Tracking sports activity is basic for all sports tracker. It keeps a log of your activity. How well and how accurate the tracking actually depends on the GPS that you have. At times it is accurate while it really foul up at other times. It once reported that I traveled at 600Kph on my bicycle. However basic it is, VR(ViewRanger) has it. Only problem is that the button appears on the map itself. It is easy to touch it by accident. It has no pause but it will prompt you to continue, start new or cancel. It does have auto pause and has a few threshold settings.
Maps is useful if you need to know where you are along the way. Those who have unlimited mobile data plan have no problem showing the maps during tracking. However, if the place is really out of range then you will simply get a blank background. Thus, it is vital that up-to-date offline maps are available. VR have both online, cache and offline maps.
Cached maps are dangerous as it will be automatically erased. Offline map is the preferred choice. This especially critical if you have a number of tracks at different part of the world. You could always go online to download but people without mobile data plans have to pre-load the map before commencing their journey. Therefore, offline map is the best choice. VR even have update feature for the downloaded maps. This means you need not define the map area every time you need an updated map.
Routes are vital if you need to travel through unknown areas or the route has too many twists and turns. Sometimes you need to move through a number of waypoints in a particular order. Routes will allow you to do that. Showing the route on maps is available on some sports trackers.
"Follow route" is one feature that is very useful. It is like navigation. You just follow along the pre-planned route and it worked like a charm. A good navigation app will automatically points to the next waypoint as you go along the route. Some even show you the new plotted route to the nearest waypoint if you went out of the way. VR does not replot the route to the nearest waypoint. It only plot a straight line from your current location to the nearest waypoint. That is one point I am not so happy about. However, if you are off road, no sports tracker will be able to give you any guide any way.
Direction idiots like me have problem reading the map. I am always confused as to which direction I am heading or moving. Good navigation program will provide you a heading direction indicator. It will show the rough direction where your device is pointing at. This will allow you to align your route to your heading direction. This is a feature that is very useful. VR does not have heading direction indicator. It does have a movement direction indicator. When you move, it will show the direction of your movement. Although this is not the best choice, it does help to align user back to the route. You will simply do trial and error by moving and realign yourself.
Voice navigation is a plus for map navigation especially if you don't have time to look at the device. So far none of the sports-tracker have voice synthesized navigation. VR does not have it too. Normally, I would use OsmAnd for voice navigation. It has offline maps too but is not for sports tracking use.
Social media linkage is one optional features which many user likes. VR does allow you to update your activity to Facebook and Twitter.
View routes/tracks published by other is also one feature that may prove useful. Instead of plotting my own route, you could use other's route for my own activity. Viewing the tracks done by others also allow us to gauge ourselves as to how fit we were compared to others (possibly of same age). VR does not show tracks done by others. It does show published routes by others. I personally find that routes are better than tracks as individual have repeated tracks that may not be useful as a route. Like other trackers, VR did allow users to convert tracks to routes.
VR does not automatically centers the map to the GPS location. If you turn off the screen and back on later, the GPS location may go off the map. Just tap the "lock GPS" button will solve the problem.
Also, the screen time out feature of Android will keep turning off your screen. VR does not have "keep awake" feature yet. To solve this problem, you just have to install a "keep awake" app so that could easily turn off/on "keep awake".
Don't even think of importing tracks into VR. Many sports tracker allow you to import tracks. This is one thing which I don't like about VR. I have only one activity, why do I need two devices to record it? You can only import routes in GPX format.
VR site allows you to import GPX as routes. Some route creating web output is not compatible with it. GeoPlanner, MapOmeter generated routes are not possible to import. VR have its own route creating facility but it has only straight line. No "follow road" plotting possible.
One last reminder. Please be aware that VR does a lot of calculations plotting your track on map and navigation (if you turn "follow route" on). Your battery will drain extra fast.
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