Build your fitness app with Roam.ai's location SDKs and APIs

Florence Rodgerson
Florence Rodgerson
Content Writer
November 29, 2021

Fitness apps have become a fundamental part of people’s workout routine. More and more people are turning to their devices to help them reach their fitness goals and easily track their progress.

Apps that are built to track the route of runners, bikers and hikers require a variety of location services. To provide users with a great UX, developers must provide the most accurate and battery-efficient solution to keep track of their workouts. Luckily, location SDKs like Roam.ai provide solutions for just that.  

In this article, we’ll walk you through how Roam.ai’s location SDKs can elevate your fitness app.

Why do workout apps need location SDKs?

Not all workout apps require tracking of a user’s route. Some focus on home workouts and fitness programs, but others need to gather the user’s location updates to efficiently show the route while running, hiking or biking. It goes without saying that a fundamental feature of every running app is the ability to keep track and share routes with friends and family.

But raw location updates can be imprecise and noisy, meaning the route taken by the user won’t be smooth or show the user’s location accurately on the map. These location updates are also more likely to suffer from high battery drain and inaccuracies. While it’s possible to develop your own method for collecting accurate and reliable location data, this often requires a lengthy and expensive development process.

Along with other capabilities, location SDKs provide a time-saving solution with extremely precise and granular location data delivered in real-time. With quality location updates, apps can use these to plot a route on a map and provide all the metrics necessary for every runner’s needs including altitude, location, speed and distance traveled.

How can Roam.ai’s location SDK improve your fitness app?

Our developers have designed the SDK to collect the most precise, battery efficient and comprehensive location data on the market. Take a closer look at how our SDK can help you track your user’s routes on your app:

1. Battery efficiency  

One one of the biggest concerns about integrating an SDK is the amount of battery drain that often occurs when collecting location updates. Roam.ai has developed a solution to limit battery drain up to 90% depending on the use case, so users don’t have to worry about running out of charge during their workout. The SDK is battery efficient due to the innovative adaptive tracking based on the user's movement that also doesn’t collect location updates when stationary.

We have three adaptive location tracking modes that balance the frequency of location updates with levels of battery drain: active, balanced and passive.

In addition, we have distance and time interval tracking so you can customize exactly how many location updates your app needs as to not unnecessarily collect data that could drain the battery.

2. Offline location tracking and no data loss

Roam.ai’s core SDK is equipped with offline location tracking to help users track their fitness journey even when their device is not connected to the internet. It’s common for runners and hikers to take their route in remote areas which could impact the ability to see their route on the map.

With offline tracking, users can trust that your app will have no data loss and the route will be updated once they have regained connectivity.

3. Accuracy and precision

Why is Roam.ai’s location tracking so accurate? Roam.ai has designed our Accuracy Engine to guarantee industry-leading precision up to two times that of Native Accuracy. Location data often suffers from inaccuracy due to environmental factors, weak signal and certain device states such as low power mode and airplane mode.

The Accuracy Engine removes noise, uses sensor fusion and combines multiple sensors so users do not have to worry about receiving faulty information during their fitness journey.

But we want the data to speak for itself. If you would like more information about exactly how accurate our SDK is, get in contact with our team and we’ll be happy to show you more results.

4. Simple integration of quality code

Not only is Roam.ai accurate and battery efficient, but you can integrate it simply using our quality and comprehensive documentation. Instead of developing your own real-time tracking solution, we have all the tools you need to get started.
Experiencing problems with integration? No problem. Just reach out to our team where you can find assistance right away.

Taking your fitness app to the next level with Roam.ai's Trips API

Our Trips API then takes fitness tracking to a new level and provides a fully comprehensive solution for your app. As well as collecting real-time location updates, Trips turn these into a route that can be plotted onto the map service of your choice including OpenStreet Maps, Google, TomTom, Mapbox and HERE.

Roam.ai’s Trips API provides users with entry and exit events disclosing a clear start and finish line of their workout. Once the user has finished their run it will create a route summary. The summary can be customized depending on what data is useful to your app, including time taken, route, speed, altitude and more.

Like our SDK, the Trips API also works offline so users can get a complete summary of their routes even if their workout takes place in a remote location. Read more about Offline Trips here. Roam.ai is ready to help customers, both before, during and after a trip.

What's next?

Now we’ve listed all the reasons why you should use Roam.ai. The only step left is to try out Roam.ai for free! If you have any more questions, feel free to contact our team and we will be happy to help!

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Florence Rodgerson
Florence Rodgerson
Content Writer
November 29, 2021