mxdcodes

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Self-Host Weekly (26 June 2026) in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[โ€“] mxdcodes@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

you could only expose a webhook which is deployed public and then forward the locations from the webhook to the dawarich instance via wireguard or just use a vpn also on the client

Dawarich 1.9.1 in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
Dawarich 1.9.1 in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[โ€“] mxdcodes@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

I use it to track travel times for work and sometimes create maps of trips. Also I personally just like to see oh I was there a few days/weeks/years ago which brings up memories

Dawarich 1.9.1 in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[โ€“] mxdcodes@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Owntracks can do that but it has a limit of how much locations can be stored locally. I think it was 100k, so depending on your tracking interval during the month you may hit the limit. Also it still tries to sync every few minutes even though the server is down. Colota (https://github.com/dietrichmax/colota) supports the same without a limit and you can use it in a offline mode and then export e.g. a geojson and import it into Dawarich or you set it to only sync it on a imaginary SSID like "abc " and then change it to the correct one when you actually want to sync. So it never even tries to sync until you really want it to. Disclosure: I'm the dev of Colota.

Colota 1.x - Open Source Android GPS Tracker with selfhosted backend support in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[โ€“] mxdcodes@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Thank you, really appreciate it! Glad to hear Colota is working well with Dawarich for you so far. Feedback and criticism are always welcome. Most of it has led to real improvements in the app. I think a casual forum thread is probably just not the best setting for deep technical discussions, where context shifts quickly, everyone has a different background and nuance gets lost.

Colota 1.x - Open Source Android GPS Tracker with selfhosted backend support in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[โ€“] mxdcodes@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the kind words! Vehicle/trip categories (car, bike, train, walk) + per-vehicle tracking is a great idea and fits well with the profile concept. Personally, I also want to skip other (activity) tracking apps which is the reason I also would love to have these features. Added the feature requests to the backlog. Thanks for taking your time trying out the app and giving feedback!

6
Colota 1.x - Open Source Android GPS Tracker with selfhosted backend support (colota.app)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by mxdcodes@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
9 comments fedilink
 

Hi there,

recently there has been a post here about Colota and thought you might be interested in a short summary about Colota.

I am tracking my position since several years now mainly with Owntracks (and now Colota) and a simple postgres DB/table.

I am a fan of the indieweb and eat what you cook and with already some million location points collected I recognized some pattern in existing GPS trackers I wasn't happy about:

  1. Battery consumption
  2. Duplicate points while staying in the same location for a long time

So I decided to build my own GPS tracker and called it Custom Location Tracker.

Improved battery consumption should come from disabling GPS entirely in so called "geofences" which are basically circles you draw on a map in the app. With GPS disabled in these you also won't get duplicate points while staying at e.g. home or work.

The app is still quite new (actively developed since early 2026) but has already quite a lot of features which basically all came from user feedback. E.g.:

  • Automatic Tracking profiles which apply different tracking settings while e.g. being connected to Android Auto, moving slower than 6km/h or while the phone is currently charging.
  • The app works fully offline (map will not be visible then) but you can predownload map tiles from a tile server I selfhost or use your own tile server.
  • You can define how locations are synced to your backend. E.g. only for a specific Wi-Fi SSID every 15min, once a day or with every location update.

Overall the app's focus should move to be a mobile location history app. So basically Google Timeline in a mobile app which also supports selfhosted backends (as backup).

The app is fully open-source AGPL-3.0, has no ads, analytics or telemetry and only sends data to your own server (if you want to).

You can download two versions.

  1. Google Play store which uses Fused Location Provider and therefore uses Google APIs. Also works with the sandboxed version by GrapheneOS and microG.
  2. FOSS version which uses Android's native GPS provider with a network location fallback. Available on IzzyOnDroid and hopefully someday on F-droid.

Both can be also downloaded directly from the repo.