Update both phones before your next sprint session

If you time sprints with two phones, this is the one thing to do before your next session: open Google Play and update SpeedTrackr on every Android phone you use as a gate. Start phone and finish phone. Yours and your athletes'.

Here is why, in plain terms.

Timing Gates work because the start phone and the finish phone talk to each other through a server while you run. That server has moved. The old one shuts down on 23 October. The latest Android version and the web app already use the new one. Older Android versions still point at the old server, so on 23 October they lose Timing Gates.

There is a catch that shows up before that date. An old phone and an updated phone are on different servers, so they cannot pair with each other at all. The same goes for an old Android phone and the web app. If one phone in the pair is updated and the other is not, the session will not connect. That is not a bug in your setup. It is two phones on two servers.

What to check, phone by phone

1. Android start phone: update from Google Play. The What's New note says Timing Gates are on a new server.
2. Android finish phone: update it too. Both phones need the new version, not just one.
3. iPhone or laptop as the second gate: there is no app to update. It runs in the browser, so reload the SpeedTrackr web app before you pair.
4. Athletes who time themselves on their own phones: tell them now, not on the track.

Do it the day before. Updating two phones on a cold track while a group waits is a bad warm-up.

What else comes with the update

The same update changes how a missed run is explained. It does not change how the camera spots the athlete. Detection is the same as before. What changed is what you see when a run does not get a time.

When the Android finish phone misses because the line was too dark, the athlete looked too small in the frame, or it saw nobody, the start phone now shows you what the finish camera saw. You get the actual picture next to your setup picture. A dark frame tells you to face the light or move the phone. A tiny athlete tells you the phone is too far from the line. You fix the setup instead of guessing.

The second change is for times that come out too fast to be real. That usually means the distance in the app does not match the distance on the ground: the cones say 30 m, the app still says 20 m. Instead of throwing the run away, the app now asks if the distance was wrong and offers YES, SET THE REAL DISTANCE. You enter the distance you actually ran and keep the rep.

Neither change makes a bad setup good. They show you what went wrong so the next rep counts.

What has not changed

Timing Gates are still practice-grade start and finish timing. No split times. Not a fully automatic timing system. The second gate can still be an Android phone, an iPhone, or a laptop. Coach Mode still works on the web app and on Android, so each run still saves to the right athlete in the Squad tab.

A two-minute checklist for Monday

1. Update SpeedTrackr on every Android phone you time with.
2. Reload the web app on any iPhone or laptop you use as a gate.
3. Pair the two devices once at home to make sure they connect.
4. On the track, run one test of the line before the first real sprint.

Android app on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedtrackr.reactionpro

iPhone or laptop: use the web app at https://www.speedtrackr.com/auth/login

There is no native iPhone app. iPhone users use the web app.

Update both phones this weekend and your next session starts on the first rep, not on troubleshooting.