How Vicinity Works

A quick overview of what Vicinity does, how proximity detection works, and the privacy-first approach behind the app.

3 min read·Updated March 2025

Vicinity is a proximity-based social app — it tells you when friends are nearby without sharing anyone's exact location. Instead of a live map of your friends, you get a simple notification: someone you know is in your area.

The core idea

Most location-sharing apps give you a real-time pin of exactly where someone is standing. Vicinity works differently. It detects when you and a friend are within a certain radius of each other and sends a gentle notification to both of you. No exact coordinates are ever shared.

This means you can know that a friend is around — close enough to grab coffee or say hi — without either of you feeling tracked.

What Vicinity is not

Vicinity is not a real-time map. It will not show you a pin or a street address. It will not tell your friends where you've been. It does not record a history of your movements. The only thing it does is notify both parties when they're physically close.

How the friend system works

Proximity alerts are mutual — both people must be friends in the app for either of them to receive an alert. If you don't want someone to know you're nearby, simply don't add them as a friend, or remove them from your friends list.

Vicinity currently supports iOS. Android support is planned for a future release.

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