Feature
Live tracking, by link
The athlete shares a link. Whoever holds it opens it in a browser and watches a dot move along the course. There is nothing to install, nothing to sign up for and no hardware anywhere.
How it works
Three steps, no equipment
The organiser draws the course
An event on Waypath carries its own route. The organiser switches live tracking on for it, and that switch governs the whole field.
Runners opt in, one at a time
Each runner separately puts their own live run on the course from their phone. Being registered for an event never shares where you are.
Spectators open a link
Any browser, on a phone at the roadside or a laptop at home. No app, no account, nothing to download. Positions refresh about twice a minute.
Privacy
Why the dot is behind the runner
A live position is held back until the athlete is 250 metres past it. This is deliberate. It is the mechanism that stops a shared link revealing where somebody set off from, which for most runners is their own front door.
The same rule closes the other end. When a session ends, the positions still being held in the buffer are discarded rather than released, so a live link never shows anyone crossing the line. The cost is honest and worth stating: the map is always a little behind the real world.
Narrowing the audience revokes the link. Anyone still holding it stops seeing the race straight away.
Straight answers
What live tracking is not
- It is not a timing system. There are no finish times, no rankings and no results. If your event needs official times it still needs chip timing. This is for the person on the roadside deciding whether to walk to the 30 km mark.
- It is not real time to the second. Positions refresh roughly twice a minute and the shown position trails the runner by about 250 metres. Treat it as a good estimate of where somebody is, not as a stopwatch.
- Nobody appears by accident. The organiser's switch and the runner's own switch both have to be on. Either one off means no dot, for everybody, immediately.
- It needs a connection. Positions have to reach the browser holding the link. Recording carries on without a signal, but sharing pauses and picks up when the phone is back on the network.
Who it is for
Small races, club runs and long solo days
Following a field has historically been a hardware problem: a transponder for every competitor, readers planted along the route, crew to install them and a bill that grows with the length of the course. That is why live tracking has mostly belonged to the biggest events.
Waypath moves the job onto the phone the runner is already carrying. A club can put live tracking on a Sunday long run. A small race can offer it without renting anything. A solo runner going out for five hours in the mountains can send one link to one person.
Share the link. Let them watch.
Live sharing is free in Waypath. There is nothing to rent, install or collect afterwards.
Requires iPhone for the athlete. Spectators need only a browser.