Display live positions from 3rd party tracker

[mattsches]

Hi everyone,

I've been struggling with this for a while now: I want to use an Android app (preferably Locus Map, of course) to display the live positions of family members on a map. Just like Google Map or Locus Live Tracking - but using my own custom server as a backend.

And I want to use a 3rd party tracker (currently evaluating Owntracks, Traccar, Nextcloud Phonetrack) to report my (and other people's) position to my server.

Is Locus Map capable of automatically polling positions/geo coordinates from an arbitrary URL and displaying the respective icons on a map?

So the workflow is as follows: The tracker app (let's assume Owntracks) reports my wife's position to my server -> it's written into a DB or a file -> every minute or so Locus requests the lat/lon values from a specific URL (e.g. https://myserver.example/position.php?user=1) -> I see the position updated in Locus Map every 60s.

Maybe I'm thinking too hard, or maybe this is a strange use case? Yet that's what I'm trying to achieve.

I'd appreciate any help!

Regards,
Matthias

[Menion]

Hello Matthias,

this is definitely not some crazy unique use-case.

Please check also topic and mainly my response here: https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/live-tracking-via-webservice#comment-39912 . It should be exactly what you are looking for.

[zossebart]

Hello Matthias,

this is definitely not some crazy unique use-case.

Please check also topic and mainly my response here: https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/live-tracking-via-webservice#comment-39912 . It should be exactly what you are looking for.

Do I understand it correctly, that this solution requires you to have livetracking active by yourself? This means you have to give out your position in order to receive the positions of others?

Maybe another solution would be to implement a service which is queryable by a kml file...?

[Menion]

Yes exactly. Every time you send your position out to the server, Locus receive and display data from the server on the map.

To just fetch data, you do not need any service integrated into the Locus. You may simply use already existing network links over KML files.

[mattsches]

Hi menion,

thanks a lot for your nice and helpful reply.

I got the Live Tracking approach working with my own server, great stuff! Only thing is that I needed to obtain a GPS fix (or use simulation mode) before Locus Map could successfully connect to the server.

And I was also puzzled that I had to publish my position, but I opted to just ignore it server-side *shrug*

However, up until now, I hadn't heard about KML NetworkLinks, thanks a lot for enlightening me I think that this might be an even better option for my use case.

I will play around with both options for a bit and let you know how it works out.

[ColdAutumn]

May I know which GPS Tracker you chose in the end ?
I have almost the same interest as you.
I started looking for it at many years ago, but didn't find it.
Of course I found TK102 and it worked really well, but its quality was too poor.
I also posted a post a while ago:
https://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=6853.msg58343#msg58343

However, I prefer to use SMS because it is very reliable and saves power.


Here is a more valuable page:
https://gps-trace.com/en/hardware
Here is a list of about 360 GPS trackers.

So, what is your ultimate choice ? Many thanks.