🌿 EcoTracker Update — Create Steem Account, Steps Counter, Improved Elevation and More

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This is one of the larger updates so far. Several features that were on the roadmap are now live, plus a number of quality-of-life improvements under the hood.

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👤 Create a Steem Account Directly from the App

New users can now create a Steem account without leaving EcoTracker. A new "Don't have a Steem account? Create One →" link on the login screen opens a dedicated creation flow:

1. Enter your desired username — the app checks availability against the Steem blockchain in real time
2. If the username is free, enter a master password — or tap Generate Master Password to have a strong 52-character random password created automatically (and copied to clipboard)
3. Tap Create Account — the app contacts the creation service and creates the account on-chain

When the account is ready, a dialog shows the master password with a Copy Password button. The dialog cannot be dismissed by tapping outside — you must explicitly close it, reducing the risk of accidentally losing the password before saving it.

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👟 Steps and Wheel Rotations Counter

The tracker now counts steps during walking activities and wheel rotations during cycling, in real time during tracking and in the activity summary after stopping.

The calculation is based on distance: a step length of 0.6 metres is used for walking, and a wheel circumference of 2.1 metres for cycling. Both values are estimates — they give a reasonable approximation without requiring a physical sensor.

Steps and rotations are shown in the live tracker screen, in the activity summary grid (as a selectable tile), and can be included in the published post. The label adapts automatically: 👟 Steps for walks, ☸ Wheel Rotations for cycling.

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📊 Improved Elevation Calculation

The elevation algorithm has been completely rewritten. The previous version applied a simple noise threshold — any altitude change smaller than 2.5 metres was ignored. This worked reasonably well on flat routes but tended to undercount on hilly terrain where GPS altitude noise is irregular.

The new algorithm uses a 5-point moving average to smooth the raw altitude data before calculating gain and loss, followed by a 3-metre noise threshold applied to the smoothed values. The result is more stable and accurate elevation figures, especially on longer routes with variable terrain.

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🔄 GPS Point Downsampling for Long Activities

Very long activities — several hours of continuous tracking — could accumulate thousands of GPS points, eventually causing memory pressure and slow rendering.

The tracker now applies automatic downsampling: when the point array reaches 500 entries, every fourth point is kept and the rest discarded, bringing the count back down to around 125 points. A brief blue notification banner appears at the top of the screen for 4 seconds to inform you that downsampling has occurred.

This keeps memory usage flat for any activity length while preserving enough GPS resolution for accurate distance calculation and a reasonable GPX track.

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🔐 Password Generator for Account Creation

The account creation screen includes a Generate Master Password button that produces a cryptographically random 52-character alphanumeric password and copies it to the clipboard automatically. The generated password is shown in the input field so you can review it before proceeding.

This removes the need to think of a strong password manually — which many users struggle with — and ensures the resulting password is strong enough to protect a blockchain account.

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🔧 Other Changes

• GPS watcher every 4000ms slightly less frequent position updates during tracking
• Activity type icon added to summary screen title — the title now shows 🚶 or 🚴 next to the screen name so it is immediately clear which type of activity is being reviewed
• The activity summary title is now more prominent
• steps or wheel rotations passed through the full data pipeline — it can be toggled on/off before publishing

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📲 Download

Google Play:
👉 Google Play

Direct APK (if Play Store is not available in your region):
👉 APK

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EcoTracker App 🌿 — track your routes, earn crypto.