--- title: "How Rogr finds your crew offline with UWB and GPS" description: "When there's no signal, Rogr's Find uses Ultra Wideband at close range and GPS further out, all peer-to-peer with no internet." date: "2026-09-24" app: rogr readingTime: "5 min read" image: "/img/build/rogr/find-uwb-compass.jpg" imageAlt: "Rogr's Find screen showing a UWB compass arrow pointing toward a crewmate 3 metres away" --- Rogr's Find feature locates a crew member with no internet or mobile signal using two techniques: Ultra Wideband for close range, which works like the chip that guides you to a lost AirTag, and GPS for further out. Both run peer-to-peer between the phones in your crew, with no server involved. When you're somewhere without mobile signal — a festival, a warehouse, a multi-storey building — "meet at the entrance" stops working. Find is how you solve that within the same radio session. ## Two modes, one goal At close range, on iPhones with a UWB chip (iPhone 11 and later, except iPhone SE), Find shows a directional arrow that points at a crewmate. This is the same chip that makes an AirTag appear in front of you when you're in the last few metres of finding it. The arrow updates as you move, and the screen shows the distance. It doesn't depend on GPS accuracy — it's measuring the round-trip time of radio pulses between the two devices. At greater distances, Rogr switches to GPS. You get the other person's coordinates and a compass heading. You walk toward them, and when you're close enough, the UWB arrow takes over for the last stretch. ## Who you can find Find works within a crew. A crew is a group of iPhones explicitly paired — by bumping two phones together or scanning a code. Only phones you paired can join. That's also what keeps location data private: strangers can't see where you are because they're not in your crew. Rogr also has 16 open channels — voice channels for anyone nearby, where you're known only by a callsign and can mute anyone. Find is not available on open channels. People on a channel with you can talk back, but they can't see your location. ![The radio-check onboarding step where you hear your own voice back to confirm the connection is live](/img/build/rogr/onboarding-radio-check.jpg) *The onboarding radio check confirms a live connection before you start.* ## Why UWB is useful here GPS works well outdoors in open air, but it carries a margin of error — typically several metres, sometimes more indoors. In a crowded space or inside a building, "somewhere within ten metres" isn't enough to walk straight to someone. UWB doesn't use satellites. It measures the travel time of radio pulses between two devices, which gives precision at close range. That's why iPhones use it to find AirTags at the last step rather than relying on GPS alone. Rogr uses the same hardware, applied to people. UWB is a short-range technology, and Rogr uses it for exactly that. You navigate toward someone using the GPS compass, and when you're close enough, the UWB directional arrow takes over. The two techniques complement each other: GPS gets you to the right part of a festival, UWB gets you to the right person in a crowd. ## SOS uses the same system If a crew member triggers SOS by holding the button, every phone in the crew sounds an alarm and shows where that person is, until someone hears it. SOS uses the same location sharing as Find — the same peer-to-peer coordinates, triggered urgently rather than on demand. This means you don't navigate and find someone as two separate thoughts. The compass that points at a crewmate in normal use also points at whoever triggered SOS. There's nothing extra to learn or switch to. ## Hardware UWB finding needs iPhone 11 or later, excluding iPhone SE. iPhone SE models don't include the UWB chip, so SE users can still use GPS finding — the compass heading and distance — but without the directional arrow at close range. Any iPhone on iOS 17 or later can run Rogr. iPhones 15 and later have a second-generation UWB chip. Rogr's Find works on either generation; the app doesn't document a difference in range or precision between them. ## What Find doesn't do Rogr's radio range is tens of metres — more in open air with line of sight, less through walls and crowds. Find doesn't cover a campsite or a mountain. Within that range it works; beyond it, you're navigating by GPS coordinates, the same way you would without Rogr. Location data doesn't persist. There's no history, no log of where people have been. The app shows current position, and that's the extent of it. Because the connection needs both devices within radio range, Find can't help if someone has left the area entirely. Missed voice messages queue and deliver when a friend comes back into range, but Find requires both phones to be connected and close enough to talk. ## Pricing Talking, crews, finding, and SOS are all free. Rogr Pro costs $4.99 once — not a subscription — and adds three radio shells and two sound packs. ![The Rogr Pro sheet showing radio shell and sound pack options](/img/build/rogr/rogr-pro.jpg) *Rogr Pro adds cosmetic radio shells and sound packs for $4.99 once.* Rogr is coming soon on the App Store. Find is working in the current build. More at [rogr.xeve.io](https://rogr.xeve.io).