Android Tracking Software for E-Boarding

First Impression of ztrack Geotracker for E-Boarding

Not long ago I replaced my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 with a Note 8.  On the Note 4 I had a tool named "Geo Tracker" that I really liked.  I assumed that the Samsung transfer utility would have made this application available on my new Note 8.  This didn't happen.  I went looking for the application in the Android Play store and didn't locate it.  I did a little looking around at other applications and found one that had the summary page I liked from Geo Tracker.  The application was not free so I was a little hesitant.  Kind of an ironic position to take when you consider the cost of the Metro-Board Dual Drive combined with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 phone. I went ahead and installed the $0.99 application and started exploring the features while driving to and from work.  I had the basics I was looking for.

Recently the weather in the Beaverton Oregon area has been nice enough to get out and do some riding on the Dual Drive.  I put together a 6.9 mile ride and thought I'd provide the first impressions of how the application worked as a skateboard tracker.

Initial map without track

The experience starts at the main screen where you have to turn on tracking.  The red dot in the upper right corner does this.  From there I placed the phone in my inside coat pocket and headed out.   If there are existing tracks on the screen, they will be retained so if you are beginning a new journey, you will need to remove existing tracks.  This is done by selecting "Clear" from the main menu - top left.  After that, the map display will be empty.

Start your recording by pressing the red dot to begin.  During the ride I put the phone inside my pocket but from watching on driving trips I observed the application attempting to track the current position on the map.  At higher speeds, 60mph+, the map under the position was no keeping up.   Not really a big deal since the position and data is collected.

At the conclusion of a ride I like to save the ride by adding a descriptive name.  This is accomplished by using the main menu "Edit" function to change the provided name.   At the conclusion of my ride, here is what the screen looked like after I turned off recording.  It is important to turn off recording so averages from the ride are locked in place.

Map Track

Zoomed Display

You can see I changed the name to 2018-03-10 Metroboard.   This display can be zoomed and panned to exploring the location.  I was surprised at the detail when I zoomed in to the area of the West Side trail, shown to the right.  While these displays are nice and well done, the most important data about the ride is distance, elevation, and velocity.  These are displayed very nicely in the Stats display.   The example Stats below shown below is pretty self explanatory.

Statistics Display

The things I'm interested in are

• Distance traveled
• Maximum speed
• Average speed
• Altitude

The Altitude information is pretty interesting for DualDrive owners like me because it shows that little elevation change impacts the Metro-board DualDrive.

After that I don't really care.  The whole point of riding the Metro-Board Dual Drive is to get away from other worries and enjoy.

In addition to the Stats display, there are a few other interactive displays that are fun to play with.  The "Distance vs Speed" display allows the instantaneous speed to be viewed relative to position of the journey.

Distance Vs Speed

An additional display in the Chart category that I like is the display of "Distance vs Altitude."  The overlay of altitude shows the nature of where I usually ride.

Distance Vs Altitude

Up to this point, I'm pretty pleased with the functionality of the Ztrack GeoTracker. I'll provide more data when I have time to collect and share.

For $0.99, I think this app does the job.   I haven't compared to information gathered by other GPS based tools.