Wetsuit mode not working? Surfr app unexpectedly shuts down? Missing jumps? This is the solution.

Context:

Most of the Chinese phone brands (Xiaomi, Redmi, Huawai, Oppo, OnePlus, ..) have aggressive battery saving features enabled. Since the Surfr app is using a bit of your battery (not much) they will shut down the Surfr app unexpectedly. This only happens in wetsuit mode, since the screen is then turned off. In board mount, where the screen stays on, the app will not be killed. If you use board mount, you don’t need to follow these instructions.

Possible solutions

There are two possible solutions. They require some one-time work for you to do, but after that you will enjoy your sessions a lot more. We recommend that you try solution 1 first and only if that does not work you can go for solution 2.

1. Disable all battery saving features, add Surfr to exception lists
2. Keep the screen on during Wetsuit mode recording on the water.

ad1) This is the most elegant solution and the screen can still be turned off during kiting. Unfortunately on different versions of phones the functionality to disable battery saving features are on different places.

Have a look at detailed instructions for your phone here on how to disable battery saving features and getting Surfr to work. Alternatively to reading this manual you can also install the app DontKillMyApp app from Google Play Store which will given detailed instructions on how to setup your phone correctly. With the DontKillMyApp app you can even execute a phone self-test to see if there are issues.  

ad2) Only if solution 1 does not work for you there is always the option to keep the screen ON during your wetsuit recording kite session. In order to prevent the Surfr app from being stopped by touches coming from your wetsuit you have to PIN / LOCK the app. This means it will stay in the foreground and can only be exited when pressing a combination of (side) buttons.

If you set-up app pinning correctly it means that the Surfr app stays open, you can leave the screen on and the only way to exit the Surfr app is to press/hold one or more buttons at the same time. Please use Google to find out how to do this on your phone by googling “how to pin an app on [your phonebrand here]”.