search

wansti / OwntracksOSM

Owntracks and OpenStreetMap based mapping and location sharing app for Samsung smartwatches
GNU General Public License v3.0
10 stars 6 forks source link

The future of OwntracksOSM #8

Open sudione opened 2 years ago

sudione commented 2 years ago

Hi!:) I recently bought a Samsung Watch 4 and I can't find two things on WearOS: off-line maps and GPS track navigation (from the .GPX file uploaded to the watch).

  1. Is this how your application on the Tizen system worked?
  2. Why you don't want to port your application to WearOS?
  3. Are you able to recommend any other application from the Play Store running on WearOS? Thank you in advance for your help.:)
wansti commented 2 years ago

Hi! OwntracksOSM was meant for two things: (Online) OpenStreetMap on the watch with no need for a companion phone app, and live location tracking via a personal server. Using the watch's GPS meant there was no need to enable location services on the phone (i.e. no Google Services required). Since the Watch 4 uses a Google OS it also uses Google Services and transparently switches between phone and watch GPS - meaning that little extra bit of privacy is now gone. And without that benefit, I don't mind using a companion app anymore, which opens up more possibilities.

As a replacement, I highly recommend Locus Maps 4. It's an OSM-based android mapping app made by a small dedicated team somewhere in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately it's closed-source and subscription based but it's excellent for hiking, geocaching, biking, etc. It supports GPX tracks, live tracking (with Gold subscription), offline maps, and has a companion app for WearOS that works really well. You can even record GPX tracks directly from the watch. The WearOS app is open source and available on GitHub (https://github.com/asamm/locus-addon-wearables) - I recently submitted a few patches to make sure it runs smoothly on the Galaxy Watch 4.