Driving Notifications & Trip Detection

Drive detection is the difference between a location-sharing app that says “here’s a pin on a map” and one that gives you a useful summary of every car trip a family member takes. The hard part is making it useful without making it feel like surveillance.

This page explains what trip detection actually captures, how the technology works on iPhone and Android, what CircleMap shows to your circle, and how to use the information well.

What gets captured during a trip

When CircleMap detects you’ve started driving (more on detection below), it records the trip from start to end. The data captured for each trip:

The route polyline (the actual path taken) is also recorded if you opt in. By default it’s not shared with circle members — only the summary is. This is a deliberate choice: the summary tells your family “the trip ended safely”; the polyline gives them a play-by-play they probably don’t need.

How trip detection works under the hood

Both iOS and Android have built-in motion APIs that classify what the phone is doing — walking, running, cycling, in a vehicle, or stationary. Apps consume this signal to know when to start tracking a trip.

• iOS: CMMotionActivityManager reports activity transitions (e.g., “moved from stationary to automotive”) with confidence levels.
• Android: ActivityRecognitionApi / Activity Transition API does the same.

When the activity flips to “automotive” (with high confidence), CircleMap starts recording. When it flips back to “stationary” for more than a couple of minutes, the trip ends. False starts (e.g., on a bus or train) do happen and the app filters obvious ones out, but you’ll occasionally see a trip recorded for a non-driving ride.

Who in the circle sees driving data?

By default, drive summaries are visible to all members of the circle the driver is in. CircleMap’s privacy model is per-circle, so:

• If you’re only in a Family circle, only family sees your trips.
• If you’re in both a Family circle and a Friends circle, friends don’t see your trips unless drive sharing is also enabled in that circle.
• You can disable drive summaries entirely on a per-circle basis — the trip is still recorded for your own use, but isn’t broadcast.

Is this useful, or just intrusive?

Honest answer: it depends entirely on how it’s used. The patterns that work in real families:

Patterns that work

• Trip-completion confirmation. “Mom’s trip ended at the house at 2:47 PM” is exactly what you want when you’ve been waiting to hear she made it home from a doctor’s visit.
• Driving-score check-ins with new drivers. Reviewing weekly trip summaries with a teen driver can be a reasonable conversation when framed as coaching, not policing.
• Self-tracking. A lot of users use drive detection on themselves and ignore the family-sharing aspect entirely.

Patterns that don’t

• Cross-examining individual trips. “Why did you take this route?” quickly erodes trust. The drive data is for confirmation, not interrogation.
• Setting unrealistic driving-score targets. Hard-braking events happen during normal city driving. Treating them like demerits backfires.
• Surprise activation. Turning on drive detection on a teenager’s phone without telling them is a betrayal of trust no app can repair.

Battery impact

Drive detection is the most battery-intensive feature in any location app, because it requires high-frequency GPS sampling during a trip (sub-second to detect hard braking and accurate distance). The mitigating factor: people are usually driving with their phone on a charger or in a car-charging cradle.

If you’re concerned, two things to know:

• The high-frequency tracking only kicks in when the activity recognition API confirms automotive motion. Walking and stationary cadences are much lower.
• You can disable drive detection entirely from settings if you don’t need it.

Setting up drive detection

1. Open CircleMap, go to Settings › Driving.
2. Toggle “Detect drives automatically” on.
3. Grant the “Motion & Fitness” permission when prompted (iOS only). This is what lets the app see the activity-recognition signal.
4. Take a short drive (~10 minutes) to verify a trip is recorded. It should appear in the Drives tab within a couple of minutes of arriving.
5. Per-circle: in each circle’s privacy settings, choose whether to share drive summaries with that circle.