Software licenses and subscriptions

You can purchase Origin software licenses as a perpetual license that is licensed to the controller or as a subscription license that is assigned to an individual user. Licenses are required for the General Survey app as well as for each Origin app you want to use.

You can view the licenses installed to the controller and the subscription licenses assigned to the signed in user at any time in the About screen of the Origin software. For more information, see Viewing current license information.

If you don't have a current license or subscription you can still try out the software. You can use Spectra Geospatial Installation Manager to create a limited temporary license for Origin and then install Origin 2025.10 onto any Windows 10 computer or a supported Spectra Geospatial controller running Android. For more information, see Installing a temporary license.

To install Origin 2025.10 onto a supported controller that has a perpetual license, the controller must have a Origin Software Maintenance Agreement valid up to 1 April 2025. To extend your Origin Software Maintenance Agreement, contact your Trimble Distributor.

A valid Origin Software Maintenance Agreement allows a user that has a perpetual license to install new versions of the software. It also provides access to features that use web services when connected to the internet, including:

  • Cloud data synchronization

  • Trimble Maps

  • IBSS

Relinquishing software licenses from a controller you no longer want to use

The Origin License Relinquish & Transfer program is designed for customers who wish to retire their existing controllers and transition to new hardware by leveraging their investment in existing software.

Run Spectra Geospatial Installation Manager on the controller you want to relinquish the license from, and select Origin in the product bar. If the Relinquish licenses tab is available in Spectra Geospatial Installation Manager, you can remove the software licenses from the connected device so that they can be transferred to a new device.

Select the Relinquish licenses tab and tap Relinquish to return the licenses to Trimble. Contact your distributor providing the serial number of the controller you relinquished the licenses from and the serial number of the controller you would like the licenses assigned to. Once your distributor has reassigned the licenses to your new controller, you can install Origin to the new controller using Spectra Geospatial Installation Manager.

Spectra Geospatial controllers you can relinquish licenses from include:

  • Spectra Geospatial Ranger 5 or Ranger 7 data collector
  • Spectra Geospatial MobileMapper 6 or MobileMapper 60 handheld
  • Spectra Geospatial FOCUS controller
  • Spectra Geospatial ST10 or ST100 tablet

To relinquish a license from a controller, the controller must have a current software maintenance agreement. For more information, contact your Spectra Geospatial Distributor.

If you are using a Origin subscription rather than a perpetual license, you can install Origin 2025.10 onto any supported controller. A valid subscription provides access to features that use web services when connected to the internet.

To use the software subscription:

  1. The License Administrator in your organization must assign a subscription to you using the License Manager webapp. For more information, see the License Manager Help.

  2. The first time you start the Origin software, you must sign in using your Trimble ID to download your Origin subscription license to the controller. Otherwise you are prompted to sign in only if you have previously signed out.

    Subscriptions are locked to that controller until you sign out. Once signed out, you can run Origin on a different controller and sign in to lock the subscription to that controller and use the software.

    Origin provides options to help manage your subscription. For example, if you always use the same controller you can keep your subscription locked to the controller. Alternatively, you can choose to release the subscription if you typically do not always use the same controller and want to be able to sign in on another one. For more information, see Options for releasing your subscription in Signing in and signing out .

To use some features of the Origin software, additional subscription licenses are required, whether you are using a Origin subscription or perpetual license.

Additional subscription licenses are not shown in Spectra Geospatial Installation Manager because they are user-based subscriptions and do not require installation of any components using Spectra Geospatial Installation Manager.

Trimble Connect Business subscription licenses

To synchronize Origin field data with the cloud, the signed in user must have a Trimble Connect license. If you are using a controller with a perpetual license, then the controller must have a current Origin Software Maintenance Agreement.

To synchronize data, Trimble recommends that all users have a Trimble Connect Business subscription because it allows users to create more projects and synchronize data with more projects than a Trimble Connect Personal subscription. Origin users can obtain a Trimble Connect Business subscription at no cost in the following ways:

  • Trimble Connect Business subscriptions are automatically included with Origin subscriptions. For those users no further action is needed.

  • For Origin perpetual license users, a Trimble Connect Business subscription is available with each current Software Maintenance Agreement. However, your organization's License Administrator must assign the Trimble Connect Business subscription to the specific user using the License Manager web app. Until the Trimble Connect Business subscription is assigned to the user, then that user will have a Trimble Connect Personal subscription and can create or synchronize data only to a limited number of projects.

    To assign Trimble Connect Business subscription licenses to users in your organization, sign in to the License Manager web app as a License Administrator. For more information, see the License Manager Help.

For more information about the different types of Trimble Connect licenses, see Understanding Connect Licensing in the Trimble Connect Knowledge Center.