Looking for Driving Journal App (preferably FOSS)

eco_game@discuss.tchncs.de to Android@lemmy.world – 18 points –

Hey everyone, I'm looking for a driving journal app, to track when, to/from where and which distance I drive.

Ideally I'd like for it to be FOSS, but if there are decent Closed Source apps I'm ok with it too (I'd just block Network Access in Graphene OS then).

This post (not mine) has pretty much my ideal criteria, but sadly didn't get any answers: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/88349/drivers-logbook-app-for-android-foss

Unlike the above post, I don't want this for tax purposes etc., but rather just to understand where all my distance driven comes from.

Edit: I've done some more research and haven't found anything, for now I'll just use an OnlyOffice spreadsheet. If I find the time, I might try developing an app for this at some point.

Edit 2: After developing my app for a week and then showing it to a friend, he instantly found exactly what I was working on...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.liefers.driverslogpro

9

I'd automate the shit out of this one if I were to write an app.

thinking of something like this one

  • using phones google location for tracking (or something else)
  • hava a Bluetooth beacon in the car
  • each time you get in the car, beacon connects to phone
  • app "tracks" the collected location data as "driving"

Another option is You could use an NFC tag placed inside the car instead. Scan to toggle recording.

Yeah, I would just use Connected to Car BT?

I have so many ideas but so little time to properly look into Kotlin and Android dev :/

Some other ideas I had:

  • maybe also track how much I pay for parking tickets
    • notification if I'm still not driving and my ticket is about to expire
    • ocr for parking tickets
  • automatic prompt, something like Hey, you just drove x km and seem to have arrived, What do you want to call this trip?
  • ...

you can give Flutter a try. It'd be perfect for such an app.

Use an automation app like Automate, Macrodroid, Tasker.

I have a few scripts that respond to geolocations, but it wouldn't be hard to add some other features.

Currently these scripts save output to a text file (CSV) that is synced to my file server using Syncthing.

You could use various triggering mechanisms, such as BT connect in the car, or an NFC tag, disconnecting, from wifi (that's a good indicator you're traveling), etc.

There's also a location tracking app you can self host, let me find a link.

www.owntracks.org

I tried setting up own tracks and it looked like SO much more trouble than it’s worth.

What about Traccar? I see a section in there for "drives", although I just leave mine on all the time

Imo it looks to be very bloated for what I want. I don't need (or necessarily want) a GPS track for the whole journey, but rather just start and endpoint. I intend to tell the distance from my cars odometer.

Also I already started making my own app by now anyway and I'm far too committed to consider other options lol