Tutorial videos

Peps is cheering app for runners attending a running race. Runner’s friends can send their cheers to the runner, and the runner will hear these cheers during the race. Peps also covers virtual races and pre-guided routes, so runner can open a pre-marked route with custom and precise audible turn-by-turn instructions or run a virtual running event anywhere with audible entertainment. 

YES, you can listen to other music or podcasts or whatever at the same time just like normal. When Peps is talking, it will duck down the volume of other sources and bring them back on, when Peps is finished. 

YES YES YES, You can use tracker apps just like normal. Peps is not a tracker app and will not save your “workout” anywhere. Use tracker apps for that, there are many and they are good.

However, some virtual events do have the leaderboard functionality, and after each run, you are asked if you want to post your result to our simple result system, where the results are filtered as leaderboard for the organizer as event basis. You personal data is not published anywhere, you can choose the display name when posting the results. In such races, Peps will have methods to proof your performance and save your trail also for proofing the result.

No it is not. Use tracker apps for tracking your workouts. However, the completed race in Peps will stay there with ran distance and duration and other actions which happened in the race, like sent emojis, received & sent messages and listened spotify tracks. You can then re-live your record-breaking moment!

Peps uses phone’s GPS and other location services to determine your distance. And that relies on many things, depending on your phone’s features and many other things, so Peps’s distance might show different than your tracker, sport watch or map measurement. It is what it is and usually is very accurate. Peps is for fun, not for NASA level distance measuring, as is not your running either, we presume.

During the run, you can always check your location on the map view against the route. Some virtual races have a “virtual map”, which shows where you WOULD be, if you’d running the official route, no matter where you actually are.

When the map view is on and all the messages are downloaded, Peps does not need mobile data anymore. However in races, if you want the live messages to roll in and friends to see your location, or to send messages to them along the route, this naturally requires mobile data. But the consumption is very small and moderate and will not explode your mobile data plan. But when roaming, you could perhaps load up the route in the hotel’s wifi and then start running without mobile data. And when downloading the messages, they are never re-downloaded, thus if they exist in the phone already, they are skipped.

All written messages (by anyone) will be sent as notifications too. This means that written cheers or turn-by-turn messages will be sent as notifications – also to whatever brand sport watches, which supports mirrored notifications from the phone. You can set from the app’s settings, if you choose to hear the audio and/or notifications. You can test the notifications by tapping the test button, locking the screen and waiting two seconds. Notification should fly to your watch. Please note that recorded messages cannot be sent as notifications. If you don’t like headphones, just adjust the phone’s volume to the maximum and put in your pocket.

We are not evil and you are safe. To explain this in short, why and how we handle your data:

We will not collect and store your location, except during the races. This collecting and saving needs to be done for the friends to see your progress in the race and also for you to see the trail after the race. And this happens only, when you’ve chosen to allow the live tracking and the race is on. Otherwise we could not care less about your location and we are not collecting it. The app of course needs your location to work at all; to check when it is time to say something on that spot and to measure the ran distance. But the app won’t store or send the location anywhere, it just uses it.

We will use third-party analytics (like Google Firebase) to track your usage of the app, but that is stored as anonymous and eg. the location is coarse (city-level, and built-in by the Analytics system by Google, based on IP address presumably, check Google Firebase documentation and privacy policy for details). We will also collect other anonymous data of the usage to improve our service, eg. what songs users are listening during races (as said, all anonymous).

At the registration, we will need your email address, but we will not spam you or give your email addresses to anyone without your permission. We don’t even have a mailing list anymore. You can always contact us and we might contact you also, if we somehow see some kind of user behaviour, which needs intervention. This could be suspicious behaviour or clearly an occasion, where the user could perhaps need some help. 

With Peps you can also run virtual runs or guided / waymarked routes. These runs do not involve any friends’ cheering by default, but readymade audio messages for eg. running pre-marked routes with audio turn-by-turns or virtual runs with audio entertainment. These messages could be location-based or distance based, written or recorded. Means that you can either run a pre-marked route with turn-by-turn instructions and other info played out right on the spot or giving some audio entertainment after some distance ran, no matter where you run.

You can subscribe to these pre-made routes by entering a route code in the app. You got the route code from the race organizer or somewhere else. After entering the route code, your route list will always show the routes, which can be found behind that route code. You can subscribe to many route codes, and route code is entered only once. If new routes are added behind the code or messages are somehow modified, you always have the latest data automatically without any extra work and effort.

Open the app, check that Virtuals / Guided is chosen at the bottom bar and tap the plus button (+) ad enter the route code. Then choose the route you would like to run and tap GO!

A pre-made route can be also started from a web page. When you have Peps installed on your phone and open the route from a web page (where the selection of routes is displayed), Peps will launch and it will open the route rightaway and you’re good to go by just tapping GO! When opening a route from the web, you don’t need to register at all.

You can create an audio-guided route for yourself too. Simply go to planner.pepsapp.com log in and follow the instructions there. Simply put: Import the route as GPX, add own messages along the route. Open Peps app, choose your created routes, open the route and tap GO!

This is the fundamental idea of the Peps app. The flow is like this:

Runner will create a unique race event for self in the Peps app.

App creates a unique event link (starts with friends.pepsapp.com) and the runner simply sends this link to her/his friends, using whatever method the Runner wants (messages, email, social media, whatever).

Friends will open the link, and can send their cheers on that web page, using desktop or mobile browser.

The created race event appears for the runner in the Peps app too, and when the race is about to begin, the runner just starts the race and cheers will roll and will be played via the headphones (and/or written messages sent as notifications to any connected sports watch).

For creating the race you need to give a name to your race and then the distance. These are mandatory, but all you have to do.

he distance is there for the friends to set the limits for at what distance they want their message be played. If the friend does not choose any distance marker for the message, the system will place it randomly at some distance point. You can find the shareable link in the app, by opening tapping the share button on the map view. Just copy the link and paste it wherever you choose to.

Please note that anyone who has the link, can send you cheers and see your location in the race! There is an antispam detection for the suspicious actions to prevent bot attacks etc., but anyone who got the link, can send you messages anonymously. If we would put it behind registration, friends would not register. And evil people would anyways register with some hidden identity. But we all  hang out with nice people only, so this is not a big risk.

TIP: Create your race like a week in advance, so friends do have time to leave their messages. Then remind them the day before and maybe just before the start, for the online people to watch your run online. For the friends everything is very easy, everything will happen in the one and only unique race link you sent to them. When you’ve started your race, they will see you are LIVE and send live messages; when the race is not on in your app, they have the chance to leave the messages in advance and they will placed “on the course” by distance. It is all automatical.

As said, Friends do not need the app or any kind of registration. They just open the unique friends-link, and everything is done there. Cheers can be either recorded or they can be written in any language. Recorded cheers are played out just like that, written ones are spoken by a top-notch speech synthesis by Google. With written cheers, practically any language can be used, the system recognises the language automatically and speaks it properly in that language.

NOTE: If the friends link is opened inside eg. Facebook app’s browser, friends cannot leave audio messages. This is due to the microphone permissions with Facebook in-app browser. Friends need to open the link in real browser, like Chrome or Safari (mobile or desktop) for audio recording to work. Friends will get a notifications about this, when they tap the link eg. in Facebook app, and encouraged to open it in a real browser. There is nothing else we could do about it but just trying to tell the user that USE A REAL BROWSER!

For anti-spam actions, there might be the usual a Google’s re-captcha challenge displayed for the friends, this only for the security purposes, so evil bots won’t flood your race or harm our systems.

Since the friends do not need to register, they can send messages anonymously. They can set the sender field how they like. Other friends cannot ever see other friends’ messages. Runner cant either see the messages until the race is over (race being over condition is met, when the race is started in Peps and kept on for a while).

On the friends link, friends can send their cheers in advance prior the race or live during the race. If the race is on, (you’ve started it in the app), all sent cheers will be played out immediately. If the cheers a re left in advance to the race, friend can choose the distance, at which point the cheers are being played (or if not, they are just played at some random point / passed distance). 

Friends will se your live location on the map, when you’ve started the race. Location is real-time + approx 10 sec delay. So it is not approximated anyhow. Friends will also see the time lapsed and ran distance. These counters are calculated from the point runner  started the race (tapped GO!). Distance is calculated by the app and uses the phone’s GPS and location services to determine it.

Runner can send messages to friends also. Runner can either just send an emoji or record a voice message. This message or emoji will be visible (or playable) on the friends page (the unique race link) at the location point it was sent. Everyone having access to the unique friends link will see the message you’ve sent. If Spotify integration is enabled, a little marker of played song is also placed on the map, at the point of playback started.

Runner’s friends can also send Spotify tracks to the runner. Instead of playing a cheering message, a track is being placed in the play queue of the Spotify player app. 

Runner will get a little audio notification of this, and the sent track is next in the play queue. So it will be played next after the currently playing song, or you can skip the current song to play it immediately. After the sent track, the queue will continue playing normally, so the next song will be from your playlist OR if someone sent you more tracks in the meanwhile, it will be played next. You can always skip the sent track by just skipping to next song. You will control the playback just normally via the Spotify app (you may use the earplug buttons or whatever), Peps just adds the tracks in to the Spotify player app’s queue. If you start a new playlist in the Spotify app, the queue will be flushed too.

NOTE: You need the Spotify Premium subscription to use the feature. 

Friends just copy the link to the song from their spotify player and then paste the link in to the Spotify field on the friends portal message sending box. this can be done live or in advance, just like normal messages.

Runner can see all the sent messages and download the audio files at the runner portal on the web. Simply go to planner.pepsapp.com, log in and choose your race. There you will see all the messages and download the recorded ones and also see your sent emojis and Spotify tracks.

Unless the race event organizer has chosen to offer Peps for free to all their attendees, you will have to purchase the Race Pass for you to listen to the cheers sent to you. In practise, you cant tap GO! in the race map view, if you haven’t made a purchase.

If the race organizer offers Peps free for the runners at their event, the GO! button will be enabled when you are near by the race area. So at the latest, when you are at the start line, the GO! button is enabled. You can find these free zones and races in the race map view.

Purchased Race Pass is valid 8 days from the purchase, so just make the purchase couple of days before the actual race and you’re good to go. During this 8 days period, you can run as many races you like, you superhuman!

If you don’t buy the Race Pass, you won’t hear any of the friends’ cheers, but You can still create the race and friends can leave their cheers in advance and everything, but tapping GO! is not possible until you’ve done the purchase. So you can just before the race choose, if you want to hear the cheers or not. And if you don’t buy the Race Pass, all the cheers will stay hidden forever. Sorry!

If you are using Peps as free by the organizer, keep in mind that there might be audible content offered to you by the organizer, which will be played out along side the friends’ cheers. Usually these things makes the Peps free to use for you, meaning sponsor mentions and other fun. You can always make your own event and buy the Race Pass not to hear these.