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  1. #1
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    Default Garmin Earthmate app to display co hikers location?

    I hope this will be a reality someday... While hiking the Foothills trail my hiking partner (15 minutes behind me) took a wrong turn and ended up in the woods. We both have Inreach units. Unfortunately no Guthook for this trail, only Gaia. I received general texts from him but I had no idea of a location. It would be a great feature if the Inreach units could accomodate the location of other hikers and display on Earthmate. Even if there were not a specific Guthook trail to display hiker's locations, a general topo display would be helpful.

    I have a radio dog collar which displays both my location and the dog's location on my smart phone. One of the displays shows a "compass" pointing to the direction of the dog and a distance calculation. I realize that this technology is totally different from Inreach BUT I sure could have used it. Maybe I should have placed the collar around my friend's neck and used it. Unfortunately this collar doesn't shock.

    Garmin, are monitoring WhiteBlaze posts?

    Steady

  2. #2

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    Nice idea, ton's of liability issues (stalkers came to my mind). Have to be a way to totally lock down the app.

    IPHONES have the "Find My Phone" app and you can add in others so you can track locations. they also have those Apple Air Tags now. I've thought of those for tracking gear, and maybe my dog! I keep him leashed most of the time but just this past weekend, after we hiked past a pond he loves to jump into, I took off his lead, he headed to the pond, saw a "critter" and took off. I know to start yelling his name and "NO" and so got him back fairly easily. But there have been times he's vanished for 10 minutes into thick woods. So each of you could have an AIR TAG located on your gear (or two, one on each person and one in the gear, so someone who drops the gear for a nature call and gets lost.....) and then each could locate back.
    Just typing out-loud.
    For a couple of bucks, get a weird haircut and waste your life away Bryan Adams....
    Hammock hangs are where you go into the woods to meet men you've only known on the internet so you can sit around a campfire to swap sewing tips and recipes. - sargevining on HF

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by rhjanes View Post
    Nice idea, ton's of liability issues (stalkers came to my mind). Have to be a way to totally lock down the app.

    IPHONES have the "Find My Phone" app and you can add in others so you can track locations. they also have those Apple Air Tags now. I've thought of those for tracking gear, and maybe my dog! I keep him leashed most of the time but just this past weekend, after we hiked past a pond he loves to jump into, I took off his lead, he headed to the pond, saw a "critter" and took off. I know to start yelling his name and "NO" and so got him back fairly easily. But there have been times he's vanished for 10 minutes into thick woods. So each of you could have an AIR TAG located on your gear (or two, one on each person and one in the gear, so someone who drops the gear for a nature call and gets lost.....) and then each could locate back.
    Just typing out-loud.
    The Apple Air Tags have to be near someone’s iPhone to get a location. It would work pretty good in a city with lots of iPhones around, but not so well out hiking.

  4. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by gpburdelljr View Post
    The Apple Air Tags have to be near someone’s iPhone to get a location. It would work pretty good in a city with lots of iPhones around, but not so well out hiking.
    That's good information. I didn't know their range.
    For a couple of bucks, get a weird haircut and waste your life away Bryan Adams....
    Hammock hangs are where you go into the woods to meet men you've only known on the internet so you can sit around a campfire to swap sewing tips and recipes. - sargevining on HF

  5. #5

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    On an android phone if you were receiving texts you could also have gotten his coordinates. I wrote a small bit of code to do this once using NFC tasks and NFC Tools. It worked like a Spot device. An Iphone could probably do it the phone has the ability to get its geographic information.

    That the phone could send texts doesn't 100% mean the phone was visible to enough satellites to get its position accurately. Usually is not a problem.

    Now if you had an offline Google map of the area you might have it at a decent level to be helpful. There's a certain scale the app maintains but if you didn't have the offline data downloaded, there's no details if you expand the map. I have been wondering if there is an extremely simple way to ping the phones GPS reading. If you have that from a text you can copy it into Google Maps (lat long) and then navigate to it.

    I believe those air tags are just like a Tile, which has been out for a couple years so I don't quite get all the hype. Do you still have to have the app working with them?
    "Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
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  6. #6

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    In Google Maps you can share your location with somebody. I think one way is to have a family account and then you could navigate to them. That would be a bump up I think over text and GPS because you probably need some regular data. Texts are the weakest it seems and may transmit when calls and data may not be accessible.

    Ah-Touching the dot in Google Maps gives you your lat long.

    Double Aha-When you do that in Google maps, you get a plus code to share your location. You can copy it, it's just an easier translation of your lat long.
    "Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
    Sleepin by the river just like he usually done
    Call for his whisky
    He can call for his tea
    Call all he wanta but he can't call me..."
    Robert Hunter & Ron McKernan

    Whiteblaze.net User Agreement.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by steady123 View Post
    It would be a great feature if the Inreach units could accomodate the location of other hikers and display on Earthmate. Even if there were not a specific Guthook trail to display hiker's locations, a general topo display would be helpful.
    ViewRanger, a hiking/mapping app I use sometimes, has this feature or something very similar to it, called Buddy Beacon. From the website: "ViewRanger BuddyBeacon lets you share your real-time location with friends, so they can follow your adventures on their phone or computer.Your location is PIN protected so you handpick who can see your location – perfect when you’re exploring remote areas."

    ViewRanger was recently merged with or bought out by Outdoor Active, and so I don't know if this feature will continue or be deprecated, but it might be worth a look. It's not exactly what you're asking for, but it's close.

  8. #8

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    If you were exchanging inReach messages you should have been able to look at message details in the Earthmate app which includes send location.

    You can share your inReach map page so others can follow you online, but that won't work in the mountains with no signal. Nice for folks at home, but not on trail.
    “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait until that other is ready...”~Henry David Thoreau

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