I’m taking a long biking trip soon and want to share my live location with my boyfriend in case something happens. Any recommendations for privacy-focused apps that can accomplish this? I’m on Android, he’s on iOS.
I’ve seen other people recommend OwnTracks : https://owntracks.org
So I know everyone will hate this suggestion, but the most battery efficient and privacy-oriented option is to use Google maps location sharing. Google already has your location through Google Play services, and uses that to update it. It is essentially real time, and you don’t need to give your info over to a random new company.
Unless you have fully de-googled, this is probably the best and easiest option.
Yup, just switched to this. It’s not quite as live as I was used to with life360, but it works for what we need.
Dude life360 is terrible. They just got caught selling location data to 3rd parties too I think? That on top of the battery drain of your phone constantly polling gps. It’s all bad.
I started out with Owntracks. I found it to be unreasonably complex. I swapped to Traccar. It was much easier to get functional.
The nice thing about Apple’s Find My is that it runs in the background but only checks and sends your location when someone is actively looking at your location. Do these do that as well? I’ve tried Telegram’s location sharing before and it drains battery like crazy because it keeps the GPS receiver always on.
Hot take: the OP is actually a narcissist controlling boyfriend that is looking for solutions to control his gf. Reply with caution.
It’s not unreasonable to think a person would want to offer some kind of live location sharing to friends. Including situations like “what if my tinder date goes horribly wrong”
Location tracking can be used maliciously, but a private app is hardly going to be a hidden app. And OP didn’t ask to obscure the intent of it.
My wife and I share our locations with each other and I also have my elderly inlaws configured as well. Never hurts to be safe!
