NewCacheNotifiers

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Feel free to contribute by editing the page. When it has the information needed in a readable form and in a decent formatted way, remove the FIXME template-tag.

Reason: Explain the tool, list pros and cons, explain how to set up notifications etc

Description

The New cache notifiers tool is an alternative to the Geocaching.com Instant Notification Service. It is available to all users with a paid membership. Due to some restrictions, it also requires that the user is a Premium Member at Geocaching.com.

Advantages

• A smoother interface, compared to Geocaching.com.
• A more nicely formatted email, including details of the geocache(s).
• No distance limit.
• Apply filters on location, such as by country, region, and county.
• Apply filters on geocache properties, such as difficulty, terrain, type, and size.
• Opt to be notified on every log up to the first 'Found it' (or equivalent). Note that these additional notifications may be delayed.
• Can be dynamically centered, based on the location provided by your smartphone.

Disadvantages

• It is likely to be less stable than the official notification service provided by Geocaching.com.
• In most cases, Project-GC's notifications are at least a minute slower than the official notifiers.
• There is a maximum of 100 geocache notifications per day, and maximum of 500 per month. (The limit is a rolling rate limit and not based on calendar months.)
• When adding or removing notifiers, it might take a few minutes for the system to recognize the changes.

Setup

Information to be added.

Dynamic location

Dynamic center option can be used to enable an external application update the notification center value. This way your notification center can be updated externally without a need to login into Project-GC website. It is often used to update the location of notification while you travel.

For dynamic notifiers to work, you must check the Dynamic center checkbox and add a radius to the notifier. It's also a good idea to add your home coordinates as a starting value, to avoid having a world global notifier. Then you need to configure an external app to handle the updates.

Cache Notifier for iOS/iPhone

Since February 2025 the “Cache Notifier” app for iOS has been available in the App Store.

Cache Notifier helps you stay updated on new geocaches by effortlessly refreshing your location on Project-GC. Get accurate and timely notifications about nearby caches as they are released. A Project-GC premium account is required.

GPS Logger for Android

We used to recommend using GPS Logger for Android on your Android phone.

Sadly GPS Logger for Android has been unpublished from Google Play. The maintainer has partly lost interest of the app due to frequent new policies and requirements from Google, there is a post at GitHub about it. For now we recommend downloading the APK file from the releases section.

For further instruction of how to configure the app to handle the updates, click the Setting up GPS Logger for Android on the New cache notifiers page.

Web-based PGC notifier location updater

There is a third-party application available at fracz.github.io/pgc-location-updater that can handle the location updates. You need to configure it for the first use on any new device, giving it your user ID, access token and the notifier ID to update.

Once set up, you can select the location from the map or detect your location automatically based on your device's location (permitting it to do so may be required for the first time). Then clicking the confirmation button will update the notifier center location whenever you use it.

The application neither stores nor uses your data on server-side. It just composes an URL that updates the notifier center in Project-GC. Everything happens in user's browser only.

Generic HTTP Based Updaters

You can update a dynamic notifier via any tool that can issue HTTP requests, e.g. curl, IFTTT, iOS/macOS Shortcuts, etc. You can do that by retrieving the URL https://project-gc.com/api/UserLocation/Update/ with parameters.

Supported parameters are:

• protocol=1 - the update protocol to use, this must always be 1
• uid=<USER-ID> - your user ID. Use the user id from your settings page.
• token=<TOKEN> - the access token to Project GC. Use the token from your settings page. Keep in mind that the token should be kept as safe as a password.
• nid=<NOTIFIER-ID> - the ID of the notifier. You can see a notifier's ID if you edit it
• ts=<timestamp> - the timestamp of your update, in ISO-format, e.g. 2025-01-31T14:35:59+0100. This value is currently ignored.
• latitude=<latitude> - the latitude of the dynamic location, using decimal degrees, such as 12.34567
• longitude=<longitude> - the latitude of the dynamic location, using decimal degrees, such as 56.78901
• acc=<accuracy> - the accuracy of your latitude/longitude measurement in meters. This value is currently ignored.
• enable=1 - if you add this parameter and the notifier is currently disabled, the update will enable it. If you leave this parameter out, then the Notifier will remain in the current state - enabled Notifiers remain enabled, disabled ones remain disabled.

To update a notifier, add the parameters to the URL after a question mark, separate them via & signs, for example like this: https://project-gc.com/api/UserLocation/Update/?protocol=1&uid=<USER-ID>&latitude=<latitude>&longitude=<longitude>&ts=<timestamp>&token=<TOKEN>&nid=<NOTIFIER-ID>

The response of the URL is a JSON document that reports success and/or failure:

{"status":"OK","rateLimit":{"IP":1,"token":1}}

{"status":"error","errorMessage":"Protocol 2 not supported"}