Turn your phone into a tracker: With Probe GPS tracking app

KLOUDIP developed the Probe app for personal GPS tracking. It turns your smartphone into a tracker and sends data on your location, movements, speed, and statuses to the FiOS GPS tracking system. It allows tracking any human or vehicle without specialized GPS devices. 

Additionally, Probe users can send images, alarms, statuses,  and text messages to other users. That’s why many companies started using it for business purposes, like workforce management and COVID-19 contact tracing.

• Courier and delivery services – to track couriers outside vehicles and ensure proof of delivery with photos
• Healthcare and hospitality – to monitor response time and statuses of nurses, doctors, or maids.
• Security – to track guards patrolling areas.
• COVID-19 detection – to detect employee location at different time points and trace contacts with other employees since they left home for work.
• Repair and maintenance – to track service teams traveling to remote locations.
• Sales staff management – to check client visiting.

In July 2021, KLOUDIP updated the Probe app to enable advanced user experience, fresh design, and mobile data-saving for real-time tracking. Let’s have a closer look at its capabilities now and then.

Probe app features: GPS tracking and beyond

Probe is more than another GPS tracking app. The app uses the smartphone to collect location data, take photos, scan QR codes, and much more. Let’s take a close look at each feature making the app unique. 

Home screen

From the Probe home screen, you can access any features through widgets. By tapping any of the widgets, you can send SOS, chat with FiOS system users, change activity status (busy/occupied), send images, access tracking information, and switch to the map view. 

Map view

If you need to understand your current location, switch to the map view, zoom it for more precision or rotate it. From here, you can also activate any Probe feature in one click or access the “Tracking” section. 

Tracking section

Under the map, you can overview your tracking stats – speed, coordinates (which you can copy, share, and use in other apps), altitude, and GPS accuracy.

Widgets

Inspired by the mobile designs by Apple and Google, KLOUDIP implemented a modular widget system in Probe instead of long menus and text lines. Now you can access every Probe feature with a single tap on the widget, including: 

• SOS sending – in case of emergency, for example, to report a car breakdown.
• Status change – arrived, busy, driving, feeling ill (to detect COVID-threat), etc.
• Chat – to send text messages, photos, coordinates to managers as a proof of job done.
• Scan QR code – to configure probe or check-in, e.g. at school or service point.
• Send position – to share your location with managers, colleagues, or family.
• BLE beacon – to check the connection with a BLE beacon.
• NFC – to read NFC tags and send them to a GPS system.

You can hide unnecessary widgets so that a Probe user can access only the features he needs.

Most of the widgets are available in two versions: 

1. Short. An icon and “Call-to-action” button, like “Send image”.
2. Extended. The same widget shows Probe users a preview of images from the gallery that they can send.

Mobile data modes

To detect your location, the smartphone has to collect and send location data to the GPS system. The more frequently the smartphone collects and sends the information, the more detailed the movement track you get. But it may discharge your battery within a few hours. 

Whether you want a detailed movement track, longer battery life, or something in the middle, you can configure Probe in one click. The app offers 1 custom and 2 pre-set “Modes”: 

1. Light. The mode saves your battery power and provides approximate data about the location of the unit.

* Great option to track schoolchildren. You don’t need to know how they got to school – just ensure they got and stayed there. 

2. Standard. The mode ensures that you get detailed movement tracks at moderate power consumption.

*Great option to track any type of mobile employees, including service crews and sales staff. You can analyze routes they’ve taken, miles driven, stops, and speed along the way. 

3. Custom. If you think you can extend battery life and ensure more precise location detection, this mode allows specifying individual data collection and sending intervals.

In the new version of Probe, a user can edit only “Custom” mode, while the first two were perfectly balanced by the developers. 

Configurator for the GPS tracking app

If you are using the Probe app to track staff, you may need to configure the app on employees’ smartphones. It will take much time to visit each employee, take their smartphones, configure the app, and give the devices back.

It’s better to do it all remotely. For that, KLOUDIP introduced the Configurator web application, let’s see how it works: 

1. The manager has access to the list of employees’ devices where Probe is installed.
2. He creates a configuration template with a pre-set widget view, mobile data mode, and other settings.
3. Then he adds a Probe schedule, so that the smartphone automatically launches the app only on weekdays from 9 AM to 5 PM, for example.
4. After that, the manager can apply it to a certain smartphone to configure Probe without physical access to the employee’s smartphone.

In the web app, you can also generate a QR code for quick login into Probe. This is how to use it:

1. Create a QR code with login data and configuration for new users.
2. Send the QR code to employees or print it to hang it on the wall.
3. New users scan the code and automatically login into the pre-configured app.

It helps mobile employees to start working faster, being sure that all settings are accurate and up to date.

It’s all about the updated Probe GPS tracking app. Now you can track everyone through their smartphones with even more convenience. Contact us to try it – we’ll schedule a live demo for you.