I got a minimum traccar instance running last night (no db, config, etc…) and it seemed to be working great. Later, I noticed battery usage on my android device was a bit higher than normal. Not thinking much about it, I went about my business. This morning I was still seeing higher than average battery usage. I checked the client logs and saw a ton of “failed to send” messages. I checked the server and the registration page came up. Apparently, my minimal setup failed to persist the data and, at some point, I redeployed my stack and lost everything.

My suspicion is that the repeated failures were causing the battery drain so I’m trying again with a full db setup but not having much luck so far. I’ll check back in after I either succeed or give up.

The UI for traccar is way cleaner than phonetrack but if the battery usage doesn’t compare, it’s a no-go. Phonetrack has just been invisible and functional so it’s got some big shoes to fill

Well, I’ve had a fully functioning Traccar instance running all night and most of the day and I’m sad to say that I’m less than impressed.

The tracking isn’t quite as bad as OwnTracks but not nearly as good as PhoneTrack. Instead of showing me that I randomly went to a city several miles away, I just spent some time in a field by my house instead of walking down the road next to it.

I’ve kept PhoneTrack running in tandem and the comparison, in terms of accuracy and battery usage, leaves no question. I tried everything I could think of to post a screenshot of my battery usage but “image is too large” was all I got even for an 18k image. So, after a day-ish of running both, my battery stats in Android show:

• Traccar Client: 36% (top of the list, 15 hours background, 1 min screen time)
• …several other apps, including those with a lot more screen time
• PhoneTrack: 1% (background 8 hours)

I think it’s PhoneTrack’s “significant motion” setting that makes the difference here. If Traccar gets this feature (or already has it and I’m missing it…) that will solve a few problems.

If I’m missing something with Traccar here, somebody please set me to rights. It seems strange that the only setting in the Traccar client to save battery is to set the interval longer, thereby killing accuracy. PhoneTrack seems to have solved this problem, and it’s “just a Nextcloud app”, Traccar is dedicated to this functionality, I feel like it should have more options. 🤷‍♂️

Looks like I’m sticking with PhoneTrack for now which means my Nextcloud instance has been relegated to app platform instead of all-in-one file manager.

EDIT: Didn’t notice the wake lock setting, trying it for a bit with that off to see if that helps