Terranos Manual

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Live tracking ​

Day two of Ghiță's Retezat trip. The group splits at Lacul Bucura — half goes for Peleaga, half for Custura. Levente leads the Peleaga group, Ana leads Custura. From the activity page they both tap Start tracking. For the next four hours, both leaders' positions show on the map. When the Peleaga group is back at Bucura before Custura, Levente can see Ana is still 40 minutes out — and waits without anyone needing to text "where are you".

That's what live tracking is for. Not training data, not breadcrumb GPX export. Just enough position sharing during the event so the group can stay aware of each other.

What it does ​

  • Shares your position with other approved participants while it's on.
  • Renders the participant layer on both 2D offline and 3D online maps.
  • For drivers, also feeds the live transport board (ETA per pickup point, current state).
  • Provides POI context from OpenStreetMap (peaks, refuges, water sources) overlaid on the live layer.

It does not:

  • Record your route for later review or export.
  • Track training metrics (pace, heart rate, calories).
  • Run when there's no active activity.
  • Stay on after the activity ends.

For training data, use a fitness app. Terranos isn't one.

Turning it on ​

From the activity details page on the day of the event, the action card shows Start tracking. The first time you tap it, the app asks for two permissions:

  • Location while in use — required.
  • Location in background — optional, but recommended. Without it, tracking pauses when the screen is off.

Once started, tracking runs as long as:

  • The activity is in its active window (between start and end time, with a buffer).
  • You stay roughly within the activity area (a generous bounding box around the meeting points).
  • You haven't tapped Stop tracking.

Tap Stop tracking any time. There's no penalty for stopping; you can restart whenever.

Battery and connectivity ​

Updates are sent at most once every 10 seconds and reduce frequency when you stop moving. On a normal phone with a normal trip:

  • A 4-hour day hike: ~5–8% extra battery.
  • A multi-day trip with tracking on for 8 hours each day: charge overnight or carry a battery bank.

When connectivity drops:

  • Your device caches the last few positions locally.
  • The participant layer on other devices shows your last known position with a fading indicator (≈30 seconds of "still showing" before it greys out).
  • When connectivity returns, the queued positions are sent and the layer updates. Other participants don't see the gap — they see your line jump forward to where you actually are.

The app does not assume "no signal = lost". Mountain trips have dead zones; tracking handles that gracefully.

What other participants see ​

On their map, you appear as a marker with your name and avatar. The marker has:

  • A direction indicator (a small arrow showing where you're heading).
  • A staleness indicator: green (recent), yellow (last few minutes), grey (over five minutes ago).

They can tap your marker for more detail:

  • Last known altitude.
  • Time since last update.
  • A line tracing your last hour of movement (only the live tail; not a full GPX).

What the organizer sees ​

Same as participants, plus:

  • A list view of all participants currently tracking, sorted by distance from the meeting point or from a designated waypoint.
  • A flag for participants whose position has been stale for too long. Useful in case something is wrong — though it's not a rescue tool.

Privacy ​

Live tracking is opt-in per activity. Specifically:

  • It's not on by default. You start it manually each time.
  • Position is visible only to other approved participants on the same activity, plus the organizer.
  • It's not retained. After the activity ends, the position history is discarded — Terranos has no record of where you were.
  • It's never on your public profile. Other users browsing your profile cannot see live tracking data.

If you don't want to use live tracking, you don't have to. The activity works fine without it; participants will simply coordinate the old way (at the meeting point, by phone, by message).

Deliberate "off" moments ​

You can stop tracking partway through and restart later. Two common reasons:

  • You stepped away from the group briefly (food break, photo detour) and don't need to be visible.
  • You're entering a section where you want privacy (a sensitive conversation, a medical issue).

The participant layer simply shows "stopped tracking" for you until you restart. No drama.

When something looks off ​

  • My marker won't appear on others' maps. Check that location permission is granted, the device has signal (GPS sky view), and that you tapped Start tracking. The participant layer is also off until other participants tap Show participant layer on their map.
  • Battery drained way faster than expected. Background location permission was off, the app fell back to a more aggressive tracking mode to keep working. Re-grant background permission to avoid this.
  • My position jumped a long way. A network reconnect after a signal drop. Your location was correct on your device the whole time; the visual jump is just other participants finally seeing the queued positions.
  • Tracking won't start. The activity may not be in its active window yet. Live tracking is restricted to the time around the activity — it won't run for an activity that's tomorrow.