No app required. Families can follow the live heat and browse full results right in a web browser, with no account and nothing to install. Send them a link and they are done.
Two ways to watch
In a browser. Your team has a public web address. Anyone with the link sees the meet that is running now, updating as heats complete, and every past meet you have published. Works on a phone in the stands or a laptop at home.
In the app. Anyone can follow your team from the app's team search, without an account. Followed teams show up on their home screen with your results after each meet, and the live heat while a meet is running.
The browser is the better answer for a grandparent watching from three states away. The app is the better answer for a parent who follows the same team every week.
What they see live
While a meet is running, the current heat is shown as it fills in: the event, the lanes or places, and times as each result is confirmed.
The live view is deliberately a read-only window onto the heat that is happening now. Spectators cannot change anything, and nothing they do affects the crew's devices.
Results appear as the record keeper confirms them, not the instant a finger hits a screen. That gap is intentional. A time that is still being reconciled between devices is not something you want a parent screenshotting.
What they see afterward
Once a meet is finished and published, it stays at a stable web address: full results, heat by heat, with places and times. Old links do not rot, so a result you shared in April still resolves in October.
Sharing the link
Your team's public page is the thing to share. It is the entry point to every meet you publish, so you share it once at the start of the season rather than posting a fresh link every week.
You can find and copy it from the app under your team's settings.
Athlete names and privacy
Public surfaces show initials by default, not full names. This is a deliberate default for a product that times children's meets.
Full names are still used where they belong, including your own results exports, because the privacy transform is applied at the point results are published rather than by discarding the underlying data.
Common questions
Do spectators count against my device limit? No. The device limit counts crew devices joined to the meet session. Viewers are unlimited.
Can a spectator see a meet before it starts? They see it listed as upcoming, with the date. Heat detail appears when the meet goes live.
Do they need to refresh? No. The live view updates on its own.
What if we do not want a meet public? Publishing is your choice per meet. An unpublished meet is not on your public page.
Did this answer your question? If something here is wrong, missing, or out of date, tell us at support@finishlinetimer.com and we’ll fix it.