Questions
Waypath, answered
Direct answers, in the words the questions were asked in. Where the answer is no, it says no.
Frequently asked
Common questions about Waypath
What is Waypath?
Waypath is an endurance sport app for iPhone and Apple Watch. It records runs, rides, walks and 53 other sports with GPS, explains what the terrain cost you, carries a catalogue of 426,029 waymarked trails, and lets people watch you move along a course through a link they open in any browser. It is built in Europe, around clubs, courses and privacy.
Is Waypath free?
Yes. Recording is free and unlimited, and so are live sharing, clubs, events, challenges, the trail catalogue and the 3D fly-through. A premium subscription adds the analysis layer: every analytics chart, race predictions, the full heat map and unlimited saved routes. There is a free trial, and you can cancel at any time.
Does Waypath work offline?
Recording does, completely. GPS is a satellite signal, so distance, pace, elevation and the track itself are computed on the phone with no network at all. What needs a connection is the basemap filling in, live sharing, and anything fetched from the server: the trail catalogue, the feed and messages. Waypath does not offer downloadable offline map regions, because Apple's MapKit provides no public way to pre-download or protect map tiles, and a download button on top of a cache the system can clear at any moment would be a promise the phone could break in your pocket.
Can I import GPX files into Waypath?
Not yet. Waypath exports every activity as a GPX 1.1 file, with elevation and a timestamp on every point, so you can take your data to Strava, Garmin Connect, TrainingPeaks or your own archive. In the other direction it currently imports past workouts from Apple Health rather than reading GPX files you hand it. GPX import is a known gap and it is on the roadmap.
How does live tracking work?
The organiser of an event draws the course in the app and switches live tracking on for it. Each runner then separately chooses to put their own live run on that course. Anyone holding the spectator link opens it in a browser and sees the runners as dots moving along the route, refreshing about twice a minute. Nobody appears unless both switches are on, and narrowing the audience revokes the link straight away.
Do spectators need the app to follow a runner?
No. Spectators need a browser and the link, nothing else. There is no app to install, no account to create and nothing to sign in to. It works on a phone at the roadside and on a laptop at home, on any operating system.
Is my location private?
By default, yes. Activities stay on your phone until you choose to publish one, and you pick the audience for each activity separately: only you, your followers, or everyone. When you publish a route, anything inside a privacy zone you have declared is removed, and then a random 200 to 600 metres is trimmed from each end, so a published map never starts at your front door. During a live session a position is held back until you are 250 metres past it, and the positions still being held when the session ends are discarded rather than released, so a live link never shows anyone finishing.
Does Waypath work with Apple Watch?
Yes. The Watch app records from your wrist with a real heart-rate reading, with or without your iPhone, and the exact sport comes home intact: a trail run stays a trail run. The route pacer runs on the Watch as well as on the phone.
How is Waypath different from Strava?
Strava is far larger, owns the segment network, has the people in it, and runs on iPhone, Android and the web. Waypath is iPhone and Apple Watch today, with an Android version planned for January 2027, and it is much younger. The differences that matter are its live sharing, which is built around an event course and opens in any browser with no app and no account, its catalogue of 426,029 waymarked trails from OpenStreetMap, and a default in which nothing leaves your phone until you publish it.
Is Waypath a race timing system?
No, and it does not replace one. There are no finish times, no rankings and no results. The position shown deliberately trails the runner by about 250 metres, and the finish is never broadcast. If your event needs official times it still needs chip timing. Waypath is for the person on the roadside deciding whether to walk up to the 30 km mark.
Is there an Android version of Waypath?
Not yet. Waypath is iPhone and Apple Watch today, and an Android version is planned for January 2027 — a plan rather than a promise. Spectators following a live link need no app at all, so they can already be on anything with a browser, Android included.
How many trails does Waypath have?
426,029 waymarked trails across 37 countries, organised into 75 curated regions. The data is built from OpenStreetMap and available under the Open Database Licence. It covers walking infrastructure: paths, footways, tracks and bridleways. It carries no cycling routes and no ski routes, and above 60 degrees north there is no elevation data, so trails that far north arrive without a climb profile.
Are messages in Waypath encrypted?
Direct and group messages are end-to-end encrypted on your device, and the server stores ciphertext only. Attachments are refused unless they arrive encrypted. What is not encrypted is the metadata: sender, recipient and timestamp, and a club's or event's own name, place and date, because people have to be able to find them. Messages are also tied to the device that received them, so reinstalling the app loses the history.
Does Waypath show me other people's heat maps?
No. The heat map is built from your own recorded activities and nobody else's. It is not aggregated from other users, because doing that properly needs anonymisation and a contributor threshold that do not exist yet. Waypath would rather show you your own paths than invent the rest.
What languages does Waypath support?
Waypath is localised into 34 languages.
How do I contact Waypath?
By email, at hugo@oshi-messenger.com. Waypath is a small independent operation, so the person who reads it is the person who writes the app.
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Still deciding?
Recording is free and unlimited, nothing is published until you say so, and every activity exports as GPX if you leave.
Requires iPhone. There is no Android app today; one is planned for January 2027.