If I'm route finding/following, then my dedicated Garmin GPS does the job.

Waze I use mainly for traffic conditions and situation updates. Common usage: driving along and traffic is stopped, WTF. Pull up Waze, see the traffic, move it up the route and see that there's an accident/debris/police activity. Because it's crowd sourced, some commentary can tell you which lanes are affected. The custom voices are fun..there's been C3PO/R2DR and Grand Tour hosts, Clarkson, May and Hammond.

another feature that's hidden in the settings is speed alert. It will tell you if you're over the limit. You can set it for right at the limit, or things like five or ten percent over.

I have been using it for a number of years.

If you are traveling interstates it is great at directing you around traffic jams from accidents.

The number of alerts from cars on the shoulder does get old.

On country roads I have found the speed limit notification to be inaccurate.

As others have said you need to plug your phone in because it eats a battery.

If you have an iphone and use carplay it does not work on car system. Per news releases it will work on carplay with ios 12 this fall.

My son downloaded Waze, and we used it on our trip back from OKC to Ohio about 3 weeks ago.

Likes:

The routes it sent us on were pretty good.
Police notifications were pretty cool.
It tells you what the speed limit is, so if you're on a road and not sure of the speed limit, it let's you know.

Dislikes: the constant notifications of potholes, debris and broken down cars. After driving for almost 16 hours I was ready to have that removed.

All in all, if there is a way to remove the notifications, I would use the app again. As far as Apple play, I have no idea what that is as I'm an Android user.

quote:

Originally posted by Vanwall:As others have said you need to plug your phone in because it eats a battery.

Another thing it eats is data so, unless you have an unlimited data plan, be careful you don't go over your maximum allotment. Overage costs a lot, Verizon wants $15/GB.

quote:

Originally posted by Cycler:

quote:

Originally posted by Vanwall:As others have said you need to plug your phone in because it eats a battery.

Another thing it eats is data so, unless you have an unlimited data plan, be careful you don't go over your maximum allotment. Overage costs a lot, Verizon wants $15/GB.

I haven't found that to be the case WRT data - I have a 10GB plan and the only time we go over is when my son streams video without switching to Wifi.

And honestly the notifications are great and I never say them as annoying, but maybe I have a setting changed. They show up, you confirm they are there or delete them.

It's supposed to be a collaborative effort.

I have been a Wazer for a LONG time now. It's a great app, if you learn it. It barely uses any data, so don't worry about that unless you have a tiny data plan.

I use it when I'm in and around the city. Worked pretty well in the past but these days everything is in perpetual gridlock that apps like Waze are more or less made impotent.

I've been using waze since it came out. It was great in the beginning, but I have noticed in the last 3 -6 months it's gotten really slow, painfully slow, to initialize, and 50% of the time when I start using it in the morning it says "cannot find route." I also hate how lately it's been sending me all around town to save a minute or two in a traffic jam. Around Baltimore, where you drive could be the difference between life and death.

I'm almost ready to make the switch to google maps but the cop notification keeps me with waze.

I’ve been Waze Royalty for years.

The trick is to use it instead if letting it use you.

-Rob

How well it works and how annoying it is, also depends on where you live. Around here there's tons of users, it works great.

I used it on rural highways in Maine and it drove me nuts, all the stupid alerts. I can only guess it was from really bored passengers entering everything they could. And a lack of other users to feed it info to get rid of them (like when the deer walked away ).

Waze needs user input to work. For most of the years I used it, I would never "thank" anyone for an alert. I thought it was silly. But it's the systems way of confirming that it's still there. Working in conjunction with the "not there" button, that people can be hesitant to hit because they're not sure it wasn't there and they just didn't see it. (like cops in the bushes)

yes, I use it and like it. I DO carry a charger in the car to keep my battery topped off.

Made my phone hot, eats battery, and I don't think it let you choose alternate routes. Google maps for me.

I tried it a few years ago, but didn't like it.

About 6 weeks ago, 3 of us were driving from various parts of Houston to an 8 AM meeting in the Golden Triangle:

I was using Google maps, and the MFers building a bridge over I-10 (i.e. the interstate that goes from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean) shutdown traffic during rush hour to set a bridge beam. I was in the section where there were no exits for approx 15 miles and I sat there in park on I-10 for 30 minutes. I would've been 15 minutes early for my meeting but instead was 30 minutes late. I had zero warning from Google about the interstate shutdown.

Coworker B was a few minutes behind me and using Waze. He received an alert for I-10 and Waze rerouted him to a 55 mph farm to market road, and he arrived 5 minutes late for the meeting.

Coworker C was a few minutes behing Coworker B, and he was using Apple Maps. Apple Maps notified him of the I-10 0 mph traffic and it rerouted him to the same farm to market road as coworker B. He was 10 minutes late (I suspect he was going to be late even without the I-10 traffic stoppage).

I've used Waze 90% of the time since then and I like it for the most part. I don't think it accounts as well as Google Maps for stop signs and stop lights when it redirects you. The police and stopped vehicle are helpful.

I've used it for about 3 years.

Every day. I have a 45 mile commute to and from work and it has saved me numerous times. We also regularly travel a stretch of I-75 that sometimes gets completely bogged down. I use it whenever I go pretty much anywhere, unless I am just running into town to pick up a few things.

The police and traffic alerts are why - it has saved me many dollars and countless hours of sitting in traffic jams.

It's ability to warn of traffic cams is very usable. Last year, I got a letter from the City of Chicago that I had violated their speed laws on camera. The letter was a friendly warning not to do it again, no fines. This year, WAZE warned me of every camera and no nastygrams were received from Rahm.

I have it, but find myself using it less and less and using Google Maps more and more. It can be useful, but also incredibly annoying as you're drying to drive as it can get *too* helpful.

My wife has it on her phone and set to use Mr. T’s voice. “Left turn fool!”

To add to what I already said about Waze:

I've tried to "beat" it a few times using my knowledge of local roads and geography. I have yet to be successful.

My chief complaint centers around the fact that it doesn't always tell you WHY it's rerouting you. You just have to trust the app.

We use it all the time. Grandson plays travel soccer so all you have to do is type in the address to the field and it will talk you right to it. It will get you lost once in a while but that rarely happens. It also works when you are just driving from point A to point B routing you around traffic jams. And it's free!