New Feature Ideas

[kylecorry31]

Since this thread is becoming a bit long (even with most of the comments minimized), I've created a new issue as a continuation. I'm going to be closing this issue, and ask that all new feature ideas be posted there.

The new issue: #1911

Please feel free to post new feature ideas in the comments on this issue. I would love to have some other thoughts about what should be included in this app (no guarantee that I will include them, but I will consider each idea). No idea is a bad idea here, worse case I may say that I will not include it in Trail Sense (but who knows, if it is a really good idea, I or someone else may work with you to build it into a separate app). I should also mention, that I am not averse to the idea of having separate companion apps to Trail Sense with specific niches if a good feature does not meet the goal of Trail Sense.

Some set in stone goals of this app:

• Trail Sense must not use the Internet in any way, as I want the entire app usable when there is no Internet connection
• New features must provide some benefits to people using the app while hiking, in a survival situation, etc.
• New features should make use of the sensors on a phone rather than relying on stored information such as guides
• New features must be based on peer-reviewed science

For reference, some things I have considered in the past and removed were:

• "Survival blueprints" (recipes for making items while in survival situations)
  • There are a lot of other resources out there and it is best presented in a book format
• Survival guide
  • There are a lot of other resources out there, including this awesome app
• Animal behavior
  • I can't say there is enough science / supporting evidence behind Solunar theory for me to make accurate predictions of animal behavior in general, though if someone provides strong evidence I will consider it

[kaliiiiiiiiii]

@kylecorry31
A neat feature would be AR//IMU based locationing. Cinda what mad-location-manager (doesn't work for me//update to SDK 29 or 30 needed) does.
It would allow users to navigate in caves or with bad GPS more accurately, but I'd assume also use some processing-power.
Maybe ar-indoor-navigation helps you.

[kylecorry31]

@kaliiiiiiiiii thanks for the suggestion! I've created #1688 to research this and come up with a prototype

[leavenode]

I've got four phones with barometers, but only my S8 gives an accurate reading. A way to calibrate it, or enter an offset would be useful for my phones that return innacurate values.

[kylecorry31]

@leavenode thank you for the suggestion, I have added #1704 to address this

[Darin755]

Would it be possible to add Bluetooth p2p functionality? I am looking for a group chat and group navigation powered by bluetooth. This functionality would be useful for groups of 4-6 who want to have a way to collaborate and share photos and ideas. I know this sounds crazy but I'll explain.

Group Chats

Group chats would be useful for sharing images and plans quickly even if there was a lack of internet. This could be useful if someone wanted to share modifications recipe or plan.

The messages themselves could be encrypted using the NaCl library

shared navigation

Currently you need everyone in the group to have their own navigation. This could lead to discrepanies and potential confustion among other things. What I propose is a shared map that shows everyone's location on it. You could use bluetooth triangulation to help increase the persition of the GPS. I also think this navigation needs to work even if the group breaks into smaller groups.

I know these features are a bit of a stretch. Briar works for bluetooth communication but is a bit overkill for a few people on a hike.

Also thank you for your hard work. It is greatly appreciated

[JensKorte]

Would it be possible to add Bluetooth p2p functionality? I am looking for a group chat and group navigation powered by bluetooth. This functionality would be useful for groups of 4-6 who want to have a way to collaborate and share photos and ideas. I know this sounds crazy but I'll explain.

Briar aims at secure communication even without internet connection. Sooner or later they want to implement file transmission. See also: https://f-droid.org/de/packages/org.briarproject.briar.android/

[JensKorte]

It would be nice if the possibility would be available to enter temperature offset(s) and number days to decrease because the historic temperatures are sometimes not fitting, maybe because of climate change.
e.g.: If today the real temperature is e.g. 4° higher than the historic temperatures with 1° and 5° I could enter the delta temperature and e.g. 4 days to decrease. On the first day the temperature shown would be 5°/9°, on the next day it would be +3° and so on. Maybe there could be a temperature offset for high and low each.

[kylecorry31]

@JensKorte thank you for the suggestions!

I have the following issues which discuss potentially using bluetooth (maybe as an addon to avoid the bluetooth permission):
#1540 (going forward, I will be adding all plugin ideas here rather than separate issues - until I start making plugins)
#1320
#1203

I'll also look into adding Briar to the recommended apps

And here's an issue you can use to track the dynamic temperature offset:
#1639

[icejuice-enjoyer]

This isn't exactly a feature, but it would be very nice if Trail Sense supported Android 13's themed app icons.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/13/features#themed-app-icons
https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/launch/icon_design_adaptive#user-theming

Great app by the way :)

[kylecorry31]

@icejuice-enjoyer thank you for the suggestion! The latest version of Trail Sense 4.17.0 has themed icon support. It was released a couple days ago, so the update should be available on Google Play (may take a couple more days on F-Droid).

[VasilisKos]

Thanks for this awesome app!
One suggestion:
Please add in the available quick actions (both in navigation and astronomy) a shortcut to the night theme. I think it would be very handy, being able to turn to night theme instantly.

[kylecorry31]

@VasilisKos thank you for the suggestion, that's a great idea. I've added this issue to track that: #1744

[khimaros]

it would be helpful to have land use data when in unknown areas. for example: is it okay for me to camp in this land? is this BLM or USFS owned?

[kylecorry31]

@khimaros Thank you for the suggestion, it is a really good idea, but unfortunately I don't think it will be possible to add that to Trail Sense. Here's why:

1. Solution 1 would require I pre-package Trail Sense with a high resolution world map. This would take up a lot of space and would easily become out of date. Due to this, I don't believe this solution would be feasible.
2. Solution 2 would require Trail Sense load the map over the Internet, which it is unable to do due to the lack of Internet permission.
3. Solution 3 would be to use a plugin to load map tiles around land ownership. This is possible, but I do not have plans to implement this feature for at least another year as it will require a lot of time: Plugins #1540
4. Solution 4 would be to use the Photo Maps tool (experimental, release scheduled for next month) to use a PDF / image of the land ownership for the region of interest. The PDF can be generated using a service such as CalTopo and imported into Trail Sense. Given the current state of development, I would recommend this solution as a workaround until solution 3 is implemented.

[kylecorry31]

I'm posting this here to get more visibility and feedback: #1867

I'm looking to redesign a lot of the tools in Trail Sense over the next several months and want to get feedback on what I should focus on. And I know this has come up a lot, so I plan on starting work on #743 soon so you can transfer your data in Trail Sense to a new phone (just a couple more things I need to do first to prepare for Android 14 + the full release of Photo Maps).

[upbox-org]

There are over 3400 formulas on this very cool page: https://www.omnicalculator.com
Some of these may well be useful in survival situations.

Some suggestions:

• Wet Bulb Calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wet-bulb#how-to-calculate-the-wet-bulb-temperature
• Speed Calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/everyday-life/speed
• Watt Calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/watt
• Lightning Distance Calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/lightning-distance

[kylecorry31]

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll take a look

[ftc]

Amazing app, thanks for the hard work! Some ideas for features:

1. It would be cool to have a variometer based on the pressure sensor and accelerometer. This open source project implements a basic variometer but doesn't have much configurability or display options.

2. Plot sensor readings as color along the path like the altitude, horizontal speed, or vertical speed from the variometer idea.

3. Stroboscope that flashes the camera flash at an adjustable frequency to estimate the speed of rotating objects.

4. Make the home screen configurable to show different numbers (e.g. sunset time, vertical speed, etc)

[Portagoras]

Another Idea from me. GeoNotes! Add notes to a certain position, so they give you a notification when you pass that spot again.

Yeah that is basically it, some apps do that already, but I mean why not.

[kylecorry31]

@ftc thank you for the suggestions!

1. Can you provide some use cases where a variometer would be useful while hiking? The only I could think of is here: Backtrack - show current vertical speed #1907
2. On the path, you can change the point style (right most dropdown, defaults to None) to elevation to see the altitude along the path (if you used Backtrack to create the path, it will be available - other sources may vary). Here's the new issue for the speeds: Path point coloring: Speed  #1906
3. Can you provide a use case where this would be useful for hiking? I can't seem to find a related issue, but I had previously reviewed a similar request and couldn't determine a use case that would fit well in Trail Sense.
4. I am planning to add widget support (though, I'm not sure when): Widgets #347

[kylecorry31]

@Portagoras thank you for the suggestion, here's the issue I created to track that (I'm thinking of creating beacon geofences first - details in the issue): #1908

[ftc]

1. I totally understand if this is too niche, but the use case would be hiking and paragliding (often called "hike and fly"). This method of computing the vertical speed from the barometer and accelerometer is accurate enough to find thermals (upward moving air to keep flying). It beeps so you can look where you are going rather than at the screen. It's also just a blast to play with on its own, I have been trying to beat my max vertical speed just trail running on steep sections. Would you accept a pull request if I can find a reasonable way to integrate it?

2. Awesome, I missed that when playing with it earlier.

3. Honestly, I can't really think of anything particularly hiking specific. I was just excited that the flashlight had a dimmer and it made me think of other things you could do. Feel free to ignore this one.

4. Again awesome.

Looking forward to following the project!

[Portagoras]

In reference to #391:

There is already an open source android app, that implements a feature where the phones camera is used to sense heart rate.
https://github.com/berdosi/HeartBeat
It works by laying the finger on the camera lense and turning the flashlight off and recording the image. There is probably papers around on how to pull that off.

I just tried it on a Pixel 6a, because the flashlight is surprisingly far away from the actual lense and the results were pretty accurate to what my watch was reporting. This might be a neat feature to get a quick result in just about 10 seconds. Especially if you are not experienced to find a pulse with your fingers on another person. I think it would be a nieche feature, but might be useful in emergency situations, if you can remember that the app has that.

I didn't do any too specific tests regarding accuracy, but i guess it was around 10-20% off of the actual value, which would be fine. I don't know how much the results differ by device, but I can't see why it would as long as the light penetrates the finger.

[kylecorry31]

@ftc Thank you for the clarifications. Unfortunately, that does fall outside of the intended use cases of Trail Sense (both the variometer and stroboscope), and is not an area I would like to provide support for in Trail Sense at this time. That sounds like a really cool activity though!

[kylecorry31]

@Portagoras at one point I did implement that in Trail Sense (not a released version), but decided against it since it was getting into the health space, and I didn't want to go that direction (I'm also pretty sure there's more regulation in Google Play around that, which I didn't want to deal with). #369

I did however pull that code into a separate app (well technically two, but I don't use Health Sense anymore): https://github.com/kylecorry31/Heart-Rate

I haven't built that project in a while, but I do have the app on my phone and it does a reasonable job - though I did throw it together pretty quick as a test of my new app templating, so I won't guarantee any sort of accuracy.

You should be able to build that code with Android Studio, or I can build a debug APK for that tomorrow and add it to a pre-release on that project.

[Portagoras]

That makes sense. I am not familiar with the regulations around Google Play. I will check it out later!

[kylecorry31]

Since this thread is becoming a bit long (even with most of the comments minimized), I've created a new issue as a continuation. I'm going to be closing this issue, and ask that all new feature ideas be posted there.

The new issue: #1911