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Join the Rugavis Beta

Record a trip with your phone, upload it here, and it'll be added to the map.

How this works, in one minute

Rugavis turns your phone's motion sensors into a road-quality map. You don't need to know anything technical — just follow the 3 steps below, in order, every time:

  1. Set up once — install the app and tap one link. You only do this the first time.
  2. Record a trip — press one button before you drive, press it again when you park.
  3. Upload — fill out one short form and attach the file it gives you.
Tip: the exported file works best left exactly as it comes out of the app — no need to rename it or open it up, just pass it along to the form.

1. Install & Set Up Sensor Logger

First, download the Sensor Logger app if you don't already have it:

Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play

Next, tap this button on your phone to automatically apply the required settings:

📲 Auto-configure Sensor Logger
Mandatory OS Permissions: For the app to record correctly, ensure you grant the following when prompted or search for them manually in your settings:
  • Location: "Always" (not "While Using App"), with Precise Location turned ON.
  • Motion & Fitness / Physical Activity: Must be allowed for the Accelerometer and Gyroscope.
  • Local Network (iOS only): Required to package and export your files.
  • Background & Location Permissions (Android only): To log data with your screen off or while using other apps, set Location access to "Allow all the time" and ensure Background App Refresh / Unrestricted Battery is enabled. Without these, Android will pause data collection as soon as you leave the app.
✅ Double-check it worked — open Sensor Logger, go to the settings/gear icon, and confirm:
  • Accelerometer rate reads 100 Hz
  • GPS / Location rate reads 1 reading per second
  • Accelerometer, Gravity, Gyroscope, Orientation, Compass, Location, Barometer, Magnetometer and Activity all show as enabled
If any of these look different, tap the green button again, or use the manual setup below.
Troubleshooting & Manual Setup

Config link not working? Fully close the Sensor Logger app, reopen it, and tap the green button above again. Or, configure it manually:

  1. Enable: Accelerometer, Gravity, Gyroscope, Orientation, Compass, Location, Barometer, Magnetometer, Activity.
  2. Turn on Standardisation in the Logger settings.
  3. Turn off Battery and Network to save file size.
What Data This Records

This config only enables what's needed to measure road roughness and to diagnose recording issues. Specifically, it records:

  • Motion sensors (Accelerometer, Gravity, Gyroscope, Orientation, Compass, Magnetometer, Barometer) — used to calculate road roughness.
  • GPS location — used to map your roughness data onto the road you drove.
  • Battery level — used only to help us tell whether a recording issue was caused by low battery or a phone power-saving feature, not to track your usage otherwise.
  • Motion activity (e.g. driving vs. stationary) — used to automatically trim non-driving portions of a recording.

This does not record: Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices, microphone audio, camera images or video, or contacts.

Your GPS trace will show where a trip started and ended, including near your home or other personal locations if that's where you began driving. Raw trip files stay on the project's private storage permanently and are never published as-is; only aggregated, anonymized road-quality scores per road segment are ever made public through the live map/API.

Questions, or want a recording removed? Contact contact.rugavis@gmail.com.

2. Record a trip

One recording = one continuous drive, start to finish. Don't pause and resume, and don't combine two separate errands into one recording — start a fresh recording for each drive.

  1. Before you start recording, just set the phone down somewhere you're confident it won't slide or bounce around too much — a phone holder or the seat next to you both work fine.
  2. Open Sensor Logger and press the record (play) button right before you pull out. Press stop right after you've parked — not before.
  3. Feel free to lock your phone or use other apps during the drive — Sensor Logger keeps recording in the background.
  4. Plugging the phone into a charger if you have one handy is a nice bonus (it avoids the rare case of a hot phone throttling mid-trip), but it's not necessary.
  5. When you're done, use Sensor Logger's export and save the recording as a .zip file to your phone (Files on iOS, Downloads on Android). Don't rename it or open it.
Optional but appreciated: if it's easy, a quick mental (or written) note of what vehicle you were in and roughly what route you took helps us make more of your trip — but don't sweat it if you forget, the recording itself is the important part.

3. Upload your trip

Wait until you're on Wi-Fi before uploading to avoid using your mobile data.

Before you tap the form link, open the exported .zip once in your Files/Downloads app and check its size isn't 0 KB or a few bytes — that means the recording failed and needs to be redone.

Tap the button below to securely submit your file. (You will be asked to sign in with a Google account to verify your upload). Just submitting the recording is a real help — if you have a moment to fill in the vehicle type and route fields too, that's a nice bonus, but no worries if you'd rather skip straight to submitting.

Submit Trip Data →
Upload Issues?
  • Zip file is 0 bytes? Check your phone's privacy settings and ensure Motion and Location permissions are granted.
  • Export failing? Ensure you actually pressed "Save to Files" (iOS) or saved it locally before opening the Google Form.