Trail Signal

Will my phone work on this hill?

Getting lost in the Scottish Highlands is a rite of passage. Getting lost without the ability to call Mountain Rescue — or worse, without Spotify — is completely unacceptable.

Trail Signal is a UK outdoor map that knows where your phone will stop working. It cross-references Ofcom's charmingly optimistic predictions with what phones actually measure out there — and then, the flagship trick: it taps you on the shoulder about 400 m before a dead zone, screen off, phone in pocket. "Last signal — dead zone ahead. Signal expected back in ~1.6 km. Send messages and make calls NOW."

• Dead-Zone Alerts: live look-ahead warnings while you walk or run, with a lock-screen countdown to signal returning. No other outdoor app does this, which we choose to interpret as visionary rather than niche.
• Signal Reports: feed it any GPX route and get the verdict before you've laced your boots — every dead zone, the longest gap and where it bites, the patchy stretches in between.
• Actually Offline: full topographic maps — contours, rights of way, 3D terrain, the coverage layers themselves — downloaded to the phone. Works with zero bars, which is rather the point.
• Real Measurements: every recorded walk feeds an anonymised community coverage map. Predictions say what should happen out there; boots measure what actually does.
• Free during beta: everything is free while we work it out. Record and share 25 km of signal data and your first year of the eventual paid plan (around £19.99/yr) is free. We call this the Founding Contributor programme because it sounds considerably grander than "please test our app".

In The Lab

Things that don't exist yet — we're being honest about that. Coming to Trail Signal in roughly this order, with no dates attached, because we have learned that particular lesson the way everyone learns it.

• Watch My Walk: dead-zone notifications for the person at home doing the worrying — who, let's be honest, is the real customer. They get a heads-up when you're about to go offline ("entering a predicted 1.2 km dead zone, expect them back around 15:40, don't worry yet") and another ping the moment you're back in signal.
• Nearest Signal: one tap, even offline: "signal ~600 m north-east — up the ridge." Mountain Rescue's first piece of advice, automated.
• Satellite Sky-View: satellite messaging is arriving on phones, but it needs open sky — and it fails in exactly the gorges and forests where phone signal dies too. We'll map which dead zones satellite can rescue, and which valleys are just properly, magnificently off-grid.