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Set up Roamkeep for your family

One person sets up your family's server, from their phone, in about five minutes. Everyone else installs the app and taps an invite.

Before you start

  • An Android phone for everyone who will share their location.
  • An email address for a free Supabase account. Supabase is the company that runs your family's database for you, on your own account. We never see it.
  • About five minutes, most of it waiting while the server is made.

1. Set up your family's server

Whoever sets it up becomes the first owner of your family's Keep.

  1. Install Roamkeep

    From Google Play. Open it and tap Set up a new family.

  2. Create a free Supabase account

    The app opens Supabase's sign-up page. If you already have an account, tap I have an account.

  3. Give Roamkeep a temporary key

    On Supabase's token page, generate a new token. Name it Roamkeep and pick the shortest expiry. Set Resource access to Organization and select yours, and Permissions to Full access. Then Review access, generate it, and copy it into the app. It is used only on your phone, only to talk to Supabase, and it is never saved.

    Only just signed up? Supabase asks you to create an organization first. Any name will do, on the free plan.

  4. Choose where your data lives

    Roamkeep suggests the region nearest you. Tap Create the family server and keep the app open for about three minutes while it's built.

  5. Delete the key

    Roamkeep has already forgotten it. Delete it in Supabase too, so it can never be used again. The app takes you to the page.

  6. Create your account and your Keep

    Sign up with your email and a password, give your family a name, and you are its owner.

  7. Allow location "all the time"

    Roamkeep explains why before Android asks. Without it, and without turning off battery optimisation for Roamkeep, arrivals and departures can't be noticed while the app is closed.

2. Invite your family

In the app, tap the share button at the top to send an invite to each person, or show the invite's QR code to someone in the same room. The invite opens Roamkeep on their phone, connects it to your family's server and fills in the family code.

You approve each new member. When someone joins, you get a notification and they wait at the top of the Family tab until you let them in. Until then they can't see anyone.

New accounts can be made for 7 days after setup, and then the door closes by itself. When someone new joins later, open it again in Settings → New accounts.

3. Add your first place

In the Places tab, tap Add place at my location and name it Home. Walk out of it and back to see an arrival come through.

Joining someone else's family?

  1. Install Roamkeep

    From Google Play.

  2. Open the invite

    Tap the link you were sent, or scan the QR code from the app's first screen. If you installed the app after tapping the link, tap Paste invite link.

  3. Create your account and join

    Your family's owner approves you, and then you are in.

Good to know

  • Supabase pauses free projects that nobody uses for a week. A family using Roamkeep every day keeps it awake.
  • A free Supabase account can have two active projects.
  • Prefer a computer? A desktop setup tool does the same job, and the owner guide walks through it.