LapTracker - Auto Timer 4+

Used this today to work on improving my lap times at my local RC track. Put my phone on a little bendy tripod pointed across the start/finish line and set the zone height to cover the whole width of the lane. I wasn’t sure if the spoken lap times would work with bluetooth but was pleasantly surprized to hear the lap number and time spoken through my airpods up on the driver’s stand. Excited to try the “Stop after X Time” and “Finish Last Lap” options to simulate a 5 minute qualifier or Main next time I use this.

Of course, the timing only worked accurately because I was the only one on the track - multiple cars passing through the timing zone would have completely messed up the timing. Sure you can set multiple timing zones or “lanes” but this only really works for slot-cars, hotwheels or other activities where the object being timed stays in a specific lane on every pass. RC cars and their drivers are far less predictable. Still, for the price and what i needed this for it works great!

Saved a bundle over diving headlong into an Arduino board, LCD, reed magnetic switches, tracking down someone who knows C++, and everything else it would have taken to set up a home made electronic lap timer for my slot car track. Instead, I dug some poster tack out of the junk drawer, and a juice glass out of the cabinet to hold my iPhone at the right angle, and paid $1.99 for an app. BOOM! Now I have an awesome lap timer. My brain is racing, thinking about all the things I can time, like my 5 year old running figure eights around our house chasing monsters on his Vtech watch, or how fast I run to the pantry and back when I’m making curry, because my misen place skills are crap and I never have everything I need at hand. If it moves, you can time it... this is sooooo good for my OCD, you have no idea.

I am using this app for my home use AFX four lane track set up. I simply mounted the iPhone over the track using a suction cup Bendy rod iPhone mount like you would use on a car windshield. The phone can be positioned perfectly with the bendy/rod to get perfect angle for lane identification from the app set up using the camera. Simple to use app extremely cost efficient as compared to the light optics/ laptop set up’s. 2 bucks vs 200 bucks! (Would be great a great enhancement to be able to customize the voice using the iPhone voice choices.)