Lokate · Triggers

Tap a tag,
start the trail

Put an NFC tag on your dog’s harness. Tap it and the trail starts recording; tap it again and it is saved. The phone stays in your pocket the whole time.

iPhone only

Tag-to-trail relies on Apple Shortcuts and NFC automations, so it is iPhone only — not iPad, and not Android.

In short

One NFC tag per dog, on the harness. Tap to start that dog’s trail; tap again to stop and save — the phone stays in your pocket.
Tap a second dog’s tag and Lokate closes the first dog’s run before starting the next, so a missed tap-out never loses a trail.
It works whether or not Lokate is open, with no dialog to dismiss.
Set it up once per dog: a Lokate Trigger (a short code), a one-action Shortcut, and an NFC automation.
The tag only ever sends the code; what the code does is set in Lokate, so you can change it later without rewriting the tag.

How it works

Lokate never touches the tag. iOS reads it, runs a shortcut, and the shortcut sends Lokate one short code. Everything that code means lives in Lokate, so you write the shortcut once and never open it again.

iPhoneReads the tag on the harness

ShortcutsSends a code you chose — say bindi

LokateStarts or stops whatever that code is set to

Setting it up

Add a trigger in Lokate

Open Settings and scroll to Triggers. Tap Edit Triggers, then the + button at the bottom of the list.

Name it after the dog — Bindi. The name is only there so you can read the list; it is not what the tag sends.

The Triggers list in Lokate showing one trigger named Bindi with the code bindi — One trigger, named for the dog.

Give it a code

Tap the row to open it. The intent code is the text the shortcut will send — here, bindi. Upper and lower case do not matter, but no two triggers may share a code.

Then set what the code does: the assignment type, the dog, the discipline, and whether recording starts straight away or waits paused. Leave the name blank and the assignment is named with the date and time, the same as starting one by hand.

The Bindi trigger: intent code bindi, action Start assignment, dog Bindi, discipline Trailing — One code, and everything it stands for.

Build the shortcut

In Shortcuts, make a new shortcut and search the actions for Run Trigger. Add it and type the code into it.

That is the entire shortcut — one action, one word. Nothing about the dog, the discipline or the assignment lives here, which is why adding a field to Lokate later cannot break a tag you have already written.

A Shortcuts shortcut containing one action: Run Lokate trigger Bindi — The whole shortcut.

Put it on the tag

Still in Shortcuts, go to Automation › New Automation and pick NFC from the list of triggers. Tap Scan, hold the tag to the top of the phone, name it, and choose the shortcut you just made.

Set it to run immediately rather than asking first — otherwise every tap ends in a confirmation, which is the thing this is meant to remove.

The Shortcuts list of personal automation triggers — NFC sits in this list on a real iPhone. The simulator shown here has no NFC hardware, so it is missing.

What a tap does

The same tag starts and stops. There is no second tag to find and no “which one is this” to work out in the dark.

When you tap Bindi’s tag	Lokate
Nothing is recording	Starts Bindi’s assignment
Bindi is recording	Stops and saves it
A different dog is recording	Stops and saves that one, then starts Bindi

That third row is the one that earns its keep: run one dog, forget to tap out, tap the next dog’s tag before her trail. The first run is closed properly instead of being lost.

Lokate recording, showing the pause button — After the first tap — recording, no dialog to dismiss.

Lokate back at rest after the trail was saved — After the second — stopped and saved.

What you will hear

Nothing extra on success beyond a spoken line — “Started Bindi”. Your iPhone already plays its own sound and buzz when it reads the tag; a second one from Lokate a moment later would read as a separate event. Turn the voice off under Settings › Triggers › Speak the result if you would rather it stayed quiet.

When something is wrong you get an alarm tone and a warning on screen naming the problem, whether the voice is on or off. A tap that does nothing at all would be indistinguishable from a tag that failed to read, so Lokate never stays silent about a failure.

Lokate Settings showing the Triggers section with Edit Triggers and the Speak the result switch — Settings › Triggers, where the voice is turned on and off.

A warning reading: Lokate does not have location permission, so nothing was started — Warnings name the problem and what to do.

Worth knowing in the field

A tag-started trail has no subject track

Starting a trailing assignment by hand offers to pick up the hider’s laid track. A tag cannot answer that question, so it starts without one. Attach the hider’s track afterwards in the app if you want it.

Tapping while Lokate is open still works

A tap is something you meant to do, so Lokate obeys it whether or not the app is already in front of you. If you are part way through a log, it is saved before anything else happens.

Swapping dogs with a FETCH collar takes a moment

Stopping a collar run downloads the collar’s points before saving. If you tap the next dog’s tag during that, the first dog is stopped but the second is not started, and you are told to tap again once the download finishes — better than losing a dog’s data to save a second tap.

Location has to be allowed

Lokate refuses to start a trail it cannot record. Grant location access — Always, so recording continues with the phone locked in your pocket.

Codes are yours to choose

bindi, ABCD, anything you will remember. Change what a code does any time by editing the trigger; the tag and the shortcut never need touching again.

One tag per dog

A tag on each harness, each with its own code. Nothing on the radio harness, nothing to lose, and no stop tag to hunt for.