Test Koeru
An Android app that broadcasts a run live to a page anyone can open. It is a field test, not a product — you are here because someone asked you to break it.
Download the appAndroid only for now. There is no iPhone build, and nothing on this page will help you on one.
Getting started
- 1
Let your browser install it
Tap the file once it has downloaded. Android will refuse the first time and offer a settings screen — allow this browser to install unknown apps, then tap the file again. That prompt is Android doing its job; the app is not in the Play Store, so there is no way around it.
- 2
Sign in with your email
You get a 6-digit code and a link, and either one works. No password to invent, and nothing is compiled into the app — it is the same file everybody downloads, and it knows nothing about you until you sign in.
- 3
Claim your name
On the You tab, tap Broadcast a run and pick a name. That name is your page: koeru.live/your-name is the link you send people, and it works whether you are out right now or finished yesterday.
- 4
Allow location all the time
Android asks about location twice, and the second prompt is the one that matters. While using the app stops recording the moment your screen locks — which is what a phone does in a pocket — so the run ends without telling you. Pick Allow all the time. The app warns you on the Live screen if you did not.
If it stops recording
Almost always the phone killed it rather than the app crashing. Android lets manufacturers add their own battery saver on top of the standard one, and Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, OnePlus and Samsung are all aggressive about it — one of our own test runs was killed twice in five hours on a phone that had agreed not to.
The app asks for a battery exemption on the first run and warns you if your phone is a known offender. Take both. Then find your phone's own list — it is usually Settings, Battery, and something like "app launch" or "protected apps" — and set Koeru to unrestricted there too. This is worth two minutes before a long run rather than after one.
A run the phone killed is not lost. Everything recorded is written to the phone first and uploaded separately, so reopening the app offers to resume, and points recorded in a dead zone go up when you have signal again.
Telling us what happened
The numbers worth having are on the app's own Stats tab while a run is live and on the summary afterwards: points recorded, how many were dropped and why, battery at the start and end, and whether the phone has a barometer. A screenshot of that is a useful bug report on its own.
For anything strange about the track itself, tap the save icon in the app's top bar. It copies the run database to Downloads/Koeru on your phone, which you can then share from the Files app. That file holds every fix the phone took, including the ones it threw away and the ones that never reached the server — which is usually where the answer is.