Sensie maps where you have been using just your Lumia Windows Phone with SensorCore

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

SensorCore is the technology made by Nokia in conjunction with Qualcomm to enable tracking of your location, steps, and level of activity using your Windows Phone while not killing your battery. Found on the Lumia 630, Lumia 635, Lumia 730, Lumia 735, Lumia 830, Lumia 930, and Lumia 1520, SensorCore is also open to third-party developers to make new apps that leverage the tech.

Sensie is one of those apps, and it is quite ingenious and well polished, especially being relatively new, (it first launched at the beginning of September, but received an update today). The app is designed to visualize your travels and recent activities, leveraging HERE Maps.

Sensie keeps track of where you are, where you have been, activity level and then maps it all for easy viewing. It also calculates how much you have traveled in the last few days, displays information in heat-maps and more. Here are the features from the Store listing:

  • Activities in time
  • Favorite places
  • Map of moves
  • Export to GPX
  • Backup on OneDrive
  • Hotfix

The app works exceptionally well and if you already have SensorCore enabled (it is found under Settings > Motion Data), the app pulls in that data going back ten days. The OneDrive integration is also admirable, as you can backup your data in addition to pulling down your Microsoft Account avatar and name for a personal touch. The ability to export a GPX file is not something I would often use, but I think it is better to have features than not, so thumbs up.

Sensie also has a Live Tile that displays how much distance you have traveled over the last ten days. Unfortunately, the wide Tile looks great but does not appear to be Live.

Sliding over to the right, and you can see a recap of your last three days of activity in graph form, along with how many feet (or meters) you have traveled.

Interestingly, Sensie does not appear to have a pedometer, which is an odd omission. Since SensorCore collects that information too, it should not be too hard to add. Then again, Sensie is not a fitness app, but rather it is meant to visualize your position and activities.

Not everyone needs Sensie, but it is a fresh way to see where you have been over the last week and a half. The app is free, but it only shows you the last three days of activity. If you do an in-app purchase for $1.99, you can go back the full ten days. The price may seem a little high, but conversely, this is a niche app for those who know they need it. If you need an app like Sensie, it works well, and it is worth the $2.

Like most things on Windows Phone, try before you buy. Also, remember, if you are already using Motion Data/SensorCore, using Sensie (in addition to your other pedometer apps) does not use any more battery. All SensorCore apps tap into the same bank of collected information.

Via: Reddit

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

80 Comments
  • I dream of the day these SensorCore apps will work on my Lumia Icon... what a glorious day it will be!   But I will try it out on my Lumia 635. SensorCore is an awesome part of WP.
  • I agree with you. It takes the need of fitness wearable to go away, I hope.
  • Yeah the Fitbit Flex I wear is great, and better in many respects than a phone based solution, but if this stuff was built in already into the phone I carry with me everywhere I probably wouldn't have bought it.... Well it IS built into the Icon of course, just that Verizon refuses to activate it.
  • Not yet.  Heart rate monitor.
  • I can see it now: "Obese Lumia Icon File Lawsuit against Verizon Wireless."
  • LOL! :D
  • LOL or "Lumia Icon users file obesity lawsuit against Verizon". Which is how I read it...I think?
  • I'm so glad the first response wasn't done tinfoil cap crap about being spied on by the gov/MS/The NSA.
  • Aww, spoil sport.   You know the new-old saying:  if you can track where you've been on your smartphone, so can 'they.'
  • All joking aside, but this sort of tech is a bit creepy and intrusive if you think about it. I can see the benefits to be able to see where someone is at any point in time but I there is always the question of personal privacy. Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android
  • Well, if it really upsets you: Disabling this feature isn't very hard to do in the phone's settings.
  • Don't feed the troll people.. 
  • You need Cyan update. Do you have it?
  • Icon doesn't have cyan yet :*(
  • Verizon must be doing some EXTENSIVE testing for Cyan. It's either that or they still haven't opened the box for their test units. They could always clear one model at a time but that might make too much sense.
  • Beautiful apps
  • Lumia 1020?
  • It does not have the hardware necessary for this.
  • According to the developers of this app they are working on getting some functionality working for devices that don't have the new relevant technology.
  • Hey Verizon! How about cyan so we can do this!?
  • What about the icon? You say 930, and the 930 is the European variant of the icon, but logic doesn't always apply to big companies
  • As soon as Verizon updates their phones, the Icon will have this.
  • Ah, so when WP10 comes out :(
  • No, it just need Cyan update which is already available (except Verizon I think).
  • we really Need a Hardware refresh for 1020, feels like im missing on so much new stuffs..
  • Not until w10
  • Daniel, do you know if there are any SensorCore apps that work with MyFitnessPal? I noticed yesterday that MSN Health & Fitness no longer uses Healthvault for its historical exercise/GPS tracking, but it's integrated into MSN Health & Fitness website. Hoping that it might be a good sign for integration with other apps (since Healthvault seems to be more "serious" stuff, or maybe they are just abandoning Healthvault entirely). Of course, would be great if the MyFitnessPal app used SensorCore, but considering their glacial pace of updates I think that's too much to hope for.
  • No, but will look around.
  • Using it for fitness stuff is nice, but tracking my locations and activities? That's a little too much. Sounds like this is for the "oversharers".
  • I just can't get sensor core to work on my Lumia 1520, the motion settings are not there, got the latest firmware plus I Av tried resets etc.
    I suppose I'm getting fit enough carrying the Lumia 1520 with me everywhere I go..
  • You need a Cyan update. Maybe it's not ready yet for your operator.
  • Ok, this is pretty cool. It tracked my road trip last week perfectly. Was neat to see where I had been.
  • Lumia 1520.3
  • So could you in theory have this app track where your lost phone is in real time or do you need to use the app on the phone to see the data?
  • If you got the phone back, yeah, you could, but the data cannot be accessed remotely. I suppose if the data is backed up to OneDrive automatically it could be remotely accessed?
  • Thanks Daniel. I kinda suspected that. I wonder how you'd access the data on onedrive though as you'd need an app to do that and if your phone has gone for a walk then it's a bit difficult
  • OneDrive is accessible from your PC as well. But yeah, Find My Phone seems to be a much simpler alternative :)
  • Find my phone is built in to windows unless it was removed and I didn't no we.
  • You can use the "find my phone" feature at windowsphone.com
  • I've been using trackmylife for the last couple of years don't really want to lose all that data and start again!
  • The real question is when is google buying SensorCore?
  • Considering Microsoft owns it, not possible. It's not a company, merely the name of software/firmware/API solution for Lumia phones, akin to ClearBlack and PureView names. Google can (and likely has) their own APIs and tools to do this as well with their phones.
  • Yeah figured as much. Just seemed like a google thing since they like tracking everything we do. Lol. 
  • Did no one read the phones it works on?
  • I walked 16,114 steps yesterday just moving thuings around....mylegs feel like mush. Maybe I should exercise more...
  • This app is so awesome! I just found it in the Store and installed it on my Lumia 1520 for the first time after having read this article and comments! $1.99 well spent! Thanks for the heads up! :)
  • Wait for the free and promotion soon.
  • Why only ten days back? Or can you save certain time frames or something? If it's saved to onedrive, it seems odd there's such a hard limitation instead of giving the user to save for X days, or retain certain dates and timeframes. Or am I misreading something?
  • The SensorCore data on the device is only saved/accessible 10 days back. Apps can back up and save the data longer, but apps cannot go back and get data older than 10 days from SensorCore. I already had Motion Data enabled. When I installed this app, it pulled out 10 days of data automatically.
  • Awesome app. Purchased it after trying it out. On the Home screen it shows a leatmap. What is a leatmap? I even binged leatmap with no response except heatmap.
  • Hmm, it should be Heatmap - maybe you have a font size bigger than default. Isn't it? Send me info to senaieapp@outlook.com
  • It's nice app, but.. I downloaded it right now for the first time. And it shows on a heatmap where I was last weekend. Of course, I have always Motion Data on. I though it only counts my steps during walk or run. But I didn't know that it stores my location and my movement on map. I don't really like this. So, is my Lumia 930 saving my location on map continuously?
  • You can disable sensorcore.
  • I don't want to. I want to use SensorCore, I use it for counting my steps. It's nice feature. But I don't want it to store my positions.
  • Having Motion Data enabled allows your device to store a wide range of position and movement data (e.g. GPS, accelerometer, barometer, and gyroscope to determine how you're using the device) for the past 10 days locally on your device. Applications having access to location data determine if applications also access Motion Data. How the application will use Motion Data is determined by the the application itself. Full details are here: https://www.windowscentral.com/e?link=https2F%2Fclick.linksynergy.co...
  • Don't worry. Sensorcore saves activity, position and steps only locally and the data are retained for 10 days.
  • Are you sure that any developer, who make app like Sensie, can't get these informations? It can be uploaded to OneDrive. So it can be uploaded anywhere.
  • You're right in this case. There is no user "I agree" to read the data using Sensorcore SDK.
  • Will the HTC one m8 be supported for this as well? Given that it has the right hardware.
  • No idea what their long term plan is, sorry.
  • Barely related I know, but how do you get cyan-coloured system icons? (I'm not talking about the firmware)
  • No idea. I usually get it for a few seconds randomly, then goes back to normal.
  • Those with mistress, use with caution ;)
  • Am I missing lots of stuff with my Lumia 1320?
  • when is Microsofts smartwatch coming?
  • This is one app I will not be sharing with my wife.
  • I wanted this. Bad. I love this tracking data stuff. Too bad I have a sexy Lumia 925.
  • I also have a Lumia925, and after the last updates Sensie seems to be working, at least partially!
  • Please use syntax, Daniel. That sentence hurts the eyes.
  • Does this app needs gps turned on all the time?
  • Location can be determined in various ways (GPS, GLONASS, known Wifi spots, GSM towers) but there is only a single button in WP to turn it on / off. SensorCore does NOT normally use GPS module, but other less power consuming ways.
  • Could be a nice app. However, in Japan, Here maps are absolute crap. Bing maps are great. Google maps of course well supported. My only regret for having a Lumia phone is the lack of choice in what mapping engine I use. Please. Please please. Microsoft. Give us choice.
  • Is it going to work on lumia 925?
  • Unfortunately not.
  • I wonder if they will integrate sensorcore with MSN Health and Fitness? Mmm, I wonder is the upcoming wearable that MS has mentioned before will use sensorcore?
  • Sensorcore is already used by MSN Health and Fitness. But only the pedometer.
  • I got an update yesterday on sensie, i had it installed 3 days ago and of course it wasn't working. However, after the update it started functioning!!!!! Lumia925
  • I think this will be very useful for my work life. Thanks for the tip Daniel.
  • Is there some equivalent for L920?
  • I work on some way, how to bring at least limited functionality to older Lumias and other phones.