IPhone: Iphone 5s and higher.

Android phone:

All phones having a gyroscope and an accelerometer available are in theory suitable for the Surfr app. You can find this in the specifications of the phone. Here we have a list for you of most popular android phones on Surfr that have tracked the most sessions WITH jumps.

Our experiences with different brands:

• Motorola. Our favorite. Cheap phones, long battery live. We especially love the G series. In the G series you can buy a phone for 130-140 euro that will work perfectly fine, and the battery will last for days. Don’t take the Motorola E series, don’t take the G Play series, those are budget phones that don’t have a gyroscope. 
• Samsung. Works fine. We have tested with Galaxy S7 and newer
• Xiaomi. Works but requires setting up battery permission. Have a look here
• Huawei. Works but requires setting up battery permissions. Have a look here

Please note that even within one brand there are sometimes phones that lack a gyroscope. For example within Motorola there is some really cheap phones (E Series) and some of them don’t have a gyro. Please look up the specifications of the phone before deciding what to buy. It needs to explicitly say that is has a gyroscope and a accelerometer. It’s always a good idea to check your choice with the list of popular phones mentioned above.

• If you buy a <200 eur phone they might have both sensors, they might not have it.
• If you buy a phone in the higher pricing segment, they will always have the sensors.

Android watch:

At the moment Android watch is in beta and we only tested a Galaxy 4 and Galaxy 5 ourselves. Galaxy 4 is working, but battery drains quickly (3-5 hours of session tracking on full battery). It’s the cheapest option though to get started. Galaxy 5, especially the PRO lasts significantly longer.

We don’t recommend buying another watch at this moment than the Galaxy watch because it might not work as expected. We will inform you here as soon as possible once we have tested with more watches. At the moment we know the following:

• Ticwatch PRO. This watch seems to work and users have been posting sessions, with jumps from the ticwatch. We haven’t tested it ourselves so you might experience issues. We are currently testing with the Ticwatch ourselves. We do expect that we will get it working soon (december 2023)
• Google Pixel Watch. This watch is being used by some of our users and we have gotten mixed feedback. It looks like Surfr does not work properly yet on this watch, as it fails to records most of the jumps. We are currently testing with the Pixel ourselves. We do expect that we will get it working soon (december 2023)
• Xiaomi Watch. This watch is confirmed not to be working. Although it has the right sensors on board, the accelerometer only provides data at 50 measurements per second. Surfr needs at least 100 measurements per second to ensure accuracy.

We don’t recommend buying any other watches than the watches that are confirmed by us on this page, as it might not work as expected.

Apple watch:

We tested with Apple Watch 4 and higher. Also the cheaper SE watch works fine.

Garmin watch:

If you bring your phone to the water AND your Garmin watch your watch will already display the jumps, because the phone will send a push message to the watch. You don’t need to install or configure anything for that. Just start recording on your phone and go kiting with your phone and your watch.

We are currently working on Stand-alone Garmin support (no-phone-mode) and a first BETA version is expected by the end of 2023. You can sign up for this beta here. With this solution it will not be needed anymore to bring your phone and you can just go kiting with your Garmin watch.

We don’t recommend buying an Android Watch for your iPhone. Apple Watches are in general superior to Android watches. They have better hardware and are perfectly compatible with your iPhone and the Surfr app.

If you do want to buy an Android Watch for your iPhone, make sure the manufacturer claims that it’s compatible with the iPhone. 

The Surfr Wear OS app does not require an Android phone by itself. In other words: you can install Surfr on a Android Watch without having a phone at all. As long as the watch has the Android Playstore available you will be able to find the Surfr app there. Make sure the watch is compatible though with the Surfr app, see elsewhere in this FAQ.

First of all make sure that you jump higher than 3 meters. Low jumps might be missed more easily. Another common problem is that the Surfr app get’s killed by certain operating systems. This applies mostly to ‘Chinese’ phone brands, such as Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo and Huawai. Click your brand to get more information. 

Other tips:

• Always lock your phone when used in wetsuit
• For wetsuit/pouch use, face screen outwards

Jump distance is calculated based in GPS data. Sometimes this data is not accurate enough and in that case we are ignoring it, resulting in no distance for a particular jump.

The accuracy and availability of GPS can differ from place to place, and from day to day. Weather has an impact on GPS as well. 

In case you miss all the GPS data in your session, including your track, have a check if your GPS is actually working for example with Google Maps. If issues persist, please contact us to help you out.

If calibration of your device fails, please have a look at the page that we created with tips for calibration.