← Timing

FINISH LINE

Point the camera across the line. It auto-times each lane

Tap Connect
Point the phone straight across the finish line. As each runner crosses, the camera auto-detects their lane and records the time; no tapping needed. Tap a lane band on the video as a backup, or use the manual tap finish if you can't set up a camera. Setup tips are under the video.
Server —
Clock sync —
Start none
Capture idle
Meet setupalready filled in

Send times to the website

Website off
Upload queue empty

Each detected (or tapped) crossing posts to the website automatically (marked app-timed). If WiFi drops, times queue on this phone and retry every few seconds; nothing is lost.

Live: align the red line with the finish line

Tap Enable camera
00:00.000
Auto-timing off
Light —

Motion at the line (live). With Auto on, the white firing mark rides just above the scene's own noise; it rises at dusk (grainier sensor) and drops in daylight, by itself. Have someone walk across: the bar should jump past the mark (turns green). Auto off = you place the mark with the slider.

Camera setup: how to position the phone
  1. Tripod at the finish line, off to the side, aimed straight down the line (perpendicular to the runners) so the painted finish line runs vertically in the view. Drag the red line onto it.
  2. Back up until all lanes fit top-to-bottom, usually 5–10 m to the side.
  3. As HIGH as you can get it. This is the one that decides whether lane numbers come out right. Filming from low down, the far lanes squash into almost nothing and lane 1 and lane 2 become the same few pixels. From higher up they spread out and are told apart easily. A tripod at full height beats waist height; a step, a stand or the first row of a stand beats a tripod.
  4. The runners' FEET must be visible. StatLap works out which lane someone is in from where their feet meet the track; that is how one camera judges distance. Feet hidden behind a barrier, a kerb or long grass means the lane is a guess.
  5. Tap Set lane lines and drag each line onto the painted lane line it marks: yellow for the outside edges of the track, green for the lines between lanes. Do not skip this. The bands start as an even split, which is only correct filming straight down at the track; from the side, perspective squashes the far lanes and every lane number is wrong.
  6. Keep it steady and out of the wind; wedge the tripod or weigh it down.
  7. Test it before it matters: arm, then walk across each lane in turn and check the lane that lights is the lane you are standing in. Two minutes here saves a whole heat.

Cloudy / windy? The timer automatically cancels out overall light shifts (a passing cloud) and gentle shake, and ignores single-frame flickers, so it holds up in most conditions. In rough wind, steady the phone; with Auto threshold on it re-learns the scene's resting level by itself (manual slider does it too, with Auto off). Things blowing across the line (flags, loose clothing) can still trigger a lane; fix those with review below.

Dusk / indoor? Auto threshold rides above the sensor grain as light fades, so false triggers stay rare, but a dim runner also makes a weaker signal. Watch the Light row: at "dim" auto-detect still works (have someone test-walk the line); at "low" trust ● Record + review instead, or add light (floodlight, car headlights work great aimed across the line).

Arm auto-timer → each lane times itself as a runner crosses. Tap a lane band to time by hand as a backup. It's a ~camera-frame-rate approximation (~30 ms); review and correct close calls below.

Sprint mode

Solo 40-yard-dash style timing, no start phone needed. Put this phone at the finish line (camera across the line, lane armed as usual), walk to the start, tap Start sprint: it calls marks… set… then fires a BANG from the speaker after a random hold; the clock starts when the bang reaches you (sound-travel compensated over the picked distance) and stops when you cross the line. Turn the volume up and flip the ring/silent switch OFF silent (iPhone mutes web audio on silent). Sets Lanes to 1.

Speed gates: two phones, any spacing

Two phones on the same meet code, each aimed across its own line, any distance apart. One tap on each phone does the whole setup: it connects, turns the camera on, and arms the gate. Then align the red line with each gate line, enter the spacing on the FINISH phone, and run: break the START gate (clock starts), break the FINISH gate (speed appears in m/s + mph). The start gate closes for 3 s after each crossing, then re-arms; walk into position BEFORE arming, or wait 3 s after any stray crossing, because every gate-1 crossing starts a fresh run.

Event Log