Google Maps logs very a detailed personal location timeline.
The API for this has been removed, so this isn’t possible.
This could still be made manual via importing the history retrieved from Takeout: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/location_history It’s very convenient for Android users that have it enabled as it requires very little user attention. Also it could benefit others who can manage to generate compatible location data.
Sure, that could work, but we generally avoid anything that requires regular manual effort, as this puts too much onus on the user to keep their data correct and up to date.
If it’s any other data source, I’d agree on the cons of manual effort. There are many useful data that can be exported from Google only via exports/takeouts, correct me if I’m wrong, like location history, search history, etc.. It could be worthy to dig into the correlations between these activities and the rest that’s covered by Exist.io.
Please reconsider this… I resurrected my Foursquare account only to track the locations. I have to admit Foursquare also has got the ability to track locations in the background, but it’s not so reliable as Google Map’s timeline, which is understandable. Now I must often turn to my phone to check in. Total boredom.
With 5 votes, and manual effort, this one won’t be added any time soon I’m afraid. You’re welcome to use our API to connect your Maps location history to Exist yourself though.
Can this be reopened for consideration? There is a way to automate getting this information from Google maps using a Python plugin. I’ll look more into using the Existing API.
Could you link me to the package please? If it doesn’t require us to know your Google password, for example, I’m happy to consider it.
I guess the only way to do so would be to create an Exist Google account that people could share their location with. Not sure if that’s too hackey of a work around, but it would work! I’m having trouble linking to it from my phone, but the module is called locationsharinglib by costastf on GitHub and it’s the first thing that comes up on Google.
16 votes now. Honestly I ended my subscription due to the lack of support of this, months ago. Although I sometimes find it’s fun with all the gamification by 4sq, it’s a boredom having to log my location all the time. I understand exporting from Google history then importing into Exist.io is all manual, and probably get in the way of how Exist.io works because there’s always some possibility that a user can bring in data that are a few days old. If this is implemented, I’ll re-subscribe, otherwise only rescuetime is enough for me. Exist.io encouraged me to aggregate my personal data and to find correlations, with location data matters the most to me.
I really want this! I love recording my location history and Foursquare just doesn’t cut it!
Please people, vote! You would then need to not manually check in places on Foursquare.
As you can see this is listed under not possible, as it has no API, so even with more votes it still won’t be possible I’m afraid.
Sorry. I was voting in the context of manually importing location data from Takeout. Maybe a new suggestion should be made for this? Or, the topic renamed?
We’re not planning on any specific manual imports, as mentioned earlier in the thread. You could vote for the general CSV/JSON import suggestion if you like though, or use our API to build an importer yourself, or get a developer friend to help you.
I’m a developer myself… You had suggested and I had skimmed through your APIs, too. Honestly, I don’t want to do the extra because Exist.io is a paid service; I’d spend the time to save the whole $6/mo subscription than something I need on top of it. The $6/mo is meant for saving time, to me. Google’s Takeout takes a few minutes once in a while and I can bear the history data loss if I’m too under-motivated to do it.
No worries, that’s what the import suggestion is for 🙂
Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but couldn’t the current phone app location tracking (used to query weather information?) be used to generate a location history for users? Honestly this is the only feature that’s still keeping me from deleting Gyrosco.pe from my life 😅
You’re after this suggestion then 🙂
That suggestion looks like improvements on handling and visualizing the data, if I understand correctly. But again, yeah if the app itself can track locations, that would do, though my experience with 4sq/swarm is that it’s frequently killed on Android so not able to see the full “picture” and I guess it would be a whole lot more functions to put in the app, imagine all the functions 4sq/swarm/Google locations history have. Moreover, just to put myself in your shoes, logging locations doesn’t seem to fit for the core of Exist.io as a correlation and discovery dashboard.
It doesn’t really fit with what we’re going for, you’re right. It seems more like something people think they want because other apps do it 😊
Hey Josh, thanks for directing me to the correct suggestion, sorry for the trouble.
Jerome definitely raises an interesting point, but I do think location history could provide some interesting insights, especially if Exist could just source it from an app like GMaps which already collects it (though I can also see you guys’ orientation around privacy doesn’t quite fit with Google’s data collection 😂).
That said, let me state my case for the potential applications of location history à la Gyroscope:
correlations with mood: whether one is happier in a particular place, if a vacation/travel affects mood, etc.
the ‘cool’ factor/”huh that’s neat” aspect of QuantifiedSelf: having a log of where you’ve been and how you’ve gotten there is fun (e.g. “you spent X hours of your life commuting”), but also could be useful—for example, users could analyse if they’ve taken to taking public transport less
as-yet-unknown correlations and connections that often emerge from my data and surprise me!
Anyway, I can appreciate this isn’t (and might never be) a major priority, but thanks for being receptive to suggestions as always!
A few things here:
It’s more that we’re not into automatically tracking where you are every minute inside Exist, and that sort of matching visualisation doesn’t fit what we’re going for. Hope that all makes sense!
Hey Josh, thanks for your replies!
Thanks for letting me know, gotcha!
Oh cool, I did know you guys track broad location but figured it was just used for weather—I wonder if I’m being obtuse here (in which case, my apologies), but is there a specific section for location-based correlations or insights I’m simply missing?
Got it, thank you. I did try it for a while but realised its database is woefully inadequate here in India, but thanks anyhow.
Absolutely, thanks for laying it all out!