Record running and cycling by GPS
Visin records runs and rides by GPS and shows route, distance, pace, kilometre splits and elevation gain. Recording continues with the screen locked, auto-pause handles stops, and the finished session lands in the same history as strength training and HIIT.
What gets recorded
- Route on the map, distance and duration
- Average pace or speed
- Kilometre splits as bars — fastest and slowest kilometre visible
- Elevation gain and loss
- Estimated calories burned
- Heart-rate zones when a device supplies the readings
Accuracy, not just a coloured line
Raw GPS points are noisy: they jitter while you stand still, bounce between buildings and invent distance and elevation on the way. Visin filters points before they become a route, and accumulates elevation over a hysteresis threshold rather than per sample — otherwise the result depends on how densely the device happened to record. Where the device barometer contributes nothing, elevation is additionally corrected server-side against a terrain model.
When a recording has a gap — a tunnel, a killed service, an aggressive battery saver — the app draws the gap as a gap instead of running a straight line across the landscape and pretending nothing happened.
With the screen locked
A running tracker that stops the moment the phone goes into a pocket is not a running tracker. Recording continues in the background and supervises itself: if the location stream stalls it is restarted, and when the app comes back to the foreground it checks whether time passed without any points.
Afterwards
The summary shows route, splits and elevation profile. A session can be shared as an image of the route, and optionally goes to Apple Health or Google Health Connect.
| Activities | Running, cycling |
|---|---|
| Recording | Filtered GPS, auto-pause, continues with the screen locked |
| Values | Distance, duration, pace/speed, splits, elevation, calories |
| Elevation | Filtered; terrain-model-corrected where no barometer contributes |
| Gaps | Interruptions are drawn as gaps, not bridged |
| Heart rate | Zones when a paired device supplies readings |
| Sharing | Summary with the route as an image |
| Health integration | Apple Health / Google Health Connect (optional) |
Frequently asked questions
Does recording continue when I put the phone away?
Yes. Recording continues in the background and restarts the location stream automatically if the system stalls it.
Do I need a watch or a chest strap?
No. Route, pace, splits and elevation come from the phone. A paired device only adds heart rate.
Why does elevation gain differ from other apps?
Because elevation depends entirely on how it is filtered. Visin accumulates over a threshold rather than per sample and corrects against a terrain model, which is closer to what comparison services report than an unfiltered sum.
Can I run a strength workout at the same time?
No — deliberately only one session runs at a time, so time and calories are never counted twice.