Location Sharing for Everyone

Glympse is an app for iPhone and Android that lets you share your location with others in real-time easily and safely.  No sign-up needed and no social network to manage.  With just a few taps you can quickly share your location with anyone via email, SMS, or social media.

• Share location in real-time
• No sign-up required
• No friend lists to manage
• No app required for recipients
• Sharing auto-expires
• Recipients see your ETA

Recipients don’t need to have the app installed to view a Glympse and your location is only shared for the duration you specify.  When the timer on your Glympse expires, you are no longer sharing.

Glympse uses the GPS capability in your mobile phone to let you share your location via a Web-based map for a predetermined period of time with anyone you choose.

Sharing your location with someone is referred to as “sending a Glympse.” A Glympse goes out as a link via text message, email or a series of other third-party apps or sites like Facebook, Twitter or Whatsapp. When recipients click on the Glympse link they can view your location on a map in real-time using any web-enabled device for as long as you chose to share with them.

Unlike other location-based services, there is no need to create an account or log in. Once downloaded, you can send a Glympse to anyone you choose by simply selecting a contact, choosing the duration you want your location to be available, and then tapping send.

The Glympse app has been developed to maximize efficiency and minimize the amount of battery consumption, as best as possible. In order to provide real-time location sharing, Glympse utilizes the device’s internal GPS, which  uses a modest amount of battery.

Glympse utilizes a greater percentage of battery usage during an active Glympse and when the app is in the foreground. When the app is in the background, the app uses very little battery. When the app is actively sharing your location, it requires more battery usage due to the use of GPS on your device.

Glympse Private Groups is a feature of Glympse that creates a private, invite-only group. Members of a Group can share their location to and request the location (within the group) of other members. Any member of the group can see the location of everyone that is actively sharing within the group.

Glympse Private Groups are perfect for sharing with family, carpool, teams, or a group of friends. The Group is private and not accessible by others, unless they are signed in to Glympse, and have received an invite from an existing member. Unlike the Glympse Public Tags feature (which is a public group that anyone can join), Private Groups give members control over who can join the group, view other group member locations, share their location to the group, or request the location of other group members.

On the other hand, as members of private groups are required to have a Glympse account, Private Groups can only be viewed on verified cellular devices and, as a privacy measure, cannot be seen in a web browser.

How often do you share information about your location with friends, family or colleagues?

• “Where are you?”
• “When will you be home?”
• “I’m running 15 minutes late for the meeting.”
• “Let’s meet at 6 p.m.”

Glympse visually answers the question “Where are you?” with a dynamic map that updates your location in real-time. With a few taps, you no longer need to call or send a text to communicate your whereabouts – recipients will know exactly where you are for as long as you want them to.

There are many everyday uses for Glympse: 

• On a run or ride to let loved ones know that you are safe
• During a pub crawl or at a festival so others can find you
• On the way home from work to let a spouse know when you will be home
• En route to a business meeting as a courtesy to your client
• While visiting an amusement park so family members can meet up later in the day
• For businesses making home deliveries so customers know exactly when you will arrive
• When operating a food truck or mobile food stand so customers can find your business

The nice thing about sharing your location using Glympse is that location sharing is temporary. A Glympse automatically expires when its timer runs out, so you don’t have to worry about sharing your location when you do not want to.  

With Glympse, you are in complete control with who you want to see your location and for how long they see it. 

Account Verification

A Glympse Account is used to confirm a user’s identity before they are granted access to use Glympse Private Groups and to save certain settings. This is to provide a level of security, privacy and confidence to individuals who have received an invite and joined a group, validating identification of the other members of the group and ensuring the possession of the device (number) that the invite was sent to.

Verifying your account also enables users to link different devices to their same Glympse account.

Glympse does not store your phone number. We create a hash key and match that hash key to your Glympse account. We only know and display the last 4 digits so that you may identify the number verified in the user’s settings.

Entering your phone number

If you are phone number is a United States phone number, you must enter the area code first, followed by your 7 digit phone number.

If your phone number is an international phone number, you must enter a ‘+’ symbol followed by the country code at the front of your phone number.

The Tags feature in Glympse allows you to quickly view and share your location with multiple friends on a single, shared Glympse map.

Glympse Tags are public spaces (similar to Twitter hash tags) where anyone who knows the tag name can view the tag map and add themselves to the map.  

When you view a tag map, what you are seeing is a map of people who have chosen to join the tag map (ex: !family or !SeattleCyclingClub, etc.). People join a tag simply by choosing to share a Glympse with that tag.  There’s no need for them to send a Glympse to everyone in the tag individually. 

Glympse Tags start with an exclamation point (!) or “bang.” Tag maps are view-able by anyone on any web-enabled device at:

http://glympse.com/!your_tag_name

Anyone viewing the tag’s map can add themselves to a Tag map by tapping the “Join Tab” button in the top right corner of the page.

Joining a tag from the Glympse app is simple and quick. When you create a new Glympse, select the Tag option from the recipients screen and enter the name of the Group you want to join. Glympse Tag names begin with a bang (!) symbol and can have any name you want. Tags are open to anyone so there is no need for a login or password to join.
Since a Glympse is always temporary, there’s no need to explicitly “leave” a tag.  When the Glympse you shared on the tag map expires, your live location will no longer be visible on the tag map.

Create a Glympse Tag to easily to keep track of or interact with friends during common activities such as sporting events.

For example, if you and several friends plan to meet up to tailgate at a football game, you would all send a Glympse to: !GSUEaglesTailgate. The location of each tag member will then show up on the  tag map for as long as they’ve chosen to share. As with a traditional Glympse, individuals can stop actively sharing their location any time they choose.