Is there a Google Timeline alternative with feature parity?

submitted 2024-04-20T02:52:54Z by IronKrill edited 2024-04-20T02:54:47Z

I use the location tracking of Google Maps/Google Timeline constantly for work, and it's exceedingly helpful to know when I was at certain cities, buildings, etcetera. Of course, this means I'm basically signing my soul away to Google. But I can't really find any alternative location tracking apps, even though I would have thought there would be lots available. Are there any good alternatives out there?

The closest I found was Owntracks, but it doesn't work for me for a couple of reasons. Primarily, it doesn't tell me the places I've been, only the latitude/longitude. That isn't helpful. I want to know I was at X or Y convenience store and when my last visit was. Secondly of course, the interface was extremely lacking and I didn't like that it was split across two websites and an app. Why even have a map in the Android app if it doesn't show my location data??

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njordomir

I dont know of anything. You could try the PhoneTrack Android app paired with Nextcloud Maps as a viewer. You don't get the names neatly in a timeline, but you could pull up a day and see it on a map with labels. You can also adjust the polling interval which is nice when you need less granular data, like maybe only logging location every half hour. You do have to set up Nextcloud which can be pain depending on your nerd cred. It can automatically export to a Nextcloud folder. That only leaves you with the problem of finding an app to view, or a scrip to process the data likely against open street maps data because your trying to avoid google. Have you also considered taking a photo at every place you go and then using the photo app to see location names. I don't knownhow granular some of these get.

I hope you figure it out, and please share an update when you do!

Jimmycakes

Hell no bro if there was Google would have bought them for their data already

IronKrill [OP]

I see your point lol. Although I don't get why there aren't more offline/local alternatives. They would have no data to speak of.

Chaphasilor [he/him]

Home Assistant can record the position of a device tracker (e.g. a phone with GPS) and does reverse geocoding (coordinates to addresses). There's also a "premises" attribute, but I'm not sure if that includes the types of places you're looking for.
Here's some more info: https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/core/sensors#geocoded-location-sensor

I'm not aware of a nice way to browse these locations though, but at least the data would be there.

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