New in HiiKER on iPhone and Android. Update from the App Store or Google Play to get it.
Someone at home always wants to know where you are on the hill, and when you’ll be down. Live Locator lets you share your live location while hiking, and we’ve rebuilt it from the ground up. Your followers now see far more than a dot on a map: how far you’ve got to go, when you’ll finish, how much daylight you have left, the weather coming in, and the peaks ahead. They can chat with you as you walk, and if something goes wrong, everything rescue services will ask for is one tap away.
Open Live Locator from the map’s Options, or from the recording screen. Choose how long to share: until you finish recording, or anything from 15 minutes to 3 days. Leave Emergency sharing on if you want your followers to be able to alert rescue services for you. Then tap Start live sharing and send the link to whoever you like.
The same sheet turns into your live page. It shows how long you’ve been live, who’s following you, and whether your phone has signal, with Stop, Chat, Share and Edit one tap away. Change your mind about how long to share, or which hike you’re following, at any time.
Open the link and your followers get a live map with your route and your track so far, and a sheet with everything they’d otherwise text you to ask:
- Distance done and to go, moving time and ETA, worked out from your actual pace
- Your battery, so a quiet phone isn’t a mystery
- Daylight: sunrise and sunset where you are, and a heads-up if you look like finishing after dark
- The weather where you are, now, in a few hours and at your ETA, with warnings for what’s coming: rain, gusts, thunder, low cloud over the tops, or freezing temperatures
- Coming up: the next climbs, descents and peaks on your route
- An elevation profile with how far along it you are
Following is free, and works in the HiiKER app or in any web browser, so nobody needs an account to keep an eye on you.
Live Locator now has a group chat. Followers can type a message or tap a quick reply like “Looking strong!”, “Keep going” or “Proud of you”. You can answer the same way (“On track”, “Feeling good”, “Taking a break”, “Reached the top”, “Back at the car”), or send a photo straight from your camera, and it pops up on their map where you took it. Everyone can react with an emoji, and you’ll get a notification when someone messages you.
Mountains and signal don’t mix. Your phone now saves every position while you’re out of coverage and sends them in a batch as soon as it reconnects, so the gap in your track fills itself in. Your followers see a clear “No signal right now” explaining that this is normal in valleys and on the hills, instead of a dot that’s quietly stopped moving. It also goes easy on your battery: your phone sends updates more often while someone’s actually watching, and less often when nobody is.
If you’ve left Emergency sharing on, your followers have a Get help page with everything rescue services will ask for, ready to read out or copy: your last location as coordinates and a grid reference, when it was sent, your battery at the time, where you started, and when you were expected to finish. A big red button calls the emergency number that works where they are, and the page also shows the numbers for the country you’re hiking in, and who to ask for: in Ireland and the UK, Mountain Rescue. They can copy a rescue link to send on, and the page keeps updating if your phone reconnects.
Share while you navigate a planned hike and your followers see the whole route ahead, along with your progress. You can also share the route of one of your recordings, for a walk you’ve done before. Switch hikes halfway, say for a shorter way down, and your followers see the new route straight away. Prefer to keep your plan to yourself? You can hide the planned route and just share where you are.
Sharing your live location is part of PRO+. Following someone is free for everyone. If you’re new to turn-by-turn navigation or peak bagging in HiiKER, both work hand in hand with Live Locator.
Tell someone where you’re going, take a map, and share your hike. Happy (and safe) hiking!