Following a track and recording your own

Following a track

Open the track, then choose Follow this track in the menu or on the track's sheet. Pick the direction — towards the end or towards the start — and whether to record your own track at the same time. You can start from wherever you are: until you reach the track, the screen shows Join the track with the distance and a dotted line to its nearest point.

On the way, the screen shows:

• the distance and the climb left, and your estimated arrival time at your own pace — learned from your past outings of the same activity, then corrected by your speed on the way — with the day when it falls after midnight, and a warning when it falls after sunset;
• the next waypoint and its distance;
• on a file with times, such as a past outing, how far ahead or behind its times you are;
• a progress bar along the track.

Hold a figure to choose what it shows: distance or climb left, arrival, speed, time, distance and climb done, altitude, next waypoint, ahead or behind, heart rate. The choice is kept.

Below the figures, the profile ahead shows the elevation of the next kilometers — 3 on foot, 5 running, 10 by bike, 20 by car — colored by slope, with the waypoints. Touch it to read the distance, the altitude and the expected time at that point. At the foot of a climb it becomes the climb page: Climb 2/5, its length, the gain and the average grade left, announced once by a vibration and the voice. It can be turned off in Settings › Navigation (Profile ahead).

Following a loop or an out-and-back, the app keeps to the part of the track you are on, even where it passes twice. If you walk the track the other way for a while, it offers Follow in the other direction?

Alerts

• Off track. The phone vibrates when you stray further than the distance set in Settings › Navigation (30, 50, 100 or 200 m), and again when you are back on the track. When the GPS is imprecise, in a forest or a gorge, the margin widens so that you are not warned for nothing. The screen shows how far you are and a dotted line to a point of the track ahead of you, not behind. Reminders come after 1, then 2½, then 6 minutes; touch the status at the top to silence them.
• Wrong way. You are warned if you walk the track in the opposite direction.
• Waypoints. An alert as you approach a waypoint of the open tracks, at a distance you choose (25 to 500 m).
• Arrival. The app tells you when you reach the end.
• Voice. Turned on in Settings › Navigation, a voice announces each kilometer or mile with the time, leaving and joining the track, and nearby waypoints, with their note.

Every alert can be tuned or turned off, during the outing too: the settings button at the top of the screen gives quick access to the map, rotation, alerts, vibration and voice.

Turn by turn

While you follow a track, the next turn appears at the top of the screen, with a drawn arrow and its distance, from 400 m away. It is announced about 25 seconds ahead: the phone vibrates — two short pulses for a left turn, one long for a right — and the voice says it if announcements are on, then says the turn again a few seconds before you reach it. When two turns come close together, the second shows under the first, after Then, with its arrow and distance, and the voice says both. The notification shows the arrow and the progress, on the lock screen too. Touch the banner to list all the turns ahead.

• From the file first. The course points of TCX and FIT files (left, right, keep left…) and the turns of a route calculated in the app with Follow paths are real directions: Turn left in 80 m.
• Otherwise, from the shape of the line. Without directions, the app reads the bends of the track. It does not know the paths, so it cannot see a junction: it says The track bends left, and announces a run of switchbacks only once.

Both can be turned off in Settings › Navigation. Followed backwards, a track uses the shape only. On a climb, the panel also shows Climb 2/5 with the distance and the gain left to its top.

Recording your own track

Choose Record a track in the menu. The time, distance, climb and speed appear at once.

• Screen off. Recording goes on with the screen off and the phone in your pocket. The notification shows the time and distance, and lets you pause, add a waypoint or finish without opening the app.
• Auto-pause. The recording pauses by itself when you stop, and resumes when you move on.
• Signal lost. If the GPS signal is lost for a while, a new segment starts, so no straight line crosses a tunnel or a gorge.
• Nothing lost. A draft is saved every 15 seconds and offered again if the app was closed by surprise.
• Waypoints. Add a waypoint where you stand, with an icon and a note.
• Saving. At the end, name the track and choose its activity: it is saved as a GPX file in your library.

In Settings › Navigation, recording profiles adapt the precision to walking and hiking, running, cycling, or a car or motorbike, and barometric altitude uses the phone's pressure sensor, when it has one, for a steadier climb.

On the screen

• Lock. The padlock blocks stray touches in a pocket or a glove; hold it to unlock.
• Dashboard. The gauge button shrinks the map and shows four big numbers, readable on a handlebar.
• Screen. The screen can stay on (Settings › Appearance), and the app can show over the lock screen during an outing (Settings › Navigation). To save the battery, Wake the screen for cues (Settings › Navigation) lets the screen go off and turns it on before each turn, climb or alert.
• Map. The map can turn with your direction of travel. With Show more ahead (Settings › Navigation), your position sits off-center, behind your direction of travel, to see what lies ahead — lower on the screen when the map turns, on the side you come from when north is up.
• Bearing. Going to a point, the bearing comes with its compass point (47° NE).

Bluetooth sensors

GPX Atlas connects to standard Bluetooth sensors: heart-rate belts, cycling speed and cadence sensors, running speed and cadence pods, and power meters. Pair them once in Settings › Navigation › Sensors; they connect by themselves when you start following or recording. Their values are shown on the screen and saved in the track, so the profile, colors and charts can use them later.

Heart rate and the other sensor values stay in your files, on your phone.