forced/default landscape timer options in the settings

PompeCukor

I am new to RaceChrono, go the Pro version and loving it. Thank you for your work. I one request that I am surprised has not come up more for karting (paired with Racebox) most of the kart mounts on the market are landscape so we use timer landscape. However there is any unnecessary step getting there during each session which forces users to have to remove the phone from the mount or the entire mount every-time we want to start the timer to be in landscape. Let me try to explain the current workflow and please do tell me if it is not clear, then I am happy to make a short video.

So to get timer to work in landscape and let us say you finished a session and starting a new one.You need to.

start the app (if not already started)
start recording
Take out the phone (it is the only way to get it to be physically portrait).
Hold it in portrait mode and then press the auto rotate button to unlock,
Now rotate the phone to landscape.
Then re-lock the auto rotate button.
Put back in the mount/holder.

It is so frustrating to have to do steps 3 to 7. It would be so much easier if either a. the auto-rotate button would just force rotate it. or better yet... b. Just have in the setting an options to select what the user wants the default session recording mode to be. That way one could just set it to landscape if we wanted and never have to bother with it again for recording.

Again, please tell me if the above makes sense. Otherwise I will make a short video to demonstrate and show that there is now way currently around the steps 3-7 if you wanted to use it in landscape.

Thank you for your kind considerations. I would really appreciate as comment saying you put it on your to-do list so I know that we can hope for this is a future version. Happy to buy you coffee or beet for this fix even :)

chiller

I was confused for a bit, because for me I just do step 1, 2 and then auto rotate and it works. But I think the missing piece of information is that in a kart your phone is flat so it won't rotat, is that correct?

But even for us "car guys" it would be nice to have an option to always use landscape, and perhaps also auto record video when starting a session.

aol

Yep, just start the session when already rotated to landscape. We cannot trust the auto-rotate not to do unwanted rotate on long fast corners. That's why it's manual.

If it does not work like described here, then it's a device specific bug. Let me know the device details then.

PompeCukor

I dont want auto rotate. Auto rotate does not work well, if you turn it on while it is already landscrape, it will not do anything. You need to put the phone in portait (meaning taking it out), then back to landscape for auto rotate to register. And then of course you need to lock it, so that when stearing the kart it wont rotate unintentionally. What I am asking for it just an options in settings for "default" rotate to landscape. I will make video as I doubt that we are on the same page, perhaps my explanation it not too good.

I doubt it is device specific as I have done same both on my Samsung S25 Ultra as well as on Lenovo Thinkphone 25.

aol

What do you mean "It will not do anything"? Yes if you have auto-rotation locked on the phone, then it doesn't rotate the main screen, and recording will start portrait.

aol

If the rotation is locked on the phone, the workflow is this 1) Start the app 2) Start recording 3) Click the auto-rotate button ONCE

No need to rotate the phone physically if it's already landscape. Also no need to lock it again as it will do it automatically.

UPDATED: Tested right now 3 different phones, the "unlock orientation" button rotates immediately if the phone is physically landscape.

PompeCukor

You are completely right. I started to make a video to demonstrate the problem. I am not sure what I was doing differently on the field. It is possible as it was my 13 year old using it that he miscommunicated something. It works very nicely now that I tried properly, indeed it would rotate as soon as the button is pressed and it is a great idea for the auto lock after 15 seconds, I never even noticed that.

PompeCukor

So no coffee or beer for you :p