GENTLE RIDE

Help & support

Gentle Ride is an iPhone app that coaches you to drive more smoothly, so your passengers ride more comfortably. It listens to your phone's motion sensors and gives a gentle alert when braking, acceleration or a lift-off jolt gets abrupt. It reads only the car's speed from GPS, never where you are. No account and no connection to your car.

Driving safely

Set it up before you drive. Don't touch the phone while the car is moving: let a passenger do it, or wait until you're parked.
Never text, read or use your phone while driving.
Keep your eyes on the road and stay aware of your surroundings. Alerts are a gentle nudge, never a reason to look at the screen.
Always brake as hard as the road needs. Gentle Ride stays quiet during very hard braking.
For the best results, put the phone where it can't slide around or block your view, airbags or controls.
Follow your local laws about phones in cars.
Gentle Ride is a coaching aid. You're always responsible for driving safely.

How to use it

Place the phone. Lay it on your car's wireless charging pad, pushed fully into the slot, or use a firm dash mount. Any orientation works: flat, upright, portrait or landscape.
Tap Start. The first time, allow location when asked: Gentle Ride reads only the car's speed from it. The screen stays on while it's monitoring.
Drive normally. The dashboard says GETTING READY at first. Your first turn, or pulling away from a stop, shows Gentle Ride which way the car faces. After that it monitors on its own and remembers the direction for next time.
Tap Stop when you arrive. You'll see a smoothness score out of 100 and a timeline of events. Past trips are in Trip History.

What the alerts mean

Every sound works like a parking radar: silent while you drive smoothly. As braking or acceleration gets more abrupt it starts repeating, then faster, louder and higher. Ease off until it goes quiet.
Pick the sound in Settings → Alerts: radar ticks (the default), a soft beep, chime, ukulele strum, or a voice saying "Easy now".
Screen flash: RED for abrupt braking, abrupt acceleration and lift-off jolts; AMBER for jerky changes, on/off pedal pumping and stop-and-go sway. You can turn it off.
Stop-and-go sway: in bumper-to-bumper traffic, the go / lift-off / regen rhythm rocks passengers slowly forward and back. That slow sway is one of the strongest causes of carsickness, even when no single moment is abrupt. When it keeps rocking back and forth (several times within half a minute; a single stop doesn't count), Gentle Ride plays your sound once (at most once a minute). Leave a bigger gap and roll at a steady crawl instead of going and stopping; in an EV, ease off the pedal gradually so the regen fades in.

Gentle Ride looks for abrupt braking, sudden "lift-off" slowing in electric cars with regenerative braking, jerky changes, heavy acceleration, speeding up and slowing down over and over, and the slow sway of stop-and-go traffic.

Tips

Silent switch: alerts play even with the silent switch on, mixed in with your music and navigation.
Volume: alerts follow your phone's volume, so turn it up with the side buttons. Use Play sample in Settings to check the level. Music and navigation keep playing.
Vent mounts vibrate. Clips on air vents bounce over every bump, which adds noise. The charging pad or a firm dash mount works much better.
Grippy case: on a charging pad, a slick case can let the phone slide or spin. If it just tips a little, Gentle Ride adjusts and carries on; if it moves more, it re-learns the direction automatically (no readings for that minute or so).
Too many or too few alerts? Under Settings → How strict? choose Regular or Strict. Strict suits very sensitive passengers.
Use other apps: switch to maps or music, or lock the phone. The drive keeps being measured until you tap Stop.

Questions

Why didn't it beep?

Very hard braking never sounds. That's on purpose: in an emergency you should brake as hard as you need without a distraction, so the screen just turns solid red for a second. (If you build up to it over a second or more, you may hear one alert on the way.) It lowers your score like abrupt braking does.
It may still be getting ready. Alerts start after it has learned which way the car faces.
Normal driving is meant to stay quiet. Try Strict if you want alerts sooner.
Check the volume and that Sound isn't set to "No sound".
If the phone is shaking a lot, jolt alerts pause until it settles. A firmer mount helps.

Why does it say "Getting ready"?

Gentle Ride works out which way is forward from how the car moves, so you can put the phone in any position. It needs one turn or one pull-away from a stop. Just keep driving normally. It remembers the direction for next time and keeps checking it, so if you move the phone it re-learns on its own.

Why does the screen stay on? What about battery?

Gentle Ride keeps the screen on while it's monitoring, so you can see the live readout at a glance. That uses more battery, so charge while you drive: the wireless pad or a cable is ideal. The screen can lock normally again once you tap Stop. You can also lock the screen yourself; the drive keeps being measured.

Does it work in the background?

Yes, during a trip. Switch to maps or music, or lock the phone, and the drive keeps being measured until you tap Stop. iPhone shows its location indicator while a trip is running. Nothing runs in the background when no trip is on.

Does it use GPS, the internet or my car's data?

It measures with the phone's motion sensors. It also reads the car's speed from GPS (so gentle slowing for speed bumps and parking counts less, and so a drive keeps going when you switch apps), which is why it needs location permission: a trip won't start without it. It never records or shares where you are. It doesn't need an internet connection, doesn't connect to your car, and you don't need an account.

What about my privacy?

Gentle Ride doesn't collect any data. Your trips stay on your phone, and a trip only leaves the phone if you tap Share and send it somewhere. It never records your location (it reads only the car's speed). Read the full privacy policy.

How do I delete trips?

Open Trip History and swipe left on a trip. Deleting the app removes everything.

What does the score mean?

The smoothness score (0–100) goes down for abrupt moments: hardly at all for a jolt just over the line (like slowing for a speed bump), more for a big one. After 3 minutes of driving with nothing charged, the next abrupt moment costs half, so one slip in a smooth drive weighs less; the next one after it costs in full. Keep driving smoothly and it climbs back toward 100, but the higher it is, the slower it climbs: per minute of smooth driving it gains 9 points below 60, 6 in the 60s, 3 in the 70s, 1½ in the 80s, ¾ from 90 to 95 and about ½ from 96 up (a bit slower on Strict), up to half of what each moment cost: the other half stays. On drives longer than 10 minutes of moving, the score is also a rate per 10 minutes of driving, so the longer you drive, the less a bad moment weighs. Time parked doesn't count: after 2 minutes stopped, the trip's clock pauses and Gentle Ride asks whether to stop the trip. Stop-and-go sway costs a little for every moment it goes on, more the stronger it is. A stop's sudden start and its braking count as one moment. The trip's score is where it ends. It's judged at the alert level you pick: the same drive scores lower on Strict than on Regular. After each trip you get a short note and tips on what to work on. It's a habit tracker to help you see progress. It isn't a medical measure, and it can't tell how any particular passenger will feel.

Which cars does it work with?

Any car. It's especially handy in electric cars with strong regenerative braking, where lifting off the pedal too quickly can jolt passengers.

Can I try it without driving?

Yes. The app's "Try a demo drive" button plays a simulated city drive, seen from the driver's seat, so you can hear the alerts and see a trip summary.

Contact

Found a bug or have an idea? Email support@gentleride.app. It helps to include your iPhone model, iOS version and what happened. If a trip went wrong, you can attach its file from the trip's Share button.