Getting Speedometer One to behave.

If your question is not here, email rpcalpetra@gmail.com. Include your phone model and Android version — it is the first thing that narrows a problem down, and it saves a round trip.

Trips and recording

My trip was not saved

A trip is kept only if it covered more than 20 metres or lasted more than 10 seconds. Below both, it is treated as a tap you did not mean and is thrown away, which is why an accidental start leaves nothing in the list.

If a real drive is missing, the recording was almost certainly stopped by the system while you were not looking — see the next answer.

Recording stops when I leave the app

Recording runs in a foreground service with a permanent notification, which is the strongest guarantee Android offers. When it still gets killed, battery optimisation is doing it.

1. Android Settings → Apps → Speedometer One → Battery → Unrestricted.
2. Check your manufacturer's own layer on top of that. It has a different name on almost every brand — protected apps, auto-start management, a sleeping or deep-sleeping apps list, or a task-manager lock. Speedometer One has to be allowed there as well.
3. Leave the recording notification alone. Dismissing or blocking that notification is, to Android, a signal that the service is unwanted.

There is more detail, brand by brand, in how to record a GPS trip on Android without losing it.

I paused for lunch — did that ruin the trip?

No. Pausing is exactly the right thing to do. The point where you resume is marked, and the route, the speed chart and the altitude chart are all drawn as separate segments across that break rather than joined with a straight line. Stopped time is counted separately from moving time, so your average speed is not dragged down by the sandwich.

Why does distance stop counting sometimes?

Distance is only accumulated while GPS accuracy is better than 50 metres, and top speed only while it is better than 30 metres. Under a heavy tree canopy, in a multi-storey car park or between tall buildings, the fix degrades past that and the app stops adding metres rather than adding wrong ones. There is also anti-tunnel logic: when you come out of a tunnel, the jump from where you went in to where you came out is rejected instead of being counted as distance you travelled in a second.

Accuracy

The app and my car disagree about speed

They usually do, and it is normally the car that is optimistic. Car speedometers are required by law never to show less than your true speed, so manufacturers set them a few per cent high with a margin for tyre wear. GPS measures your actual movement over the ground. Neither is a certified instrument for a legal dispute. The longer version is in why your car's speedometer reads higher than GPS.

Altitude looks wrong

A raw GPS fix reports altitude above the WGS84 ellipsoid, a mathematical model of the Earth that can sit tens of metres away from actual sea level where you happen to be. The app reads the geoid separation out of the NMEA data your receiver already emits and corrects for it, so what you see is height above mean sea level. Until that value has been received the app shows a calibrating message — it usually takes a few seconds under open sky.

"Locating…" or "Improving GPS signal…" will not go away

Both are accuracy states, not errors. Above 100 metres of reported accuracy the app discards the fix entirely and shows "Locating…"; between 50 and 100 metres it keeps working but tells you the signal is still settling. Indoors, in a garage or with the phone flat in a door pocket, it may never clear. Give the receiver a clear view of the sky and 30 to 60 seconds.

Your data

Where are my trips stored?

In a database on your phone, and nowhere else. There is no account, no login and no cloud copy. That is deliberate — a record of everywhere you drive is not something to keep on somebody's server — but it has a real cost, which is the next answer.

Do my trips come with me to a new phone?

No. Because there is no cloud sync, uninstalling the app or switching device leaves the history behind. Export anything you want to keep as GPX first: open the trip, choose export, and either share it or save it to Downloads. GPX keeps every recorded point and is read by hiking, cycling and mapping apps.

Deleting a trip

Swipe a trip in the history list to delete it, with an undo on the snackbar that puts it back. There is also a delete-all in the history screen, which asks for confirmation and cannot be undone.

Subscriptions

What does Pro actually unlock?

Recording, the history list and the live speedometer are free. Pro opens the inside of each trip — route map, speed and altitude charts, the time breakdown, splits and smoothness — plus personal records and achievements, GPX export, trip sharing, renaming and deleting, all 22 themes, Picture-in-Picture, and no ads.

Managing or cancelling

Everything is billed by Google Play, so subscriptions are managed there: Play Store → your profile → Payments and subscriptions → Subscriptions. Cancelling stops the renewal and you keep Pro until the period you already paid for runs out. Refunds follow Google Play's own policy — see the Terms of Use.

I paid but Pro is not active

Open the app, go to the upgrade screen and use Restore purchases. Make sure you are signed in to Google Play with the same account that made the purchase. If it still does not appear, email me with the Google Play order number and I will sort it out.