Help
Setting up Orbit
Add Orbit to the phone each person carries. It can update while closed, and if the map looks sparse, it usually means a missing permission.
Not in the app stores yet. This is where they will be, and your free trial starts when you create your first loop.
On a phone
The same steps on iPhone and Android. The wording of the permission prompts differs; what they ask for does not.
Make an account and confirm your email
Confirming the address is what keeps one free trial to one person, so a loop cannot be created until you have. The link works for 48 hours, and Settings can send a fresh one.
Create a loop, or join one
Whoever starts the loop shares a short code or a link. Joining is free and always will be — only the person who created the loop needs a subscription. Codes expire after seven days.
Allow location “all the time”, not “while using the app”
This is the step that matters. “While using the app” means your position stops updating the moment the screen goes off, so your family sees where you were rather than where you are. Orbit asks for it separately, after the first prompt, because the operating system requires two grants.
Allow notifications
Separate again, and separately refusable. Without it you still appear on the map, but you will not hear a request for help, an arrival, or a check-in.
Add the places that matter
Press and hold anywhere on the map to drop a place there, then name it and set how big it is. Use the search box above the map to get to an address first — scrolling the map to a school across town is no way to spend an evening. Orbit tells the loop when someone arrives or leaves a place, and nothing else about it.
Turn on background updates
Under Settings in Orbit. It is the difference between a position that refreshes as someone moves and one that only refreshes when they open the app. For a supervised member it is on and cannot be turned off, which is the point of supervision.
On a watch
Setting one up needs a phone. Running it does not: once a watch is set up it reports on its own, so a child can wear one with no phone at all.
Pair the watch with a phone first
Android watches and Apple Watches both require this during their own setup, before Orbit is involved. A watch cannot be set up on its own, even a cellular one with its own number.
Install Orbit on the watch
Put Orbit’s watch app on the watch itself. Nothing has to be sent to it from the phone, and once it is installed there is nothing to pair: the next step does the rest.
Approve the code it shows
Open Orbit on the watch and tap Set up. It shows a six-character code. On a phone, type it in: for your own watch under Devices in Orbit’s settings, and for someone in your care on their page in your loop, under Set up a watch. The watch collects its sign-in by itself a moment later. Nobody types a password on it, and the phone does not need to be nearby.
What it can do
Check in with one tap, with or without a message, and the check-in carries where the watch is. Ask for help. It also reports its own position on a schedule. It shows no map, and cannot see anyone else’s position, your places or your account. An Apple Watch works differently from a phone, because Apple allows less: it can’t share its position continuously, so it updates about once an hour, and when you ask where they are it shows your request, which opens Check in when tapped. Add Orbit to the watch face too: touch and hold the face, tap Edit, and choose Orbit for one of its spots (Apple calls these complications). Then an ask also wakes the watch to send its position by itself, and it updates more often. When the watch asks about location, choose Always: Orbit reports while nobody is looking at the watch, and Apple refuses that to an app allowed only while it is in use.
Setting up someone in your care
A child, or an adult living with memory loss. They need their own Orbit account, and you can make it for them if they have no email address.
Use a supervised invite, not the ordinary one
On the Loop tab, choose “Invite someone”, then “Someone in your care”. It is a separate code from the ordinary one, which is what lets you add a partner and a child on different terms.
If they have no email address, make the account for them
Most children do not have one, and they do not need one. On the Loop tab choose “Add a child” and give their name. The account has no email address and no password: their phone signs in with a code that you approve, so there is nothing for them to forget and nothing to reset.
Sign in on their phone with a code
Install Orbit on their phone, open it and tap “Join my family”. It shows a code. In the Orbit app on your phone, open them in the loop, choose “Sign in a phone” and type it. Their phone signs in by itself a moment later, already in the loop, supervised, and sharing. If they ever sign out or get a new phone, it is the same again.
Or use a supervised invite, if they do have an address
An older child with their own email can install Orbit, make their own account and enter the supervised code instead. Either way the account is theirs, and the permissions have to be granted on that phone.
Expect them to be told
Their Loop screen says sharing is on, that they cannot pause it, and who set it that way. There is no hidden mode, and there will not be one.
A temporary loop, for one occasion
A concert, a trip, a day out. Free for anyone with an account, always, and gone 24 hours after you start it.
Start one
In Orbit, start a loop and switch on Temporary, then give it a name, like Concert night. It ends 24 hours later for everyone in it, and it cannot be extended. You can have 2 running at once.
Invite people
Share its invite code as you would any loop’s. The code stops working when the loop ends. Nobody can be supervised in a temporary loop, so it is not the way to add a child: use an ordinary loop for that.
Add the places for the day
Up to 3: the venue, the meeting point, the car park. Each ends when the loop does. In an ordinary loop a single place can be temporary too: switch on Temporary when you add it, and it disappears 24 hours later. It counts toward the loop’s places until it goes.
When it ends
Everyone in it is told an hour before, unless they have silenced it. When it ends, sharing stops for everyone, and shortly afterwards the loop is deleted with its places, its timeline and everyone’s membership. There is nothing to pay at any point, before your trial, during it or after it.
If something is not working
Listed by what you would notice, not by what causes it. Most of these fail silently, so you will not see an error.
- Someone is on the map but their position is hours old
- They almost certainly granted location “while using the app” rather than “all the time”, or background updates are off in their Orbit settings. Both look identical from the outside: a pin that was right once.
- No notifications arrive
- Notification permission is separate from location, and refusing it breaks nothing visible. Check it in the phone settings for Orbit, then open Settings, then Notifications, in Orbit: low battery and a phone not updating are off until you turn them on, and each loop lists anything you muted. If they arrive but silently, look at the per-category switches — Orbit keeps requests for help, check-ins, and arrivals separate so you can quiet the last without losing the first.
- A watch is not reporting
- Open Orbit on the watch. If it shows a code, it was never approved or its approval was removed: approve it again from a phone. An Android watch also needs location allowed all the time, which it asks for after setup. An Apple Watch reports about once an hour by Apple’s design; with Orbit on its watch face it reports more often, and an ask wakes it to send a position. It also needs location allowed Always, in the watch’s Settings under Privacy & Security, then Location Services, then Orbit.
- An invite code will not work
- Codes expire after seven days. Ask for a fresh one. A mistyped code and an expired one give the same answer deliberately, so a code cannot be guessed a character at a time.
- The map is blank, or will not move
- A loop whose trial has ended shows a note instead of a map. Otherwise nobody in the loop has reported a position yet, and the map has nothing to center on until the first one arrives.