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Native route tracking

Julien said:
I'm perplexed too. Keep in mind a WiFi can be 'seen' and identified a lot farther away than it can be connected to. So you can 'see' WiFi's for a good distance. However this still doesn't seem to offer a full explanation.

Also to give an idea of the complexity here is DARPAS' synopsis page on non GPS tracking technologies under development.
http://www.darpa.mil/program/micro-technology-for-positioning-navigation-and-timing
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Yep. Perplexing is a pretty good word for it. Unfortunately, who knows if we'll ever get an official explanation either. It's pretty cool though and I like it regardless. For some reason, seeing a map of my route makes me feel a bit more motivated to get out there and go for a run or bike ride. Also, as someone posted earlier, adding in Elevation stats is great. The Activity.app is really becoming a pretty great place to keep track of stuff.

Nice link by the way, definitely going to save that to read later.
 
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batting1000 said:
Today I ran and my map doesn't have any grey dots, just the yellow line most of the way with some red and green areas.
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I have a recent run that is a huge mix (I had my phone with me too). Some areas just yellow/red/green in accurate lines, which I think is safe to assume it's using GPS and using colour for relative speed, but also within some parts of the route grey dots all over the place.

With this new info we need to try more test cases. Should go do a run in the middle of farm land. I have to do a swim in the morning but I'm tempted to run to try it out, lol.
 
Are the routes where you're seeing no/fewer grey dots ones you've done previously? If so, maybe the watch is somehow learning/getting more certain about those areas as you repeat them.
 
anthonymoody said:
Are the routes where you're seeing no/fewer grey dots ones you've done previously? If so, maybe the watch is somehow learning/getting more certain about those areas as you repeat them.
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Yes actually. The one I did today that had no grey dots was one I've been doing for the past several weeks.
 
Julien said:
What if you scratch your but, wipe your forehead, look at the :apple:Watch, stop to tie your shoe, turn around to speak to someone, zigzag around a fallen tree, stop at a red light and walk perpendicular to press the button, run around a car or any of the 1,000,000 other unknowables that would totally negate any ability to determine direction with the accelerometer & gyro? If navigation by accelerometer & gyros were possible DARPA would be all over it. There is NO way Apple can do something with a $300 consumer device that DARPA can't do with a $100,000,000.
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It's really hard to detect when you're doing all of those things you mentioned, but it's not very hard to detect when you're running or walking.
 
Julien said:
What if you scratch your but, wipe your forehead, look at the :apple:Watch, stop to tie your shoe, turn around to speak to someone, zigzag around a fallen tree, stop at a red light and walk perpendicular to press the button, run around a car or any of the 1,000,000 other unknowables that would totally negate any ability to determine direction with the accelerometer & gyro? If navigation by accelerometer & gyros were possible DARPA would be all over it. There is NO way Apple can do something with a $300 consumer device that DARPA can't do with a $100,000,000.
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I hate to tell you, but DARPA would not be all over that because they already own the rights to it! In the world before GPS, that's exactly how navigation was done. In fact, the nuclear sub Nautilus used this technique to navigate below the ice in the Arctic ocean some 30 years before global positioning was a thing. In those days, though, the set up probably would not have fit on your wrist.

See this article: https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/sa...ial-navigation/developing-inertial-navigation
[doublepost=1467885398][/doublepost]My theory on the gray dots is that those are check points where the system triangulated on three or more known wifi hot spots and calibrated that result with the accelerometer/gyro input. Now that I think about it, that combo could be quite precise. Apple likely knows, to within 20-30 meters, the location of many access points. If it can triangulate to 3 or more of these, it will have a very good idea where you are. This is likely using the same latency calculations algorithms that were installed to determine how close you are to your Mac for unlocking it. And this is actually functionally the same tech as used for GPS, but rather than using a constellation of radio emitting satellites in known positions, the system uses a constellation of radio emitting routers in more or less known positions for exactly the same purpose.

This is brilliant!
 
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I've done two runs with Beta 2 and neither had a route in the activity app. I noticed on the second run that the watch reminded me to bring my iPhone to calibrate so it may have lost he calibration after the update. I'll have to see if it needs a calibration before it can route. Not sure if others saw this with beta 2.

Heart rate monitoring has been flawless. Not even worth noting anymore. :)
 
BlueMoon63 said:
I've done two runs with Beta 2 and neither had a route in the activity app. I noticed on the second run that the watch reminded me to bring my iPhone to calibrate so it may have lost he calibration after the update. I'll have to see if it needs a calibration before it can route. Not sure if others saw this with beta 2.

Heart rate monitoring has been flawless. Not even worth noting anymore. :)
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I actually haven't done a run since updating my watch since updating it yesterday. I had to unpair and repair the watch for the update to take - so i'll likely get the message about bringing the phone with me to calibrate.
 
BlueMoon63 said:
I've done two runs with Beta 2 and neither had a route in the activity app. I noticed on the second run that the watch reminded me to bring my iPhone to calibrate so it may have lost he calibration after the update. I'll have to see if it needs a calibration before it can route. Not sure if others saw this with beta 2.

Heart rate monitoring has been flawless. Not even worth noting anymore. :)
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Ok, So it looks like they still require calibration. Do you just have to run once with your phone or multiple times like with previous wOS versions?

TxWatch
 
TxWatch said:
Ok, So it looks like they still require calibration. Do you just have to run once with your phone or multiple times like with previous wOS versions?

TxWatch
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I believe you need to get at least 20 minutes to help the calibration, and it doesn't have to be in one run. It can span multiple work outs if needed.
 
Question on this whole thing: Does the Watch generate the map while you're still away from your phone, or does it use the phone to do the heavy lifting with data the Watch provides?
 
gwhizkids said:
Question on this whole thing: Does the Watch generate the map while you're still away from your phone, or does it use the phone to do the heavy lifting with data the Watch provides?
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While not a developer and don't have wOS 3 I think this is a moot or unknowable question since you need your iPhone to see the map.
 
TxWatch said:
Ok, So it looks like they still require calibration. Do you just have to run once with your phone or multiple times like with previous wOS versions?

TxWatch
Click to expand...

It could also be that Apple removed the mapping/route tracking functionality in B2 given they have never actually acknowledged its existence. I hope not, but I fear it may be.
 
Bob190 said:
It could also be that Apple removed the mapping/route tracking functionality in B2 given they have never actually acknowledged its existence. I hope not, but I fear it may be.
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I haven't done an outdoor workout since updating so I can't say for sure but I can say that my previous maps still show up so hopefully that means that it hasn't been removed. You'd think if they didn't want any evidence of the feature they'd remove the UI from the Activity app but they actually even added in elevation gains (which showed up retroactively for one of my workouts) as someone posted earlier. I definitely hope it hasn't been removed as well.

Edit: I'll try to at the very least get out and do an outdoor walk for a couple miles tomorrow and report back. Can someone refresh my memory on how to check if I need to re-calibrate?
 
First run since updating the watch to b2. No route drawn. Also I had the phone with me..
Maybe because t needs to calibrate? Even then, why not just use GPS?

24414qx.png
 
profets said:
First run since updating the watch to b2. No route drawn. Also I had the phone with me..
Maybe because t needs to calibrate? Even then, why not just use GPS?
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I can't imagine it would have anything to do with calibration .. especially since you had the phone.

Sadly, it looks like the functionality was removed in the latest WatchOS 3 beta. Likely that functionality is destined for the next version of the Apple Watch, not the current version. Never made sense that this wasn't talked about in the keynote, or any of the marketing info about WatchOS 3 as it seems to be something Apple would want to make a big deal about.

It will probably be one of the "must have" features of the Apple Watch 2 regardless of whether or not it includes a GPS chip.
 
Well I just went out and walked in circles for a bit in the yard which probably looked silly, but I'm happy to report that, even for a short outdoor walk workout, my device is still providing a map! This one looks pretty funny since it's just a bunch of overlapping circles.

On a related note, I noticed that with this workout no Elevation data was shown. I'm guessing that the app probably doesn't display this data unless it hits a certain threshold. While this does make sense, my desire for consistency makes this sort of irritating. Ah well, I'm just glad that route tracking doesn't seem to be gone!
 
pmostoff said:
Well I just went out and walked in circles for a bit in the yard which probably looked silly, but I'm happy to report that, even for a short outdoor walk workout, my device is still providing a map! This one looks pretty funny since it's just a bunch of overlapping circles.

On a related note, I noticed that with this workout no Elevation data was shown. I'm guessing that the app probably doesn't display this data unless it hits a certain threshold. While this does make sense, my desire for consistency makes this sort of irritating. Ah well, I'm just glad that route tracking doesn't seem to be gone!
Click to expand...

So both your Apple Watch and iPhone are on Beta 2, and you still got route tracking?
 
Bob190 said:
So both your Apple Watch and iPhone are on Beta 2, and you still got route tracking?
Click to expand...
Yep, exactly.

While I do somewhat agree with what other's have said about it being strange they didn't show it off during the keynote, I was thinking back about it and how they really did seem almost short on time with the whole thing. I'm guessing that they just didn't think it was big enough of a feature to showcase on the stage. Here's to hoping it continues to work for others and in the future betas. Really like the feature.
 
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