Relive App Review

The Relive app has grown leaps and bounds in popularity since its launch in 2017. We’ll explore how it works, what I’ve experienced as a Club member, and whether or not I think it’s worth the upgrade.

Updated August 4, 2019

About the Relive App

The Relive app creates 3D videos of your bike rides, runs, hikes, and snow sessions—like a “fly-over your route,” they advertise. Then, you can share these personal adventures with others, whether through social media or messaging.

The app also highlights different moments of each adventure, including pictures (and where you took them), distance, elevation gain, speed, and overall time.

Relive connects with several iOS and Android mobile devices, including third-party tracking apps and brand-specific programs. And except for Strava (more soon) you don’t need to switch between them during your activities—just record and go.

Furthermore, if you already track your rides, turning them into 3D adventures with the Relive app is completely free and only takes a few minutes.

But, is their paid Club membership necessarily worth the price? Based on my experience after more than a year, this is the central question I’ll help you answer here.

Let’s begin with the app’s functionality so that we can compare the differences between the two.

My Experience With How the Relive App Works

The idea for the Relive app initially occurred to co-founder Yousef El-Dardiry during a cycling trip to Tenerife. Soon after, he launched the company in April 2016, and their iOS and Android apps were released one year later.

Since that time, their website explains that they’ve garnered more than three million members, who have created more than 100 million personal video stories. How’s it work? We’ll take it step-by-step:

Step 1: Downloading & Using the Relive App

To begin, you’ll need to download the Relive app for your iOS or Android smartphone and then sign up for an account, whether using email, Facebook, or Google credentials. This is where you’ll record your adventures using GPS.

You can also track your adventures using a third-party app or device (more coming soon) like:

• Endomondo
• Garmin Connect
• Apple Health (Watch only)
• MapMyRun, MapMyWalk, MapMyHike
• Polar Flow
  

Finally, you can manually import .fit, .gpx, or .tcx files to the Relive website only (not through app).

Update: On July 11, 2019, the company sent an email to users and posted a letter on their website letting us know “you can no longer create Relive videos based on your Strava activities.”

Instead, you’ll now have to connect a third-party device (Garmin, Suunto, or Polar), record your activities directly in the app, or import files via the Relive website.

Step 2: Selecting Photos Taken During Rides

Previously, I had Relive’s app synced with Strava on my iPhone, so once I completed a ride, it automatically notified me that I had a pending video. They also sent me a reminder email.

However, this is no longer the case, since Strava isn’t supported. I’ve written a quick summary about what’s going on, which can help get you up to speed.

Regardless of how I get the data inside the the Relive app, I simply click the Create Your Video button to begin. At the top of the next screen, Relive automatically selects pictures—known as Moments—taken during my ride, although I can scroll farther down if I want to add images that aren’t pre-tagged. Either way, the app allows you to select or deselect images as you wish.

Pro tip: I haven’t figured out the exact distance yet, but inside the video, photos taken close to one another will be grouped together. In other words, if you snap one picture and then ride 100 feet and take another, they’ll appear side-by-side in your rendered video.

Step 3: Adding Emojis & Notes

After clicking the Next button in the upper right-hand corner, the Relive app creates a preview of my route, which is highlighted in gray and includes corresponding image locations.

At the bottom of the screen is an orange/yellow slider that allows users to scroll along with their finger, and a pulsing blue dot that displays the corresponding location.

Clicking on the + symbol allows me to add an emoji, a note about my ride (e.g., “Super fast and flowy!”), and additional photos I may have missed on the previous screen.

Step 4: Inviting Friends & Choosing Music

Clicking Next in the upper right-hand corner allows me to automatically search for friends during my ride (those who tracked the same GPS locations at the same time). This feature—known as Relive Together—allows me to add my friends’ routes and photos to my video.

If the app doesn’t locate friends, I can manually add them and also send an invite to connect in future activities via text, email, and several of the most popular social media platforms.

After friends, my Relive Club membership (more soon) allows me to select from a list of generic (but high-quality) sample loops related to a variety of moods, including Wonder, Fresh, Edgy, and Funky, to name just a few.

Step 5: Creating Videos

On the final screen, I can see an overview of everything already covered, including a map-based view of my route, ride name, images, friends tagged in the video, if my ride will be included in Relive Together, as well as options like place names and whether or not snow landscapes should display.

After pressing the Create button in the upper right-hand corner, Relive lets me know that my video will be ready soon (usually within five minutes or less). They’ll also send me an email.

Returning to my home screen also shows the pending activity, which appears faded until everything’s fully uploaded.

You’ll notice in the middle screenshot above, the Relive app also indicates, “You’re the first in line! As a Club member, you get your video faster.” Are there any other benefits?

We have one step remaining before covering these differences.

Step 6: Enjoying the Adventure

After a few minutes, my video is ready, which traces my route through a 3D landscape and displays pictures and my top speed along the way. At the end, it shows me total stats, including distance, elevation gain, time, and average speed. It’s also available as just my route.

Pro tip: Per Relive’s FAQ:

“Your average speed is the distance traveled divided by the time you were moving. Sounds simple, right? The catch is that there are a lot of different ways to calculate the moving time. Therefore, the average speed we show is not always the same as the one shown on your tracker.”

I can share my video or route directly to Facebook (including Messenger), Instagram, WhatsApp, and Twitter, as well as via Messages or email. Relive also allows me to copy my link, save the video to my phone, or even embed the video using HTML.

Finally, I can click on the star at the bottom of the page to add a video to my favorites list, or the trashcan icon to permanently delete it from my account.

Now, let’s discuss how all of this compares between Relive’s free version and their Club membership.

What’s the Difference Between Relive Club & Their Free App?

From a functionality perspective, Relive’s free and Club versions have many more features in common than otherwise, including 3D mapping, images, stats, and app and device compatibilities.

However, a Club membership ($10.99/mo, or $59.99 when paid for a year in advance) extends many of these features. Here are all of the differences:

Based on these details, do I think paying for a Relive Club membership returns a substantial level of value? We’ll answer this critical question as we wrap up in the next section.

My Final Thoughts About the Relive App

Between 21,000+ combined reviews on Google Play and iTunes and an average rating of about 4.6 stars, it seems that most users appreciate what the Relive app offers. It also earned Road.cc’s Cycling App of the Week back in May 2017 and after using it for well over a year, I’d have to agree that it’s a fun way to visualize rides.

On top of this, because the free version delivers all of the app’s core features, without requiring so much as a credit card, it’s difficult not to recommend at least downloading it and giving it a try during your next ride. And its uniqueness means there currently aren’t any alternatives.

Is a Club Membership Right For You?

Should you upgrade to a Club membership, though?

Ultimately, this is a question that only you can answer. However, I think that $59.99 per year when paid annually (which works out to about $5 per month) is a reasonable price for what you get—especially if you’re a map or data nerd (like me, admittedly). Plus, I feel good supporting the company’s hard work in my small way.

And because I mostly don’t take advantages of the upgrades that come with my paid membership, that’s just what it is: support.

After all, I only recently started adding music to my rides, I’m not impatient when it comes to downloads (even a free membership delivers videos in less than 5 minutes), I don’t notice a massive difference in quality between their SD and HD videos, and I’ve never edited a video post-creation.

I do appreciate that Relive’s app allows me to speed up videos to fit within Instagram’s length guidelines, though. However, in the future, I’d like to see the ability to enter a custom video length so that longer rides fit within some social media platform guidelines (e.g., Instagram).

The Bottom Line

Overall, I think Relive is a super fun app to play around with, especially for visualizing rides with lots of elevation changes and scenery. It’s also a great way to help friends and family understand where you ride and much of the hard work it takes.

With this said, it’s not necessarily something that’s going to boost your performance. And outside of supporting the company’s hard work, I remain on the fence regarding the level of value provided by a Club membership–especially now that Strava is no longer supported.

Sure, I can record directly in the app, but between it, Strava, and other apps I typically have open during rides, it’s just one more thing I’ll have running and draining my phone’s battery.

The only other–equally inconvenient–option is to export the bulk data to my computer, and then import the GPX file via Relive’s website.

For now, I’ll ride it out (no pun intended) and see how things go over the next couple of months, and then decide if I should continue paying.

But, what about you? Based on my experience and the overwhelmingly positive online feedback, at the very least, I think the Relive app is fun enough that it’s worth downloading from iTunes or Google Play. And it won’t cost you a penny.

Then, you can test it out for as long as you like before upgrading to a Club membership.

What do you think about Relive? Or, about Strava’s decision to pull their support for the app? Before heading out, be sure to leave a comment below and rate your experience with the app up top!

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