GPS Improvements and Phone Casualties

Two weeks ago I shared my first tracked mow — complete with a GPS path that showed me apparently hitting 33 mph and taking a scenic detour across a bean field to the highway. Today I'm happy to report: we fixed it.

The GPS Is Actually Good Now

Remember this mess from my first blog?

That phantom highway trip? Gone. Here's what a tracked session looks like now:

No more teleportation. No more bean field adventures. The path actually follows where I mowed. The lines stay on my property. The max speed is a reasonable 9.8 mph instead of 33.

What changed? Better GPS filtering. We now throw out points with poor accuracy, smooth out the spikes, and cap speeds at realistic maximums for your mower type. The result is a path that actually matches reality.

Then I Dropped My Phone

Of course, right when things are working well, I introduce a new variable: gravity.

About halfway through my mow on August 30th, my phone bounced off the mower and landed somewhere in the grass. I didn't notice immediately — I was focused on stripes, not my pocket.

Here's what that looks like in the app:

You can see exactly where it happened. The path goes from nice parallel lines covering the front yard to... nothing. The red pin marks where my phone ended its journey, sitting in the grass while I finished mowing obliviously.

13 minutes, 1.27 miles, 23 turns — and then the session just stops.

The good news: I found the phone (unmowed, thankfully). The bad news: I lost half my session data. The lesson: I need a better phone mount.

The Stats Are Getting Useful

One thing I'm really happy with is how the session details are shaping up. Here's what we capture now:

Turn Analytics — 49 total turns broken down into hairpins (20) and corners (29). Plus the dominant direction (East-West for my typical pattern).

Weather Conditions — Temperature, humidity, wind speed, and conditions pulled automatically. 81°F and clear that day.

Notes — Auto-generated summary with speed, coverage percentage, and efficiency.

This is the kind of data that gets interesting over time. Was I faster mowing north-south vs east-west? Does humidity actually affect how long I spend outside? How many more turns do I make when I'm tired?

Right now it's just one data point. After a full season, it's a picture of how I actually mow.

What's Next

I'm going to keep tracking every session — assuming I can keep my phone on the mower. The GPS improvements were a big win. Now we're working on:

• Better coverage calculations
• Stripe pattern detection
• Session comparison (was this mow faster than last week?)

Building in public means showing the wins and the fumbles. This week had both.

One More Thing

Did you happen to notice the orange play button in those screenshots? That's not just decoration — it actually lets you play back your mowing session like a little replay. Watch your path draw itself across the yard in real time. It's oddly satisfying, especially when you nail those stripes.

If you want to track your own mows — and maybe invest in a phone mount — join the beta.