Trapster vs. Waze, or Both?

 

I've been wondering what peoples' experiences have been with Trapster and/or Waze, and the pros/cons of one compared to the other. In my non-scientific "tests", I have found them both to be useful sometimes, and both to be useless sometimes.

My main uses so far have been for speed traps, traffic, RLC. Based on posts here at POI I have found Inrix to be the best for traffic conditions, but it is "dumb" when it comes to active speed traps. I will often check Inrix before starting a journey, but once the journey is started I like running Trapster and Waze for localized alerts of what's in the near-distance ahead.

Are there geographic regions or metropolitan areas where one is favored and the other forgotten? etc.

PS: I still use my Garmin Nuvi most of the time as my general paperless map and for directions, but it too is "dumb" when it comes to active speed traps (I have plenty of POI's for speed traps in my Nuvi, but they are the functional equivalent of "Known Enforcement Point" in Trapster or Waze (forget which)). And as we all know, Garmin's FM-based traffic leaves a lot to be desired. Sometimes I don't have the time to play "Garmin Traffic Roulette".

Trapster

perpster wrote:

I've been wondering what peoples' experiences have been with Trapster and/or Waze, and the pros/cons of one compared to the other. In my non-scientific "tests", I have found them both to be useful sometimes, and both to be useless sometimes.

My main uses so far have been for speed traps, traffic, RLC. Based on posts here at POI I have found Inrix to be the best for traffic conditions, but it is "dumb" when it comes to active speed traps. I will often check Inrix before starting a journey, but once the journey is started I like running Trapster and Waze for localized alerts of what's in the near-distance ahead.

Are there geographic regions or metropolitan areas where one is favored and the other forgotten? etc.

PS: I still use my Garmin Nuvi most of the time as my general paperless map and for directions, but it too is "dumb" when it comes to active speed traps (I have plenty of POI's for speed traps in my Nuvi, but they are the functional equivalent of "Known Enforcement Point" in Trapster or Waze (forget which)). And as we all know, Garmin's FM-based traffic leaves a lot to be desired. Sometimes I don't have the time to play "Garmin Traffic Roulette".

I installed Trapster on my Garmin 2350LMT, I did remove it after a period of time, the program did give some useful information, but when traveling on an interstate and highways, the emergency access road between the highways which are used by authorized vehicles only, I was getting so many alerts at these locations that it became annoying and no police ever spotted. I prefer the RLC/Speed camera file on the GPS and a radar detector when traveling.

My 2 cents

I am an old fashioned guy. I use the 2595 with Trapster on it that I update before a trip, and my Beltronics RX-65. I want to keep my phone for calls, and emergencies, not tied up with other programs running wasting my battery.
Trapster has saved me quite a few times, but it does alert alot for nothing sometimes too. Dont plan on changing.

Installed on Garmin?

How does one install Trapster on a Garmin GPSr? Not that I would given the replies, but am wondering how it is possible.

Trapster install

perpster wrote:

How does one install Trapster on a Garmin GPSr? Not that I would given the replies, but am wondering how it is possible.

Create an account with the Trapster website, the website has detailed install instructions, I use the Garmin POI Loader to install Trapster.

both? but waze preferred

Waze sometimes proves more useful because people fill in alerts all the time. The ones on Trapster are sometimes quite dated and less reliable. I know police spots that were accurate at a point on Trapster but the police stopped staying in those places (after severe budget cuts) some three or four years back. Those are still listed on Trapster.

Waze, Valentine One

I tried INRX for a while, but dumped it. I like Waze for current, local traffic conditions.

For speed traps, the Valentine One in addition to driving carefully and maintaining situational awareness seems to work.

(Over the weekend on a local freeway, sharks with lasers! Oh my!)

--
Nuvi 2460, 680, DATUM Tymserve 2100, Trimble Thunderbolt, Ham radio, Macintosh, Linux, Windows

For traffic info, I like

For traffic info, I like Google Maps, pretty current and accurate, especially showing small local streets. For red lights and speed traps, I depend on our POI Factory files here. Waze is ok, more useful than Trapster, IMO.

Tried Waze, prefer Garmin

I tried to like Waze, but in the Washington DC Metro area, it was information overload. Too many other Wazers, too many warnings. (More "car on the shoulder" warnings than you can imaging; Wazers trying to build up their points total). I couldn't manage to get the program to understand my voice commands, probably related to the vehicle noise, the phone (Rezound) and operator ignorance. Not as concerned about speed traps operated by a live police officer (I don't speed), but want to know where those damnable cameras are. Garmin wins!

Trapster and Garmin's Traffic Alerts

I have a Garmin Nuvi 265WT. Although I haven't been using Trapster's POI data that long, it seems like it should work well - at least for me. I downloaded Trapster's known police speed traps and red-light camera locations (as well as the speed-camera locations, even though the nearest ones are out of state) and used POI Loader and sox.exe to create my own proximity alerts. Since you can edit your POI data, you can delete the known locations once you learn where they are if you drive by them often and if the audible alerts are getting on your nerves. As for live data, the only experience I've had is with Garmin's traffic alerts. I usually just suffer through the traffic because I haven't been confident enough with Garmin to let it choose an alternate route.