New Backpacking / Hiking Weight Calculator App

[Mike J]

I have been working on building a new iPhone / Android app to help people better plan for their own trips. Its similar to lighterpack if you are familiar with that but a few more features:

• Track your gear in your own private “Gear Locker”
• Find gear in a community Gear Database to add to your gear locker
• Build Packs to track:
  • Total weight by category
  • Total Weight / Base Weight / Consumable Weight
  • Total Calories and estimated number of days or hours of food
  • Brands in pack
• Pack Tracking Checklist so you do not forget any items
  • Swipe items in pack to mark them as packed.
  • Easily see whats packed and not packed
• Share link to your pack with friends
• Easily find lighter options of gear with one click

I have been actively coding and have gotten a lot of great feedback and feature requests from users. If you try it out please share your thoughts!

You can download the app from either the iOS or Android store:

• Android Download
• iOS Download

 

[Daniel C]

Import .csv  would be awesome so I can transition my lighter pack data.

[Josh J]

Looks good, can you upload from an already created spreadsheet?

[Mike J]

Right now there is no lighterpack or csv import. I may take a look at this after the holidays but no promises yet.

 

I have an extra field required which is item type, which helps find lighter gear options. So even with lighterpack import there would still be some manual intervention necessary. But it would at least be a little easier. Need to think through the UI on that part.

[JCH]

Interesting.  What does the DFTS Pro Upgrade IAP get you?

[Mike J]

Interesting.  What does the DFTS Pro Upgrade IAP get you?

Right now, the basic limits you to 5 different packs and 200 items in your gear locker. PRO IAP gets you unlimited of both.

[Ivan Dominguez]

I like it very much, so thank you. I have shared it in a course that I am doing with Luc Mehl.
I just wanted to ask if it’s possible to change to metric units in the “pack list” because I only get pounds or ounces.

[Mike J]

Ivan, thank you so much for sharing with your class! That makes me feel so happy!

 

On the pack list or gear locker if you click the three dots you can go to settings and change the weight units. Let me know if you still need help and I can send screenshots.

[Alex V]

I love it! Thanks for building and sharing.

I like that I can enter the item weights in grams and switch the ENTIRE display to lbs & ozs. Lighterpack will let you enter an item in grams but if you change the display it only changes the top level summary units. I like to measure in grams but display weights in lbs / ozs and lighter pack doesn’t work for this use case.

The “gear closet” is a great feature and one that’s poorly implemented on lighter pack.

Lighter options available is a slick feature! Obvious additions here like ratings, reviews, sponsored options, affiliate links etc.

+1 on the import feature – IMO the more seamless you can make that the easier it will be for me (and likely others) to switch. I think there is strong lock-in for whatever folks are already using for item tracking because folks don’t want to take the time to manually re-enter all their data.

Feature requests / ideas:

• data export / import
• larger view on the computer (web page, Mac app, etc)
• auto suggestion for an existing community gear item when adding a new item to your pack
• Potentially default “Share with the community” to “no” when  adding a new item. In general I wonder if the data quality is too low to make community additions valuable by default.
• print my gear list (maybe I’m an old soul)
• summary section for a packing list and links to external resources like GAIA folders, planning docs, etc.

[Mike J]

Alex,

 

Thanks so much for all the great feedback! A lot of this feedback is in the works or in consideration. As fordefautl commuity share to “no” for greater data quality. I actually have a review process in place for community added gear that is pretty strict. Just because someone selects community share as “yes” doesn’t mean it will auto show in search for all users. Gear data quality is something I really want to not turn people away.

Love your idea for having links to GAIA! I am a huge fan of Caltopo myself. So I may allow users to link maps from their packs. One of the next big features I want to implement is a community pack lists so you can see other users packs for ideas. Still on the drawing board right now, but got some great Ideas and your map linking Idea will most likely make that cut!

[Ivan Dominguez]

I found “settings” in Gear Locker and was able to change it, thank you very much.

Like Alex V, I would like to use the PC with the application. Another thing, have you considered that the app is in other languages?

In summary I love your app

[Mike J]

Ivan, glad to hear you are enjoying it so much! If you have time it would mean the world if you could leave a review in the app store!

[Josh J]

Couple comments now that I’ve started playing with it

1. Search feature is ok, seems like it only works on manufacturer, I’ve created custom pack categories and the search won’t find them.
2. Having a true sort feature like excel for sorting pack categories ect
3. Don’t make manufacturer mandatory, I’ve got a lot of DIY or custom stuff

<li style=”text-align: left;”>Add custom item types

4. Maybe mini bags to group fire starters or other things you would put in a separate bag in your pack for organizing.

 

 

[Mike J]

Josh,

 

Can you give me a little more details on which search is not working? Is it the community gear search? Or the search filter in your gear locker or search filter within one of your packs? I have a hunch it’s the search filter while in your gear locker? If that’s the case it’s a bug and I will fix it in the next update.

 

In an individual pack the search filter will work on pack categories. Looks like I just forgot to add that to the gear locker filter. Should be a quick fix.

 

Different sorts is on the Todo list. Are you looking for this in your packs or gear locker? Also what sort options would you like? Right now in settings you can pick to sort packs alphabetically or by weight.

[Josh J]

Mike,

Yes the gear locker, haven’t made a pack yet, sorry about that.

I was thinking mainly gear locker but packs would be nice. Thinking sorting by categories and item types.

Never mind, I just realized I can put custom or DIY in the manufacturer field

 

Sorry if I came across as critical, I’ve done a very tiny bit of coding in college and I’m blow away with everything you’ve done so far, you’ve put a TON of time in so I really appreciate it and your openness for feedback.

I’ve got everything in excel but this is way easier to share if anyone wants to see my gear list

[Josh J]

Just realized you don’t have anything in there for hygiene. Tooth brush ect

[Mike J]

Josh,

No worries love all the feedback and you already helped identify one thing I have to fix in the code. I will try and fix it this weekend, then it will take a day or two for the app store to approve the update depending on if you are on Android or iPhone.

As for the fields. Toothbrush and other hygiene gear is a great idea for a default field! I will add that as well. In the meantime all the dropdowns are all just suggestions, every field can be customized, you can type whatever you want. The default fields are helpful when looking for lighter options though.

[Josh J]

Do you have an option in your packs to remove items? I didn’t see

[Mike J]

Josh,

To remove items just un-check the check box you selected to add them.

I do plan to add a remove button if you have clicked on an individual item in the future as well. I think I can get that into the next release as well.

But for now removing items is just the reverse of adding them. Just un check it in the add gear screen. If that doesn’t make sense let me know and I can grab a screenshot for you.

 

[Josh J]

Gotcha, thanks

Umbrella is spelled wrong, you have the m and b switched

Im also trying to figure out the consumable, I click it but it doesn’t stay when I go back to say it’s packed. Also adding multiple items going positive works, but going negative doesn’t subtract just leaves weight the same as before.

 

[Mike J]

Josh,

That’s a bug that looks like I introduced when I overhauled everything for allow units to be changed. I have just fixed the consumable issue along with a similar issue for worn weight.

Subtracting quantity issue I will fix in the morning and get everything pushed out to the app store on sunday.

Appreciate the bug reports will be fixed in your hands early next week.

[Josh J]

No problem

Always willing and enjoy helping new products develop, usually good about finding bugs

[Mike J]

Alright just finished a whole lot of bug fixes and re-wrote a bunch of code to make things simpler for me in the future. New update is being uploaded to both the Android and iPhone stores as I type this. Android usually approves within 24 hours iPhone store could be 24 hours to a couple days before approved and live.

List of fixes:

• Gear locker data now converts to your settings weight
• Gear Locker search filter now works on Item Type
• Fixed Worn Weight and Consumable settings not saving in packs
• Fixed weight not changing if quantity lowered
• Fixed gear sort to take into account total weight based on quantity
• Fixed spelling for umbrella
• Added Toothbrush as Item type

[Josh J]

Sweet! Thanks

Looking forward to it and will keep playing with it and providing feedback

[Mike J]

Josh,

 

If you are on Android the new version is available now. May just have to refresh the Google play store.

 

Still waiting on iphone update to be approved.

[Author]

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