Norgutel

Norgutel creates new experiences by combining real-time location sharing and offline map services, with a strong focus on privacy and full user control.

Norgutel's core idea is to let a group of individuals share their location and status information in real-time while they are engaged in a joint activity: be it work or family related, traveling, outdoor adventures, sightseeing, planned and organized, or spontaneous and ad-hoc. This simple concept is enriched with features such as configurable alerts on mobility, proximity, speed, fall detection or other events; setting status messages; or interacting with GPX tracks and POIs. Enjoy automated track recording to see not only where others are but where they have been. Norgutel features a powerful GPX editor optimized for touchscreens. Create, edit, combine and save track segments and POIs with unlimited undo history.

Inviting for a joint activity is as easy as creating a special QR code and sharing it with those you would like to join. For starting a truly ad-hoc event with all participants gathered already, create a QR code on the spot and let others scan it right off of your device. Sharing the code via email or other channels is also possible to onboard participants remotely ahead of an event or conduct a fully remote long-distance sharing experience.

Each QR code is linked to a unique Norgutel session. A session is alive as long as it has active participants. Sessions never expire; you can use a QR code indefinitely to revisit an activity with the same or potentially extended participants - it's your choice with whom you share. If you want to start a clean session, just generate a new QR code and forget the previous one. Norgutel lets you keep multiple session QRs in your app, each having its custom settings such as its name, the alias and color you identify with, or the activated alerts and status message. You may also turn your visibility on and off during a session any time, however your trajectory covered so far and your last known location will remain visible to others.

Norgutel is designed around privacy. It implements end-to-end encryption with keying material partly derived from the session QR code itself. Therefore, those and only those who possess the QR code can possibly participate in the session. Your data is exchanged with others through a Norgutel server. Due to the end-to-end encryption, even the server itself cannot decipher the message payload, so your personal data is not (and cannot be) processed or stored by any back-end. If you want even more ownership, pull the latest Norgutel server image from Docker Hub and host it locally; this way your data may never leave your premise.