Your Expert for Location-Based Apps

We engineer location-based apps and tracking systems in Switzerland: For sports events, vehicle fleets, wearables and industrial applications.

Largest live event: 300'000+ concurrent users
Reach: 150+ countries
Active since: Active since 2013

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Cape Town Marathon tracking app by IRTECH on three smartphones: live route map, pace calculation, GPS accuracy and run results

Cape Town Marathon tracking app in action: live route, pace, and GPS accuracy.

Wings for Life World Run
Cape Town Marathon
Official event app
K-Race live tracking
Global cycling platform
In Their Shoes app

Three hurdles where location apps fail in the wild

Location-based apps in practice almost always run into the same three technical hurdles. A decade of production engineering shapes our solutions:

Severe Battery Bleed

Continuous satellite reception (GNSS) forces the CPU and baseband chip into constant maximum power draw. Without adaptive throttling, a phone discharges in two to three hours.

Solution

Our engine integrates with the phone's low-power motion sensors. When stationary, GPS sleeps completely.

OS Background Termination

Apple and Google aggressively terminate pocketed background apps to preserve battery. Generic apps frequently stop recording within 15 minutes of screen lock.

Solution

A multi-stage heartbeat system actively prevents the tracking service from being suspended, keeping the telemetry pipeline awake.

Dead Zones & Multipath Drift

Signal bounces off tall structures produce 80-meter coordinate jumps. In tunnels and alpine valleys, cellular dropouts permanently discard unsaved telemetry.

Solution

Coordinates keep flowing into a fail-safe local ring buffer. When network coverage returns, telemetry resends automatically with exponential backoff.

Our Solution: The IRTECH GPS Flow Engine

In over a decade of working as GPS specialists, we realized early on that almost every project struggles with the same technical hurdles. From this experience, we bundled recurring core capabilities into a modular architecture: our GPS Flow Engine.

Flexible Pipeline: Sampling rates and filters adapt dynamically to your operational scenario (from road cycling to commercial transport).

Sensor Coupling: Accelerometers, barometers, and Bluetooth accessories work hand-in-hand with location tracking.

Zero Data Loss: Coordinates are buffered locally and synchronized automatically once network coverage returns.

Visual configuration editor for our GPS Flow Engine, managing update intervals, thresholds, and synchronization.

Proven in production

Selected deployments operating reliably under demanding real-world conditions:

Wings for Life World Run App

In the Wings for Life World Run, hundreds of thousands of runners across more than 150 countries start at the exact same second. The twist: they don't run against each other, but against a moving finish line (the "Catcher Car") in pursuit.

IRTECH developed the entire mobile application and tracking architecture — including local audio cues and uninterrupted telemetry over more than four hours that must perform reliably worldwide.

300,000+ Concurrent Runners
·
iOS & Android
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Dynamic Catcher Car
·
Zero Outages

Read complete case study on ir-tech.ch

ACTYVO: Topography-Normalized Cycling Output

The first challenge platform making road cycling efforts directly comparable worldwide — whether an athlete rides alpine passes in Switzerland or flat coastal roads in Florida.

IRTECH developed the ACTYVOLTS™ algorithm, native Garmin Connect IQ data fields in Monkey C, the mobile companion apps, and full Strava / Garmin Connect API integrations.

Monkey C Data Fields
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ACTYVOLTS™ Normalization
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Garmin Connect API

Visit actyvo.app | App Store | Google Play

Zürich Marathon App

Official companion app with continuous 42.2 km course tracking, live split calculations, and spectator tracking along the course.

Cape Town Marathon

Official race app for Africa's largest marathon with worldwide virtual course simulation and verified finisher timing.

AMGEN K-RACE

High-frequency stage race tracking for an international cycling event, delivering live telemetry to teams and spectators.

Ski Tracking MVP

Prototype for high-altitude elevation profiling and speed tracking under extreme sub-zero temperatures in alpine terrain.

Where we support businesses and event organizers

Four core architectural domains for high-availability mobile tracking across sports, industry, and logistics:

Mass sports & synchronous racing events

Virtual marathons and global races demanding absolute reliability: synchronized worldwide start across all time zones, uninterrupted 4+ hour background telemetry, and automated voice audio cues directly into headphones.

Global Synchronized Start: Simultaneous race release with split-second multi-carrier network sync.

Audio & Voice Engine: High-reliability background pace updates delivered while devices stay pocketed.

Garmin Connect IQ & Wearables

Native Monkey C programming bridging Garmin Edge cycling computers and multisport smartwatches. Streaming power meter watts, cadence, heart rate, and GPS telemetry over BLE to mobile apps and cloud.

Native Data Fields: Custom algorithms and real-time metrics computed directly on the handlebar.

Two-Way Sync: Uninterrupted telemetry exchange between watch, smartphone, and cloud backend.

Fleet management & telematics

Location operations for transport fleets, logistics teams, and field service crews. Automatic geofence triggers for ERP bookings, tamper-resistant digital logbooks, and real-time operational oversight for dispatchers.

ERP Interfaces: Bidirectional integration with SAP, Dynamics, Abacus, and Bexio.

Strict Data Sovereignty: Dedicated hosting on your infrastructure without third-party data broker routing.

High-throughput telemetry & live streams

Scalable cloud architectures built for tens of thousands of devices streaming at 1Hz. Decoupled buffer pipelines and edge relays absorb massive burst traffic and compute live map aggregations for spectators.

Decoupled Ingestion: Ring buffers and streaming queues shield core databases from write storms.

Live Spectator Maps: Real-time geo-clustering and map rendering for concurrent user crowds.

Personal Software Development

IRTECH is powered by a young, high-impact team. Founded with tireless dedication in 2013, our company is headquartered today in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

We place great value on clear principles:

100% of source code and intellectual property belongs to you

Zero vendor lock-in and zero recurring platform license fees. All software written for your solution is transferred fully to your organization upon project completion.

Privacy by design under Swiss nDSG & EU GDPR

Location trajectories are sensitive personal data. We host data in dedicated Swiss data centers (Exoscale, AWS Zurich) or directly within your enterprise infrastructure.

Honest Technical Consulting

Not every initiative calls for a custom ground-up build. Often, a lightweight prototype or integrating existing standard tools is the smarter move. We advise transparently and pragmatically.

IRTECH Engineering Office in Switzerland

IRTECH GmbH

Software Engineering for Location-Based Systems

Founded: 2013 in Switzerland

Leadership: Ilir, Founder & Architect

Location: Berbiceweg 5, 8212 Neuhausen

Corporate Site: www.ir-tech.ch

Schedule a call with Lead Architect

Frequently asked questions before project kickoff

Answers to key technical and architectural questions before project kickoff:

Why is a progressive web app (PWA) insufficient for continuous GPS tracking?

Apple iOS and Android throttle background JavaScript execution the moment a smartphone screen locks. Within minutes, geolocation polling is killed completely. If you require unbroken tracking for runners, drivers, or field service staff, native background daemons with system certificates are strictly required.

How does the GPS Flow Engine protect phone battery life?

Instead of stubbornly polling the power-hungry GPS radio once a second, our engine couples location updates to the smartphone's low-power motion coprocessor. When stationary on a desk or inside a pocket, GPS sleeps completely. Only upon detected motion does the engine scale up the sampling frequency. This eliminates over 70% of battery drain in real-world use.

How do you comply with Swiss nDSG and EU GDPR for location data?

Location and movement profiles are legally classified as particularly sensitive personal data. We build to a privacy-by-design principle: granular permission controls, encrypted data transfer, configurable automatic retention limits, and compliant storage on Swiss servers (e.g. Exoscale, AWS Zurich) or directly inside your own corporate data centre.

Who owns the intellectual property (IP) and custom source code?

100% of the custom source code and intellectual property written for your solution transfers directly to your organization upon project completion. There is zero vendor lock-in and no recurring platform licensing fee for core functionality. Your internal team or outside partners can maintain and extend the codebase freely.

How does the location engine integrate into existing enterprise systems (SAP, ERP)?

We architect high-throughput interfaces (REST, GraphQL, MQTT, Webhooks) that stream sanitized GPS points, geofence alerts, and sensor telemetry directly into your existing enterprise systems (SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, or custom fleet databases) without overloading core databases.

How much does a custom location-based application cost?

Investment depends on update frequency, user concurrency, hardware integration (e.g. Garmin Connect IQ / BLE), and backend streaming scale. For an immediate budget range, you can run through our IRTECH App Cost Calculator, or book a Discovery Call (30 min) with Ilir for a concrete estimate.

30 Minutes Directly with the Lead Architect

Tell us about your project — whether fleet telemetry, a sports event, or wearable integration.

In 30 minutes, we evaluate technical feasibility, battery constraints, and a realistic budget directly with our lead architect.

Ilir

Owner & Lead Architect, IRTECH GmbH · Switzerland

Bring along: Your requirements for runtime, accuracy and target devices.
You leave with: A feasibility assessment, your battery and background-execution questions answered, and a realistic cost range.

Book Discovery Call (30 min) Calculate Cost Estimate