Welcome To Ski Tracks
Ski Tracks is designed as high performance, easy to use, battery efficient tracking application for winter sports enthusiasts.
Introduction
Ski Tracks has been specifically designed to make it simple to track your day on the mountain whether you are a Skier or Snowboarder. Ski Tracks has the following features:
- Battery Efficient – Track All Day.
- Attach photographs to track.
- Comprehensive Ski Stats and Graphs.
- Run by Run Analysis. *
- Annotated Maps
- 3D Map *
- Export to Google Earth. *
- Battery monitor.
- Built in iPod Controls
Ski Tracks is an advanced location tracking application and has taken many years to develop. It was designed to provide skiers and snowboarders a simple way to track and review their day on the mountain. However although we have developed sophistical filtering and mathematical algorithms to calculate your days statistics, we rely on the Global Positioning System (GPS) to get a location and this system can sometimes produce errors. So you should not rely on the location for safety reasons.
This application is designed to be used for recording your day on the mountain, most of the time it should be in a pocket – Never Ski with the phone in your hand or in a way that may injure other mountain users. Ski Responsibly.
Once you finish your day take phone out and stop the track recording and save your track.
* Not available in Ski Tracks Lite version.
Recording
The first thing you will want to do when you get to your mountain start point is to press the “START” button on the Track view. When you press the “START” button several things will happen:
- The Duration will start to count up every second starting at 00:00:00
- The ► button will now change to ||
- The GPS will remain in operation even when the phone is locked or applicaiton is in background.
Ski Tracks will not record low quality location information and it may take a number of minutes on some iPhones to get a valid location – this is normal.
The GPS indicator on the display will give you the current reception – when its reading 2 or more bars the GPS has a valid location fix.
Place your iPhone in your pocket – we suggest that an inside jacket pocket that has no metal obstructions is best as it will keep the iPhone warmer and increase battery life.
From time to time you can get your iPhone out and check your ski stats, if you press the Profile button you can see your altitude profile and speed, use the run-by-run analysis to see your last run.
Once you have finished simply press the SAVE (box with arrow) button to add your track to the history. Note: once you save your track you can not alter or record more data.
The application will continue receiving GPS locations when recording even if the application is running in background or the screen is locked. You may run other applications, received or make calls/text messages without stopping the track recording.
Battery Life
Ski Tracks was designed to be the best in class for battery consumption. On a new modern iPhone we expect around 4-5% per hour of battery drain.
If you see sudden drop in battery percentage it is likely that the phone battery is worn and my need replacing or that the battery has been exposed to low temperatures.
However continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life. For more information checkout our web site or the user manual.
Photographs
Taking photographs is done by pressing the Camera button on the Track view – if this button is disabled then the iPhone does not have a valid location fix – wait a few minutes until the iPhone has a valid location fix.
Photographs are added to tracks as they are taken. On version 2.4.0 and above it is possible to attached photographs after saving.
To delete a photo go to the Photo view, select the photo.
If you tap the screen you will be presented with a toolbar with 3 options.
- Add to gallery – this add the photograph to the to iPhone gallery.
- E-Mail – emails the photograph to your default email address or add others.
- Delete – delete the photograph. Warning: this is final you can not get the photo back.
Saving a Track
When you have finished make sure you save the track by pressing the “PAUSE” button first (if you are still recording) followed by the SAVE (box with arrow) button. You will notice the Ski Tracks view now has a badge showing a new track has been entered into the Saved Tracks.
Sharing a Tracks
Once you have saved your track you may share your track with friends. There are a number of ways to share your track:
- Facebook / Social Share – Creates profile, map and statistics (including any attached photos) that can be posted on Facebook, Twitter, Whats App and any other app that can accept images.
- KMZ – Use this format if you want to view your day on the Google Earth on your PC or Mac computer. Includes attached photos.
- KML – Use this format if you want to view directly on Google Earth on your device.
- GPX – Use this format to transfer tracks to external services or other application.
- SKIZ – Use this format to transfer between Ski Tracks apps.
You may select a number of different ways for transferring files including.
- Airdrop – For transferring to Mac or another iPhone.
- Email/Message – For sending to friends.
- Add to iCloud Drive – For storing on your person iCloud Drive that can be synced to your computer and device.
- Save Images – Add Images to your Photos.
iTunes Document Sharing is not currently supported for Sharing Tracks.
Settings
The main options for settings are:
- Login – Login and Logout of your Ski Tracks account.
- Track Sync – Manual Backup and Restore to the Ski Tracks Cloud.
- Activity – Set the default Activity.
- Speed Units – km/h or MPH
- Vertical Units – meters or feet.
- Sound – beep for state changes.
- Wearables – Apple Watch, Magellan Echo and Pebble.
- Health – Add calories and distance to workouts.
- Proximity Sensor – When in record mode this option allows the proximity sensor to turn the screen off when the application is running in foreground and in your pocket. By clever use of this feature it is possible to view the application without getting your hands out of your gloves.
- Monitor Battery – This should normally be On. This application monitors the battery and will automatically turn of recording and audio. If the proximity sensor is enabled it will be disabled and the phone will be allowed to sleep. You may also set the battery warning level.
- Help Desk – Link to our online articles and support site.
- Settings – Link to Ski Tracks iOS settings.
- Report Issue – Found a bug, or just want a new feature press here.
- Menu User Guide – This page.
- Credits – All those who helped.
- Leave Feedback – Tell others how you feel about the app.
- Version – Current version.
TroubleShooting
Ski Tracks – Not recording track?
First of all is Ski Tracks in record mode? The duration counter should be increasing…
Does the GPS signal display any bars? Make sure you are outside with a clear view of sky. GPS does not work in doors.
Modern iPhones should be able to get a good location fix in around 10 seconds in open sky.
Once the iPhone has a fix you should see bars appear on the GPS signal display.
Ski Tracks – Location services are denied. What does this mean?
When you installed Ski Tracks you might have pressed the No button to allowing the application access to your location. When this happens Ski Tracks will not be able to access the location services of the device.
You need to run the Settings application on your phone and Select General followed by Location Services. Make sure both Location Services and Ski Tracks are set to ON.
Now Ski Tracks should work.
Ski Tracks – Screen keeps going on and off.
The proximity sensor is turned on, this can be turned off in the settings. The Proximity Sensor can be used when you do not want to get your hands out of your gloves when recording a track. By simply getting the phone out of your pocket will automatically turn on the display.
Ski Tracks – You say you can record for 9 hours but I run out of batteries much quicker.
We run battery tests on all our currently supported iPhones. Our test phones are up to 6 years old and generally will record up to 9 hours. Our newer phones will record much longer. However the mount of time your specific phone will record will depend on a number of factors:
- Battery wear condition.
- Battery temperature (specifically too cold)
- Other background applications – especially those that are either pulling or pushing data such as Social Media applications.
Ski Track Accuracy
How accurate is Ski Tracks?
Each version of Ski Tracks we try to improve both the GPS processing, ski algorithms and filtering techniques. We also calibrate our software for different iPhone types to improve the final results. The processing, algorithms and filtering systems provide a degree of accuracy that works best for mountain users. Generally for mountain users Ski Tracks provides accurate results given GPS and the environmental factors that the phone is working in. Generally most Ski data is accurate to around 5-10%. Plots and graphs use filtering techniques to improve the user experience so these can vary in accuracy over the plot but generally altitude is 5-10% and speed is 10-15%. These figures are based on our test data and cannot not be guaranteed as many other factors can cause accuracy issues. For more information please checkout the user guide available on our web site.
Upgrading
We strongly recommend that all users regularly backup their phones, the current version of Ski Tracks does not use iCloud document sharing so users should backup their phone to a computer or goto Ski Tracks / Settings / Tools / Backup All Tracks then using your computer copy the .skiz files from Ski Tracks backup folder for more information please checkout our web site.
If you have any difficulties or problems please do not hesitate to contact Core Coders with our dedicated Ski Tracks support email: