I’m taking a long biking trip soon and want to share my live location with my boyfriend in case something happens. Any recommendations for privacy-focused apps that can accomplish this? I’m on Android, he’s on iOS.
You could use his nextcloud account and use https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/com.mendhak.gpslogger/ to upload your location to phonetrack within nextcloud.
I’ve seen other people recommend OwnTracks : https://owntracks.org
This looks perfect. Thanks!
I started out with Owntracks. I found it to be unreasonably complex. I swapped to Traccar. It was much easier to get functional.
I should note that my scenario was exactly the same. I wanted to share location with family. Additionally, Traccar supports temporary location share links for friends if you’d like. You’ll need to self-host it- I personally set up the Traccar server inside kubernetes and used Traefik for reverse proxy and SSL, but this is not necessary.
Self hosted is fine - I have a dev server I can toss it on. Thanks!
The nice thing about Apple’s Find My is that it runs in the background but only checks and sends your location when someone is actively looking at your location. Do these do that as well? I’ve tried Telegram’s location sharing before and it drains battery like crazy because it keeps the GPS receiver always on.
You change how frequently checks are performed. Traccar runs a simple every X seconds pattern. Default is 5 minutes. On 5 minute pings I see a 15-20% drain over the course of 24 hours, which seems reasonable, given that I’m on GrapheneOS and not leveraging Google’s location tracking simplifications. If you’re not on GrapheneOS your battery usage for location tracking will probably be better. Just not private.
Did you already look into osmand and telegram?
Did you respond to the right comment? I mentioned Telegram specifically and I’m fairly certain OsmAnd can’t do live location sharing.
That’s why I responded to you. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand.telegram
I wouldn’t suggest a solution using telegram to anyone not already using it.
Oh, that’s a separate app, I wasn’t aware of that, no. Interesting, thanks! I don’t use Telegram anymore though.
Privacy focused would’ve been selfhosted, as one device has to send the update to something which is always available.
There are two easy to setup solutions, Home-Assistant and Nextcloud, both have the tools.
Hot take: the OP is actually a narcissist controlling boyfriend that is looking for solutions to control his gf. Reply with caution.
It’s not unreasonable to think a person would want to offer some kind of live location sharing to friends. Including situations like “what if my tinder date goes horribly wrong”
Location tracking can be used maliciously, but a private app is hardly going to be a hidden app. And OP didn’t ask to obscure the intent of it.
My wife and I share our locations with each other and I also have my elderly inlaws configured as well. Never hurts to be safe!
So I know everyone will hate this suggestion, but the most battery efficient and privacy-oriented option is to use Google maps location sharing. Google already has your location through Google Play services, and uses that to update it. It is essentially real time, and you don’t need to give your info over to a random new company.
Unless you have fully de-googled, this is probably the best and easiest option.
I agree. When your safety is of concern, lending a bit of privacy to google is the best bet for an android user. Lending being the operative word.
Yup, just switched to this. It’s not quite as live as I was used to with life360, but it works for what we need.
Dude life360 is terrible. They just got caught selling location data to 3rd parties too I think? That on top of the battery drain of your phone constantly polling gps. It’s all bad.
Drain wasn’t terrible for me, and live location is miles better than maps. But yeah, ditched because of thier bad rep.
I use this with my family since none of us are de googled yet. Works fine.
Was going to recommend this too. Sometimes Google integration just works. Wish they kept the “don’t be evil” ethos.
Its not something I had set out intending but Homeassistant has made a great replacement for life360 across ecosystems, though you’ll need a server of sorts and either a VPN on each device or a domain with SSL.
Locus seems interesting, just took a quick glance. alternatives.to is always a great bet finding some replacement services, there’s a good few others for location tracking
I have an interesting solution- LoRa
You will need some extra hardware, but it will be possible to messsage and share GPS if the board supports it, or even walkie talkie style voice messages on some firmwares
Owntracks is pricesely that.
Get an AirTag?
Apart from privacy concerns, if they aren’t near people with iPhones it wouldn’t work that well.
Not an app but I use a Garmin inreach mini when I go backpacking. You can set it to automatically share your location at set intervals. Also not sure how Garmin handles data so not sure about the privacy aspect either.
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Doesn’t that require other IPhones for it to ping off of and report? What if she’s in the middle of nowhere. I’m not sure why this is getting upvotes but it seems like a terrible idea and unreliable.
It does need other iPhones nearby that have internet connection. We got a handful to test for family during our trips last November even though we both use Android. They didn’t report in when we were away from other people, but kept location decently when in crowded places like the airport. Android has ways to detect when they are following you, but don’t participate in reporting metrics to the source (maybe that’ll change with upcoming Find My Device features in Android 15)
