Strava adds night and week heat maps to its fitness app.
As the daylight hours shorten with the approach of winter, Strava is expanding the heat maps feature to enhance the safety of its users.
Strava, a well-known app for tracking physical activities, has expanded its heat map feature to enhance the safety of its users. This update is especially relevant for those in the Northern Hemisphere, where the arrival of winter means fewer hours of daylight. The San Francisco-based company announced on Wednesday the launch of new nighttime and weekly heat maps, available to all of its subscribers.
The heat maps reveal the locations that Strava users choose for exercising, with dark, thick lines indicating the most frequented routes and light, thin lines showing the less popular ones. The feature of the new nighttime heat maps is particularly useful for those who engage in outdoor activities in the evening or early morning, providing information about the most popular areas for exercise from sunset to sunrise. For those visiting a new area, it is recommended to complement the nighttime heat map data with Google Street View images to better familiarize themselves with the surroundings.
Meanwhile, the weekly heat maps display activity over the past seven days, allowing users to identify which trails and pathways are in use, especially during seasonal transitions where weather can influence conditions.
Matt Salazar, Strava's product director, commented that "our global community fuels our heat maps, and we have now made it easier for members of our community to build routes with confidence, regardless of the season or time of day." Additionally, Strava has provided a quick guide on the four variants of heat maps:
- Nighttime (new): Shows the most frequented areas between sunset and sunrise, ideal for those exercising at night or early in the morning.
- Weekly (new): Offers recent data from the last seven days, perfect for adjusting plans considering seasonal changes or unexpected closures.
- Global (existing): Accessible to anyone, regardless of whether they have an account, allows users to visualize the most popular areas worldwide based on community activity.
- Personal (existing): Displays the unique record of all the places where you have logged a GPS activity. This heat map is private and available only to the user.
