. Also, the use of battery optimisation Apps are used (Android and IOS) it can have a negative impact on FE Tracking. If such Apps are used make sure that FE Tracking is excluded from optimisation if possible.

If this happens to you, remember that this is not a problem with the App, but with the device manufacturer.

Check this site to find out if your phone uses device-specific optimisations. The general rule is to exclude the FE Tracking App from battery optimisation rules, if possible. These settings are often buried deep in the phone’s settings.

Further optimizations

FE Tracking is very battery-conscious. When track recording is enabled it will automatically start recording a location according to the configured distanceFilter (meters). When the device is detected to be stationary, FE Tracking will automatically turn off location-services to conserve energy.

Nevertheless, further optimisations are certainly possible in order to use the battery as efficiently as possible.

  1. As mentioned earlier, make sure that FE Tracking is excluded from battery optimisations.

  2. Do not run any other Apps in the background. Ensure that FE Tracking is the only App running in the background.

  3. Avoid using social media and streaming Apps. They are known to be notorious battery drains. Search on the Internet for social media App battery usage and you will find good suggestions.

  4. If you stop walking, cycling, etc. for more than 5 minutes, temporarily switch off track recording and switch it on again when you resume.

  5. The amount of data that FE Tracking uses for checkpoints updates is very limited and in most situations is not more than a few 10-kilobytes. For very long routes it might be a few megabytes. This data is almost always sent over the mobile data network. Check your mobile operator’s coverage map to see which type of network (3G, 4G or 5G) has the best coverage. Most phones constantly scan all networks for the best possible coverage, which drains the battery. You can prevent this scanning by locking the phone to one type of network (one with good coverage for the whole route) in the phone settings.

  6. If you are out walking, cycling, … with a group of colleagues or friends, you can also create a personal WiFi hotspot on one of the devices. Turn off cellular data on all other devices and connect to the hotspot using Wi-Fi. These devices will save a lot of battery power.

  7. Of course, you can also buy a small power bank and connect it to your phone. This way you will always have enough power available. This is especially recommended for long tracks or tracks that take all day.

  8. While recording the route, you can use the App to check where you are on the track and see how far you are from the next checkpoint, first aid post, etc… At this point, map data is downloaded over the cellular data network, draining the battery and possibly your cellular data plan. The App uses a map cache, so once a map segment has been downloaded, the next time it is used, the segment is retrieved from the cache. This saves time and money. So if you are at home and have a WiFi connection, you can already explore the track and scroll through it at different zoom levels to fill the map cache. A great time and cost saver for your mobile data bundle and your battery.

Languages

FE Tracking supports standard two languages: English and Dutch. You can add your own language by following the next steps:

  1. Make sure you have a Github account.

  2. Check the languages folder of https://github.com/fe-data/fe-tracking-languages if your language is supported.

  3. If not, login with the Github account at https://gitlocalize.com/repo/6402.

  4. Create a new issue in https://github.com/fe-data/fe-tracking-languages/issues requesting the new language code. We will give you the role of moderator for the new language. Use the two letter codes from this source. Only LTR-languages are supported.

As a moderator you may receive review requests from other translators. Process them and when you are happy with the update create a pull request. Mind you:

  1. We will only process pull requests that originate from Gitlocalize, and will not process pull requests from private forks.

  2. For initial translations, we will only accept a full translation of the entire file. Partial translations will be rejected.

  3. Once we have processed the pull request, the translation will be available in the next release of the App.

  4. There is only 1 moderator per language.