APRS Connect is free over APRS-IS. Here is what Pro pays for.
APRS Connect is free to install and use over APRS-IS. APRS Connect Pro costs $3.99 a month or $29.99 a year, billed through Google Play, with a 7-day free trial where Google Play is offering one.
This post is for anyone who saw the app's first announcement and wondered what the price was attached to, and for anyone who has just installed it and met the Pro screen at the end of setup. It lists what the app does without paying, exactly what Pro switches on, what happens when a trial or subscription ends, how to get Pro back on a new phone, and where the Pro screen is. The app is on Google Play for Android; the iOS build is with Apple for review, and there is no listing to install from yet.
What the app does without Pro
Everything that runs over the internet backbone, and everything built on top of it, is free. A fresh install already has an APRS-IS channel on the Radio screen, and once your callsign is set it connects on its own. See Connect to APRS-IS.
The free side includes:
- Messaging: threads, delivery states, acks, retries, bulletins, blocking and archiving. The Retry button on a failed message is free.
- Nets and groups: ANSRVR rooms such as #APRSThursday.
- Every service screen: APRS OTA, WHO-IS, the SMS and email gateways, QRX, WXNOW and the rest of the directory, including editing, exporting and importing it.
- The map: the vector basemap, real APRS symbols, trails, objects, follow mode, digipeater paths, and the tile cache that keeps what you have looked at for offline use.
- Stations and the packet log: every station heard, device identification, weather and telemetry history, the raw feed, packet inspection, the log's retention windows, and exporting the log as a capture file.
- The station beacon: smart beaconing or a fixed interval, symbol, comment, path, position ambiguity, Mic-E, and beaconing in the background.
- Backup and restore: exporting and importing the JSON backup.
- Emergency beaconing.
Listening needs no licence, so the free side also lets you watch APRS traffic before you are licensed. Transmitting does need one.
What APRS Connect Pro adds
Pro switches on seven features. The list is stated in the app on the Pro screen and beside each feature it applies to, and it can change between versions. More Pro features are planned, and nothing is sold on what is not yet in the app.
| Pro feature | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Radio channels | Bluetooth KISS, Bluetooth LE, USB serial, the audio modem, and KISS over TCP. Every channel type other than APRS-IS. |
| Offline map downloads | Downloading, importing and drawing whole regions. The tile cache filled by looking at the map stays in use with or without Pro. |
| The weather radar layer | The radar layer on the map. |
| Track export | A station's trail as GPX or KML. |
| Extra beacon profiles | Beacons beyond the station beacon: a second SSID, a fixed object, a vehicle with its own settings. |
| Capture replay and import | Playing a capture file back through the app, or filing it into the log. |
| Retry when heard | A failed message waits for its station to be heard again and then tries once more, up to three times over two weeks, with a Waiting to be heard screen listing every message that is waiting. |
Everything not in that table is free.
What it costs, and what the money is for
$3.99 a month or $29.99 a year, billed through Google Play. The 7-day trial is Google Play's: you start it from the Pro screen, it turns into the paid plan when it ends unless you cancel in Google Play first, and it is offered once per Google account. Cancelling, changing plan and refunds all happen in Google Play.
The subscription pays for the work of building and maintaining a paid product, and for the support behind it. That is what the money is for.
The Pro screen from Settings lists what Pro adds above the two plans; the back button leaves it with nothing bought.
When a trial or subscription ends
Nothing is deleted and nothing goes off the air. APRS-IS stays connected, the station beacon keeps running, and messages, the map and the packet log carry on. What changes is that the Pro features switch off:
- A radio channel stops being brought up, and its row says why.
- An extra beacon stops transmitting, and its row says why.
- The radar row, track export, capture replay and offline downloads each show the Pro notice instead of doing their job.
- Downloaded regions stay on the phone but are not drawn; the map draws from its tile cache and the online basemap instead.
- A failed message already waiting for its station keeps its watch until it is used up or lapses. New failures are no longer offered one.
Your radio channels, beacon profiles and downloaded regions come back the moment Pro does. If a payment failed rather than a cancellation, update the payment method in Google Play first; the app reads the subscription back from Google Play on every launch.
Restoring Pro on a new phone
Settings → Subscription → Restore a purchase asks Google Play for a subscription bought on the same Google account. A backup does not carry the subscription; Google Play does.
Where the Pro screen is
- Settings → Subscription → See plans.
- The last step of first-run setup, where the offer appears with a "Without Pro" row beside the plans. Nothing is bought unless you pick a plan.
- From any locked feature: a radio channel row, the Add channel sheet, the radar row in the map's layers panel, the Export track screen, Add beacon, the capture section of the Packet log settings, the download and import actions on the Offline maps screen, and Retry when heard in a failed message's long-press menu.
Where to read more
The seven features in the table above need Pro; everything else in the app is free.
