If you have given the app the necessary permissions in the settings of your phone, it recognizes the start of a journey via the “significant location change” function of your operating system. The app will wake up and activate the GPS module of your phone. We consider movement at a speed above 12 mph (20 kmph), as the beginning of a Trip.
IMPORTANT: A Trip is only counted if it lasts at least 2 minutes. All Trips with a shorter driving time (from the moment the start is detected) will be discarded.
The app is designed to consume very little battery power. We only use your phone’s sensors when we actually need them to detect a Trip or transfer data.
Please check that you have given the app all necessary permissions.
For Android we need GPS to detect your Trips, overlay services (display over other apps) to recognize phone usage, and telephony state to recognize if you make phone calls during Trips. If any of those permissions is not given, the app will not start a Trip and you will not earn points.
Some devices (e.g. Samsung) are asking for battery optimization. We ask you to not activate this option as the operating system may terminate the app in the background, resulting in no points being collected.
For iOS devices we need permission to location services set to ‘always’, allowance to send you notifications, and permission for background activity.
Sometimes GPS crashes and, although it seems activated, actually it’s not functioning. To troubleshoot this we recommend:
- Check on Google Maps or any other navigation app to see if your position is found.
- Turn off and on GPS or restart your smartphone.
- Ensure you have internet connectivity. Another scenario is that you are registering Trips but not uploading the Trip information to our servers due to an internet connectivity issue. The app does cache data, but the volume cached depends on the available space of your device.
- For iOS: Set permission for location services to ‘always’. If you set the permission for location services to ‘in use’ then you will have to open the app for every Trip and keep it in the foreground. If the permission for location services is set to ‘in use’, as soon as you open another app or lock your device, the Trip will be lost.
You can both listen to music and use your phone’s navigation system without losing distraction free minutes. However, if you move the phone or touch the display while driving, we’ll take it as a distraction. Entering your destination in the navigation system or selecting your playlist before departure will ensure that you both earn the maximum number of distraction free minutes and drive without being distracted by your phone.
If you run another app while driving – e.g navigation – please make sure your smartphone is held in a cradle or somewhere fixed where it cannot move.