Photo finish app: your iPhone at the finish line
Put one phone on a tripod across the finish line. It watches every lane, times each runner as they cross, keeps the finish frame, and posts the times. The start phone hears the gun and starts the clock. Nothing to buy and nothing to install.
Open the finish lineFree, no account. Opens on your phone.
How it works
Two phones on the same Wi-Fi or on the internet. The start phone listens for the gun and tells every other phone the race has started. The finish phone's camera watches the line; when a runner crosses their lane, it records the time to the frame and keeps the picture.
Lane detection comes from where the runner's feet meet the track, so the camera needs to sit high enough to see all lanes and the painted lane lines. A two-minute setup guide is on the page, and a manual tap finish is there for the day you have no tripod.
What it is honest about
A phone camera runs at 30 or 60 frames a second, so a time is good to about a hundredth in the best case and the setup decides the rest. It is not a fully automatic timing system for records. It is a hundred times better than a stopwatch, and it keeps the photo, which a stopwatch never did.
- Times to the frame, with the finish photo kept for review
- Eight lanes from one phone when the camera is high enough
- Manual tap finish as a backup, on the same page
- Results post to your website as the heat runs, or stay on the phone
What you will compare it with
Said plainly, because you will find out anyway.
- sprintTimer
- An iPhone photo-finish app with a long track record, sold as a one-time purchase. Single device, no start phone, no results site.
- Freelap
- Transponder timing gates. Very accurate, no camera, hardware to buy and carry, priced for programmes rather than a coach.
- A stopwatch
- Free, honest to a tenth, and every time depends on the thumb. No photo, no lane, no record of who was second.
Questions
Does it need special hardware?
No. Two phones and a tripod. The same phones you already carry.
Is it free?
Timing is free with no account. A paid plan adds publishing results to your own website and the clip library.
Does it work without internet?
Yes, on a laptop running the server on the track's Wi-Fi, or with the phones on the internet. Times queue on the phone if the connection drops and post when it returns.
How accurate is it?
To the camera frame, so about a hundredth in good light with a steady tripod. Hand times are rounded up to the tenth, the way the rulebook wants.
Read more
Open the finish line · What is free and what a plan adds · Results, free to read