Support OwnTracks “ping” location updates (t=p) for better stay detection

[radh21301]

I came across a discussion in another similar location tracking app called GeoPulse that sounded like a pretty useful idea, so I wanted to share it here in case it could benefit Reitti as well.
(Discussion: tess1o/geopulse#84)

OwnTracks sends small “ping” location payloads when you’re not moving (t=p). These pings contain your last known location, but apps often ignore them because they look like duplicates. GeoPulse recently added support for accepting these pings and updating the timestamp to “now.”

In practice, this helps solve an issue where:

If you’re staying in one place for a long time, OwnTracks (in significant change mode) doesn’t send new real location updates. Without those updates, I suppose apps cannot detect stays accurately. By accepting these pings, the app can keep the location “fresh” and detect stays more accurately.

I’m not super familiar with all the deeper technical details, but from the author’s comments it seems to be working well for them. Thought it might be a nice improvement for Reitti too.

[dgraf-gh]

This sounds like a good idea, i will check if this could benefit our OwnTrack users.

Thank you for the information.