DAYNAMICA
Platform
Questions from study participants
If you've been asked to use Daynamica for a study, start here. If your question isn't answered, contact your study coordinator first — they can usually resolve it faster than we can.
Daynamica is currently available for both iOS and Android devices. It has been tested and is known to work on iPhone 6 and later, and on Android devices running Android 6 (Marshmallow) or later.
No. Daynamica runs passively in the background using low-power smartphone sensors to automatically detect your trips and activities. You do not need to keep the app open or log every event as it happens. Most participants only open the app once or twice a day for a quick 1–2 minute review to confirm or annotate detected activities.
The Daynamica app has been carefully designed to minimize its impact on your phone's battery life. For most users, over the course of a typical day, Daynamica will reduce your battery charge level by less than 10%.
Daynamica automatically uploads the data it collects to our servers every night, typically in the early morning hours. For most studies these nightly uploads are small — about the same amount of data as streaming a one-minute YouTube video. On WiFi, uploads have no impact on your data plan; off WiFi, expect a month's worth of uploads to use about 50–100 MB.
Daynamica uses your phone's GPS and other internal sensors to detect your location and movements during the day, and assembles this information to identify the type, location, and duration of your daily trips and activities. This data is uploaded to and stored on a secure server. When your study ends, the data is transferred to whoever was running it — usually a researcher or organization — and then deleted from our servers. We do not sell your data to anyone. See our Privacy Policy for more.
You can temporarily pause data collection from the 'Settings' menu. Some studies require a minimum number of active days for compensation, so check with your study coordinator before pausing for long periods. To stop permanently, tap 'End data collection' in Settings.
Start with three quick checks: (1) Ensure Location Permissions are set to 'Always Allow' with 'Precise Location' enabled so trips can be detected; (2) Verify 'Background App Refresh' is switched on and phone battery saver or low-power mode is off; (3) Connect to a stable Wi-Fi network overnight to permit automated nightly syncing. If trips still do not appear or syncing fails, notify your study coordinator first. If you need further help, feel free to contact us.
You can uninstall Daynamica the same way you uninstall any app. Uninstalling stops all data collection. To restart later for the same study, reinstall the app and sign back in with the same username so your data links together.