Why are Adventure Labs in a parallel universe?

[Jaleco]

Hello,

 

I was wondering why Adventure Labs seem to be in a parallel universe to that of Geocaching? Maybe I'm wrong, but on the main Geocaching website, the only way to access the labs website is thru someone's found or owned caches in the profile, or on the Guidelines page. And why don't we have an icon for the labs on the main Geocaching map? And why can't we set up the premium notifications feature to work with Lab Caches? Not even found notifications for lab owners?

 

Wherigos are very similar to labs in terms of concept and yet they are very well integrated with the main website. 

 

I don't think this fragmentation makes sense at all, but maybe there's a reason for it. let me know! 

 

Jaleco

[+HHL]

1 minute ago, Jaleco said:

I don't think this fragmentation makes sense at all, but maybe there's a reason for it. let me know! 

+1

[+Lynx Humble]

23 hours ago, Jaleco said:

Hello,

 

I was wondering why Adventure Labs seem to be in a parallel universe to that of Geocaching? Maybe I'm wrong, but on the main Geocaching website, the only way to access the labs website is thru someone's found or owned caches in the profile, or on the Guidelines page. And why don't we have an icon for the labs on the main Geocaching map? And why can't we set up the premium notifications feature to work with Lab Caches? Not even found notifications for lab owners?

 

Wherigos are very similar to labs in terms of concept and yet they are very well integrated with the main website

 

I don't think this fragmentation makes sense at all, but maybe there's a reason for it. let me know! 

 

Jaleco

You are not alone a lot of people requested a better integration of lab cache with the remaining of geocaching.

 

The official reason is because it's still at the beta stage even if they introduced it more than a year ago and continue to add more players to it....

 

When Groundspeak will finally do the required improvements to this monster?

[Jaleco]

On 7/13/2020 at 5:45 PM, Lynx Humble said:

The official reason is because it's still at the beta stage even if they introduced it more than a year ago and continue to add more players to it....

 

Yes, quite a long beta version. But has Groundspeak officially stated it'll be all integrated in the future? Or is it just a guess?

 

C'mon, Groundspeak, what are you doing with our premium money?

[+Lynx Humble]

2 hours ago, Jaleco said:

 

Yes, quite a long beta version. But has Groundspeak officially stated it'll be all integrated in the future? Or is it just a guess?

 

C'mon, Groundspeak, what are you doing with our premium money?

 

Not a guess they officially said it in this podcast from DECEMBER 2019

 

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/podcast/episode-33/

 

Take a closer look at the transcript starting at 16:30

 

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2019/12/inside-geocaching-hq-transcript-episode-33/

 

[Jaleco]

1 hour ago, Lynx Humble said:

 

Not a guess they officially said it in this podcast from DECEMBER 2019

 

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/podcast/episode-33/

 

Take a closer look at the transcript starting at 16:30

 

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2019/12/inside-geocaching-hq-transcript-episode-33/

 

 

Very helpful! Thanks a lot!

 

I was very happy to read "So, that’s coming soon. I can’t tell you what soon means but I would say certainly at some point in 2020". Let's see if they can accomplish this goal. 

[RuideAlmeida]

8 minutes ago, Jaleco said:

Let's see if they can accomplish this goal. 

 

As if a pandemic did not freeze the world during a large part of the year...

[Jaleco]

 

7 minutes ago, RuideAlmeida said:

As if a pandemic did not freeze the world during a large part of the year...

 

I'll keep hopeful nevertheless 

[+Freima]

I'm glad someone else has asked this question. I'm struggling to understand how anyone knows there's an AL in place at all, because the only thing to tell people seems to be the existence of a question mark if the AL setter has included a physical bonus cache.

I'm struggling with my AL because I want to add a bonus - but there are already caches to close to the end of my trail, and putting the bonus somewhere else could extend the walk by a fair bit. 

 

The obvious answer is to add an AL icon to the GC map, so that everyone knows there's something to be found or looked at. Otherwise, what's the point?

[+Goldenwattle]

If I want to see where ALs are I turn on the data on my phone (that's off nearly all the time) and click on the app. Then I can see where they are. But as 99.9% of the time I cache with a GPS, I don't know they are there. I have to make the effort and dig my phone out from the bottom of my bag and turn data on.

[+barefootjeff]

53 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

If I want to see where ALs are I turn on the data on my phone (that's off nearly all the time) and click on the app. Then I can see where they are. But as 99.9% of the time I cache with a GPS, I don't know they are there. I have to make the effort and dig my phone out from the bottom of my bag and turn data on.

 

As far as I know there are no ALs anywhere in my region so I haven't bothered installing the app on my phone. Unless one has a bonus cache associated with it, the only way I'll find out if one's been published is if I hear about it on one of the local FB groups. I hope that when it eventually goes beyond beta testing there'll be an option for getting email notifications of new ones and the ability to see something about them on the website so I can decide whether I'm interested or not without having to mess around with a phone app.

[+Goldenwattle]

10 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

As far as I know there are no ALs anywhere in my region so I haven't bothered installing the app on my phone. Unless one has a bonus cache associated with it, the only way I'll find out if one's been published is if I hear about it on one of the local FB groups. I hope that when it eventually goes beyond beta testing there'll be an option for getting email notifications of new ones and the ability to see something about them on the website so I can decide whether I'm interested or not without having to mess around with a phone app.

At least the AL app works on my old phone. I am still haven't got Wherigo to work. (Nor the covid app).

[+ecanderson]

I have found the the Geooh Go (Android) app has one of the nicer (in particular, reliable) Wherigo implementations to be found anywhere.

https://geooh-go.com/

 

 

[Jaleco]

12 hours ago, Freima said:

I'm struggling with my AL because I want to add a bonus - but there are already caches to close to the end of my trail, and putting the bonus somewhere else could extend the walk by a fair bit. 

 

Same situation here. My AL is in a village which is already full of caches in the center, so the physical location would have to be a few minutes away from the AL locations, which is not ideal. Besides, it seems like a very archaic way of doing it. But as Lynx Humble indicated, Groundspeak is aware of this and is working on it, at least in theory. 

[+wolv_007]

On 7/16/2020 at 5:58 AM, ecanderson said:

I have found the the Geooh Go (Android) app has one of the nicer (in particular, reliable) Wherigo implementations to be found anywhere.

https://geooh-go.com/

 

 

WhereYouGo for Android was finally adopted by the creative team behind cgeo - now the app is integrated into the cgeo app and every Wherigo could be started out of it directly.

 

Overall HQ should think about the two apps they are developing, maybe it is easier to grant the cgeo guys API access for free and hand-over the app development to them as well.

A lot of the cgeo features are awesome and till today missing in the official App, e.g. offline maps, offline listings, better list handling and a lot more.

 

So maybe we could start a Community vote "what is needed by a (pro) cacher and should be added to the app" or "which app should be pushed forward" or anything else

[Jaleco]

7 minutes ago, wolv_007 said:

So maybe we could start a Community vote "what is needed by a (pro) cacher and should be added to the app" or "which app should be pushed forward" or anything else

 I've been feeling over the years that Groundspeak is more focused on beginer Geocachers than on pro ones, so I'm not sure they'll ever do an app for pros.

[+ecanderson]

1 hour ago, wolv_007 said:

WhereYouGo for Android was finally adopted by the creative team behind cgeo - now the app is integrated into the cgeo app and every Wherigo could be started out of it directly.

 

Overall HQ should think about the two apps they are developing, maybe it is easier to grant the cgeo guys API access for free and hand-over the app development to them as well.

A lot of the cgeo features are awesome and till today missing in the official App, e.g. offline maps, offline listings, better list handling and a lot more.

 

So maybe we could start a Community vote "what is needed by a (pro) cacher and should be added to the app" or "which app should be pushed forward" or anything else

I could say similar good things about the idea of having GeoohGo take it over, and they've been willing to play by the rules.  Vastly better vs. the official app.  The Wherigo engine is well integrated into that app already.