Getting started

Five minutes, most of it plugging in a cable.

How the pieces fit together

How the timing system, the bridge and the app fit together

The timing system already broadcasts the round to the field. A bridge — a small ESP32 board on a USB lead — reads that output and republishes it over Bluetooth, which is what your phone understands.

One bridge is plugged into the timing PC. Any others are simply switched on: they find each other with no configuration and pass the signal down the field, so a single timing system can cover ground no one radio would reach.

1. Connect the bridge

Plug the bridge into the machine running Gliderscore or F3XVault, using the port the timing system sends its output to. Its LED tells you where you stand:

Colour	Meaning
Red	no data arriving from the timing system
Amber	data arriving, no phone connected yet
Green	data arriving and a phone is connected
Blue tint	this bridge is relaying another's signal

Red usually means the timing system is not sending on that port, or is sending at a different speed. Amber means the bridge is working and is waiting for you.

2. Open the app

There is nothing to pair and nothing to choose. The app scans on its own and attaches to the nearest bridge, and the round, group and task appear at the top of the timer screen.

If they do not, check that Bluetooth is on and that FxTimer has permission to use it. The app keeps scanning, so a bridge switched on later is picked up without restarting anything.

3. Fly the round

Start and stop with either volume key, or by tapping the screen.

The display is red while flying is not allowed and green during the working window. Each flight is added to the list as you take it, and the score for the round is worked out as you go.

A flight being timed: the stopwatch running, then stopped, and the time appearing in the list with the round's score updating — Stopping a flight. It joins the list, and the round's score follows it.

At the end of the working window the app sounds a cue, so the window can end while you are watching the model rather than the phone.

4. Save the round

Finish round stores the times together with the round, group, task and date. Saved rounds can be looked at later, and exported.

A saved round showing its times, which of them count, the raw score, and the scorecard section for entering them — A finished round, with the flights that count marked and the score worked out.

5. Enter your scores

Scan the QR code on your scorecard — this is needed once per event, not once per round.

Then, from a saved round, choose Export. The app opens your own self-entry page on Gliderscore or F3XVault and fills in the times that count for the task, in whichever form that site uses.

Scanning the QR code on a scorecard, then the F3XVault self-entry page opening inside the app with its minute, second and tenth boxes filled in — Scanning the scorecard, then F3XVault filling itself.

Scanning the QR code on a printed scorecard, then the Gliderscore entry page opening inside the app with its time fields filled in — The same on Gliderscore, from the printed card.

Check the page, then press the site's own Submit or Save this flight. The app never submits for you.

On Gliderscore the entry page is reached by pressing Enter on the overview; the app fills the form once you are there. If the page is showing a different round from the one you flew, nothing is filled and the app tells you which round it is looking at.

Flying without a timing system

Tap the round and group line above the stopwatch to set them by hand, and pick the task from the list. Everything else — the rules, the scoring, saving and exporting — works exactly as it does with a bridge.

For a working window of your own, turn on Training mode in Settings.

Stuck? Support has the common questions, or write to feedback@fxtimer.com.