Native route tracking

[Julien]

Well, in #44 BlueMoon63 may have put the watch in airplane mode, and in #59 there seems to have been some mixup as well they way I read it, I might be wrong. Just suggested a new and controlled test based on the information collected to this point, that's all.

Yes, I agree and here is what I suggested in post #68

What we need is the following tests that have courses with a good amount of dynamics (turns) and NOT on mapped roads. Also leaving the iPhone at home/work (NOT in Airplane mode) if possible to avoid any info being passed to the Watch.

• Starting near a WiFi and running a course near known WiFis
• Starting near a WiFi and then positively running a course out of WiFi range and then returning to the WiFi starting point
• Starting and running a course that is positively out of any WiFi range

 

[Buzz2]

Tried another short run. No Airplane mode this time. But I didn't do anything with the watch until I was a few hundred meters away and no where near wifi points that I've connected to in the past.

Did the run, and then a few hundred meters before reaching home I ended the run and took the watch off and walked the rest of the way. Watch was disconnected from wifi the entire run.

Somehow, the map still has a route, with relatively accurate starting and ending points.

Wanted to try another short run, but I was tight on time.

edit: looking at the route a bit blown up the way it posted, it looks like there's points along the way connected by straight lines. Also looks like it was bit more accurate than I thought with the start and end points. Not perfect, but somewhat close.

I'm going to take a wild guess that maybe, when I left home and it had no connectivity, that it started to track my movement somehow using accelerometer & gyro - similar to how it might be during the run?

Guess #1 Those red dots are where heart rate was measured?

Guess #2 The red dots are the locations apple watch is sure of and it connects them hoping it's close to your actual route?

Wild Guess #1 The chip currently not identified in rhe watch is a GPS chip and the red dots are it's readings?

Wildest Guess #1 Apple Watch collected WiFi connection names and cross referenced them with online resources to map it (but yiu were sure WiFi was a low possibility and besides this amount of cross reference and mapping can't be done that quickly when connected to your iPhone)

Please someone post this story on the main MacRumours page. This mapping is a huge story still unfold.

 

[profets]

Guess #1 Those red dots are where heart rate was measured?

Guess #2 The red dots are the locations apple watch is sure of and it connects them hoping it's close to your actual route?

Wild Guess #1 The chip currently not identified in rhe watch is a GPS chip and the red dots are it's readings?

Wildest Guess #1 Apple Watch collected WiFi connection names and cross referenced them with online resources to map it (but yiu were sure WiFi was a low possibility and besides this amount of cross reference and mapping can't be done that quickly when connected to your iPhone)

Please someone post this story on the main MacRumours page. This mapping is a huge story still unfold.

Well, one thing is for sure, something must be happening at those red dots, as the whole route is drawn by connecting them all. Looking at it some more they do seem to look somewhat equally spaced. I should do a run in the same route, see if the dots stay in the same places.

Took a look at some other routes I did in the past few days. They actually have some more colour to them too.

First one is a walk I tried out with the phone:

This was a bike I did with the phone as well, so obviously was using GPS. Wondering if the colour is to show speed at all:

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Since you stared at your home you were probably near a WiFi. When you were running did you pass any other WiFi's?

What we need is the following tests that have courses with a good amount of dynamics (turns) and NOT on mapped roads. Also leaving the iPhone at home/work (NOT in Airplane mode) if possible to avoid any info being passed to the Watch.

• Starting near a WiFi and running a course near known WiFis
• Starting near a WiFi and then positively running a course out of WiFi range and then returning to the WiFi starting point
• Starting and running a course that is positively out of any WiFi range

The last option here I can try this week. I'm just minutes from farm and empty land. I'll drive over without the phone on me. The second one would be tough though. I can think of a spot where I start near known wifi spots for about 1km, and then go into forested area followed by empty land.

 

[goodyear77]

From the WSJ in 2011: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610

6th paragraph:

"Apple, meanwhile, says it "intermittently" collects location data, including GPS coordinates, of many iPhone users and nearby Wi-Fi networks and transmits that data to itself every 12 hours, according to a letter the company sent to U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass. ) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) last year. Apple didn't respond to requests for comment."

WiFi positioning may be an answer, let's see what profets finds when doing a run outside of any WiFi coverage.

I remember in the early days when I used a "Runkeeper-ish" application on my Nokia E63, called "Sports tracker" where you had the option to select the GPS polling interval. This was to control the battery consumption since you could decrease the polling if you weren't moving very fast, like when walking. If you forgot to increase the polling interval while doing a faster exercise, like running or biking, you'd get the kind of map we're seeing here, where the dots are connected but not really following the road.

My guess: Wifi positioning with such accuracy under these conditions is not possible and the watch does indeed have a GPS-chip. The WiFi is however being used to provide A-GPS (Assisted-GPS) features since Apple has a mountain of data collected for at least 5 years.

 

[BlueMoon63]

I can tell you this, my testing was definitely not scientific

The first time when golfing, I put the phone in airplane mode foolishly forgetting it does the same for the phone.

The second test I left my phone at home and drove to the next city over. That town is a farm town about 15 miles away. It somehow knew I was at the high school and mapped pretty good.

The third time, I left my phone at home and walked about 2 miles to a new development and then Put my watch in workout mode and it did a good map but not perfect. I then Walked that same neighborhood with the watch in workout mode and with my iPhone and it was the same route with more detail but similar.

I will not believe he watch has GPS but it seems to know locations and mapping info. How it knew the high school when I have never been there but drove around that area and the new development I never set foot in is beyond me.

 

[Bob190]

My guess: Wifi positioning with such accuracy under these conditions is not possible and the watch does indeed have a GPS-chip. The WiFi is however being used to provide A-GPS (Assisted-GPS) features since Apple has a mountain of data collected for at least 5 years.

I am going to go the other way and say that I am about 95% certain it is using wifi positioning.

If you look at the maps that were recorded without the phone, it is difficult to say whether or not they are accurate since the resolution is so low and you can't zoom in. If you look at the publicly available databases on wifi networks .. wifi connections are pretty much everywhere. I am sure Apple has a database of every network every iPhone has ever been connected to .. all you would need is to find a point every so often and you can connect the dots so to speak especially since you have other variables coming from the watch like speed and distance recorded from the accelerometer. I am sure there is a pretty sophisticated algorithm that uses all of the available data to make a pretty good guess on positioning and route.

I know there was the unknown Maxim chip on the S1 that does cast some doubt as to whether or not it has GPS, but if it was there don't know why they would disable it. I don't get the battery life argument, since it only affects battery life if you use it, and it could be toggled on/off in a setting.

Judging by the one comparison of the same route done by BlueMoon63 with and without the phone, you can see that there is much more detail using the phone's GPS.

 

[profets]

All good points. I feel like the odds of it having GPS are quite slim. Every GPS watch I've used is rather bulky to accommodate the GPS chip and antenna. Though of course this is Apple and they'll probably find a very minimal way to include it in the hardware side.

I can tell you this, my testing was definitely not scientific

The first time when golfing, I put the phone in airplane mode foolishly forgetting it does the same for the phone.

The second test I left my phone at home and drove to the next city over. That town is a farm town about 15 miles away. It somehow knew I was at the high school and mapped pretty good.

The third time, I left my phone at home and walked about 2 miles to a new development and then Put my watch in workout mode and it did a good map but not perfect. I then Walked that same neighborhood with the watch in workout mode and with my iPhone and it was the same route with more detail but similar.

I will not believe he watch has GPS but it seems to know locations and mapping info. How it knew the high school when I have never been there but drove around that area and the new development I never set foot in is beyond me.

This high school situation is pretty crazy. I wonder if the only logical explanation (besides GPS) is the watch seeing a wifi network at the school (not connecting to it) but using that along with other motion data to know location and roughly calculate a route.

The third time with the new development, I'd guess that the watch always knows it's most recent location (wifi or phone before leaving home) and then it uses movement data to roughly know the direction and distance you moved, and used it to draw a rough route on the map. And of course like you said, when the phone was with you it drew a more accurate route.

 

[BlueMoon63]

Tomorrow I am golfing again at the same course, but I am not sure I can really test. I've walked the course with my watch and phone for a year and if I left my phone at home or in the car, it could be that it just has the data mapping for the course. Who knows.

I am going to leave my phone in the car and on, and this course does not have any wi-fi from houses as there isn't any. My guess is it will have some sort of route. But will it look like 9 golf holes or will it be a jumbled mess. Worth trying at least.

 

[profets]

Busy morning, had to rush to squeeze in a run. Didn't have time to drive somewhere to test. So I fully powered off the watch, ran nearly 1km before it powered back on - at this point I was 100% not close to any of my known wifi networks. Ran part of my usual short route, then 500m or so before reaching home I stopped running, saved the workout, and powered off the watch.

I'd have to assume that powering off the watch is really turning off everything on it. No radios, no movement, nothing.

After being home for a bit I turned it back on, let it connect to the phone. And it still created a route:

Interesting, it must be using some sort of wifi network visibility to gauge it's location at least once during the workout. Also, it looks dead accurate as to where I started and stopped the run.

 

[gwhizkids]

Busy morning, had to rush to squeeze in a run. Didn't have time to drive somewhere to test. So I fully powered off the watch, ran nearly 1km before it powered back on - at this point I was 100% not close to any of my known wifi networks. Ran part of my usual short route, then 500m or so before reaching home I stopped running, saved the workout, and powered off the watch.

I'd have to assume that powering off the watch is really turning off everything on it. No radios, no movement, nothing.

After being home for a bit I turned it back on, let it connect to the phone. And it still created a route:

Interesting, it must be using some sort of wifi network visibility to gauge it's location at least once during the workout. Also, it looks dead accurate as to where I started and stopped the run.

Thanks for taking the time to try to run this down (pun intended!). When you say "dead accurate" are you saying that the wobble across the street shown just to the left of the green pin depicts your path exactly? If so, that is extremely precise, almost within the +/-3m margin of error of GPS. If it is that precise and it's not GPS derived now somehow, I predict we will NOT see a GPS radio installed. May not be needed.

 

[goodyear77]

Hmm, could it be that any wifi network known to Apple, not only those known to you, are used for the location mapping? Even if there is no GPS this is very impressive!

Not sure we'll get to the bottom of this, but it sure looks promising going forward, no location info when running with just the watch was/is my pet peeve.

 

[dschulian]

Hmm, could it be that any wifi network known to Apple, not only those known to you, are used for the location mapping? Even if there is no GPS this is very impressive!

Not sure we'll get to the bottom of this, but it sure looks promising going forward, no location info when running with just the watch was/is my pet peeve.

It's the same as on iOS except, the Watch doesn't have GPS.

Depending on your device and available services, Location Services uses a combination of cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS to determine your location. If you're not within a clear line of sight to GPS satellites, your device can determine your location using crowd-sourced Wi-Fi and cell tower locations or iBeacons.

No, I can't believe Apple would include a GPS chip inside one of it's devices and then leave it 1,5 years in sleepmode. Without advertising it... No, just no.

 

[Bob190]

Also, it looks dead accurate as to where I started and stopped the run.

profets .. have you tried to find the location data somewhere within iOS? I would think/hope it would be stored somewhere (maybe in Health?).

The little map is nice, but the ultimate for me would be to take the data gathered by the watch (Time, Distance, Pace, Cadence, HR, and Lat/Long) and then create a standard format file (TCX, FIT) that could then be uploaded to Strava, Garmin Connect, RunKeeper, etc. There are already 3rd party apps (RunGap, SpectaRun) that allow you to take runs recorded with just the watch (no phone), and then upload them to Strava.

Personally, I keep all of my Swim, Bike, Run data on Strava, so it would be great if the location info could also be included to provide a map for Strava.

 

[profets]

I'm a bit limited on time (and energy, LOL) but I still want to try the suggestions that Julien has pointed out. Starting a run where there's known wifi, but run into an area where there's absolutely no wifi at all. I do have an option to do this close to home, but it'll involve a 100m altitude climb early in the run. And then of course attempting a run that begins and ends with no wifi at all (including networks I wouldn't know about).

Thanks for taking the time to try to run this down (pun intended!). When you say "dead accurate" are you saying that the wobble across the street shown just to the left of the green pin depicts your path exactly? If so, that is extremely precise, almost within the +/-3m margin of error of GPS. If it is that precise and it's not GPS derived now somehow, I predict we will NOT see a GPS radio installed. May not be needed.

Sorry - maybe didn't say it clearly. I meant dead accurate for the actual starting and ending points, not the exact route itself. The route is quite accurate, when you see some of those slight zig zags it's points where the sidewalk is making slight turns and likely the route is exaggerating those movements a bit.

profets .. have you tried to find the location data somewhere within iOS? I would think/hope it would be stored somewhere (maybe in Health?).

The little map is nice, but the ultimate for me would be to take the data gathered by the watch (Time, Distance, Pace, Cadence, HR, and Lat/Long) and then create a standard format file (TCX, FIT) that could then be uploaded to Strava, Garmin Connect, RunKeeper, etc. There are already 3rd party apps (RunGap, SpectaRun) that allow you to take runs recorded with just the watch (no phone), and then upload them to Strava.

Personally, I keep all of my Swim, Bike, Run data on Strava, so it would be great if the location info could also be included to provide a map for Strava.

I haven't seen anything in detail about location data within iOS. Anything specific you thinking? I'll take a look.

Edit: Just looked at sources in Health app. Don't see much info besides the watch being the source of the data for the workout.

Seems like it's polling or saving data at very regular intervals:

Deeper look at 1 of those points - looks like a 3 second interval:

Here's a summary of the run that it logged:

I've used a lot of those services in the past - Strava, RunKeeper, and mostly TrainingPeaks to keep records of all my swims/rides/runs. I really like having a single repository where all of these get logged, including all the data like you mention. I hope they improve the map feature in this Activity app. It is just beta 1, so it's still early and I think there's a good chance they'll let you view the map and pan around a bit by the time it's final. I also like how different apps can log workouts into Health/Activity too. Hoping for a lot of improvements here so I can attempt to use Activity as my main location for recording all workouts, or possibly allow workouts to be exported to a file like you mentioned to import into a different service.

 

[BlueMoon63]

I didn't comment before, but one of the workouts I did was to start an outdoor run from my front door and leaving my iPhone at home and charging. By the time I was half way up my 500 foot driveway the watch showed that it was disconnected. The entire run was shown on the route similar to my other route in the new development. It knew exactly where I went but like the other route, it was not showing the cup-de-sac, but only a indent. The route displayed was exactly where I ran and had the features of the road but less detail then if I carried my phone.

This afternoon I will be golfing and leaving my phone in the car but on. I would love to see a nice route of a golf course, but who knows with all the back and fourth between holes. I'll display the route later tonight.

 

[Bbqthis]

Can't wait until this is removed in the next beta, a la keyboard trackpad for non 6S devices, or panoramic wallpaper in iOS 7.

 

[BlueMoon63]

Not much to gain from this workout and route tracking. When I saved the workout, I saw the route on the watch for a second and it was just a mess like scribbled lines. Translated to this with the workout app. Looks like one line going down the first hole. Lol

Phone was in the car in the parking lot. Who knows how this would have looked in full size, but I doubt it would look much better without GPS.

Didn't help that we were stuck behind a senior men's league and waited in the heat on every hole and every shot. and I am closing in on the senior label as well now that I have my aarp card.

 

[profets]

Went to do a run in town tonight - it was an actual event, 5km. Did an easy pace as I was running with someone.

I left my phone at home, and put the watch into airplane mode before I left. When I was at the event I turned off airplane mode. Did the 5km, saved the workout, and put the watch back into airplane mode before coming home. I didn't want it to have any idea about movement from the car or anything at all from any of my known wifi points.

So - amazingly, and I guess as expected at this point, it drew a near perfect route on the map:

Interestingly though - the pace was off while I was running. Of course it using the cadence of your arm swinging it's not always perfect - I actually ran 5km but it calculated it as 5.73 using the accelerometer and gyro. Not surprising, however I find it interesting how what it drew on the map was an exact 5km route. Mostly residential area during this run, but it must be using visibility of wifi networks for location you would think, and less of it based on distance of the pace/duration, since it clearly didn't draw a 5.73km route.

Actually, looking at little closer here:

I can see at the end of the run (top left in the pic) it wasn't very accurate. I actually made a right turn to come back toward the starting point before making a left turn to go north to the finish.

Can't wait until this is removed in the next beta, a la keyboard trackpad for non 6S devices, or panoramic wallpaper in iOS 7.

LOL!

Not much to gain from this workout and route tracking. When I saved the workout, I saw the route on the watch for a second and it was just a mess like scribbled lines. Translated to this with the workout app. Looks like one line going down the first hole. Lol

Phone was in the car in the parking lot. Who knows how this would have looked in full size, but I doubt it would look much better without GPS.

Didn't help that we were stuck behind a senior men's league and waited in the heat on every hole and every shot. and I am closing in on the senior label as well now that I have my aarp card.

Interesting - I've always wondered about if it would show a preview of the route on the watch before saving.

 

[BlueMoon63]

Your 5k was a good test. My golfing is too much standing around.

 

[profets]

Your 5k was a good test. My golfing is too much standing around.

Lol, I find myself wanting to run more just to see how the mapping goes.

 

[BlueMoon63]

Lol, I find myself wanting to run more just to see how the mapping goes.

I'm looking forward to future betas to see if you can take the route to full size mapping. I have to admit, where I ran was nowhere near wi-fi and not enough houses to track my run so I don't get it, but this is a nice option for a non-GPS device. The tracking of my distance and speed was also pretty accurate with and without a phone. Still, I am most impressed with the heart rate not dropping a single time.

 

[matrix07]

Not sure anybody predict this yet but for me this feature anticipates GPS in Watch 2.

 

[Julien]

Went to do a run in town tonight - it was an actual event, 5km. Did an easy pace as I was running with someone...

Interestingly though - the pace was off while I was running. Of course it using the cadence of your arm swinging it's not always perfect - I actually ran 5km but it calculated it as 5.73 using the accelerometer and gyro.....

The pace was off because you were running at a slower pace than usual than the Watch is calibrated to. In running you tend to keep a steady cadence but you stride length increases (to speed up) and decreases (to slow down). The Watch can only count your cadence (most runners fall in the 160 to 180spm range) and base your current pace on your last known stride length (speed).

Not sure anybody predict this yet but for me this feature anticipates GPS in Watch 2.

Plausible but it would still be nice to have definitive explanation as to how it is working currently. Also "We need a bigger boat", I mean map.

 

[jdmagoo1]

I finally had a chance to try this again. Although it was 90 outside and super humid, I decided to take a walk in a new development by my house in the woods. This new development has about three houses so far, but they are 5 acre pieces of land so the closest to the road was maybe 300 feet up in the pine trees. The road is a dead end, so you walk in and circle back over your previous tracks so I walked in on the left side and walked out on the right side when looking at the route.

Left my phone at home so no chance it was involved in the routing. It was on.

I'll be dipped that it knew the route almost perfectly. Coming out of the neighborhood is a cul-de-sac that in the route looks like a little bend outwards, but it seemed to know I walked on two sides of the road and it knew I started a few blocks away from the neighborhood.

Also had another perfect heart rate reading - and I walk fast. About 4mph typically and did I say it was about 90 and super humid.

What app are you using to analyse your data? Or is that photo on the right a screenshot of the updated activity app in ios10?

 

[BlueMoon63]

What app are you using to analyse your data? Or is that photo on the right a screenshot of the updated activity app in ios10?

Exercise pulse to analyze the data. Basically a simple graph of your heartbeat for the entire logged workout. The photo comes from the activity app in iOS10