Interesting (Waze traffic)

 

Waze saved us a lot of time last night due to police closing down a major road (rt 22 near Newark Airport). Garmin was solid green. I think like it or not Garmin is becoming slowly obsolete.

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Not Garmin

That's not Garmin's fault. That's the traffic provider's fault. Depending on where you live, the provider is either pretty darn accurate, moderately accurate, or not very accurate at all. In the Los Angeles area, I find it to be pretty accurate most of the time. In San Diego, about the same. In San Diego, I find Waze to be inaccurate most of the time. I haven't used it in L.A. I actually uninstalled it due to the inaccuracies in San Diego.

Interesting ...

I've given up on using the Garmin traffic reporting. I've traveled in a lot of different places and it has almost never given me useful information. Waze, on the other hand, has been totally accurate. As to it not being Garmin's fault, it's what they provide with the unit. They do have a choice ...

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Nuvi 2460

still interesting

tomkk wrote:

I've given up on using the Garmin traffic reporting. I've traveled in a lot of different places and it has almost never given me useful information. Waze, on the other hand, has been totally accurate. As to it not being Garmin's fault, it's what they provide with the unit. They do have a choice ...

I've had the same experience. My wife's car came with XM traffic and it was always dead on, with the Garmin happily displaying a solid green.

It's fascinating how when people like a product, they say, "it's not Garmin's fault." OK, just reporting what I've experienced.

I too have found WAZE to be totally accurate in NYC, Phila., DC, and Boston. And when a free app saves you potentially 30-60 min., it's interesting.

Because the one that I describe happened quickly, and waze rerouted us in a manner that even my wife's cousin would not have thought of, having lived in the area for 25 years (it had us exit rt 22 and jump on the parkway south one exit higher--but we could see the massive backup when we rerouted).

Same Here

tomkk wrote:

I've given up on using the Garmin traffic reporting. I've traveled in a lot of different places and it has almost never given me useful information. Waze, on the other hand, has been totally accurate. As to it not being Garmin's fault, it's what they provide with the unit. They do have a choice ...

I gave up on it awhile back too. I too am in the NYC area and even when traveling, I find Waze to be more up to date with accurate info than the Garmin.

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Garmin: GPSIII / StreetPilot / StreetPilot Color Map / StreetPilot III / StreetPilot 2610 / GPSMAP 60CSx / Nuvi 770 / Nuvi 765T / Nuvi 3490LMT / Drivesmart 55 / GPSMAP 66st * Pioneer: AVIC-80 / N3 / X950BH / W8600NEX

Waze question

I've had the Waze app for quite a while. But haven't used it much.

I have a question. How much data would Waze use if I left it on, tracking my progress for 1,000 mile trip?

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Garmin 205, 260W, 1450LMT, 2460LMT, HEREwego for iPhone ... all still mapping strong.

My last trip

cbwatts wrote:

I've had the Waze app for quite a while. But haven't used it much.

I have a question. How much data would Waze use if I left it on, tracking my progress for 1,000 mile trip?

My last trip from VA to FL and back used less than 500mb.

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

waze made trapster go out of business

waze made trapster go out of business.

I liked trapster, as it allowed downloading cameras and speed trap locations in the proper format for garmin gps.

Waze depends on fellow drivers using Waze and requires a constant cell/data connection.

Waze is helpful for traffic....

but I think Garmin is better for directions.

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RKF (Brookeville, MD) Garmin Nuvi 660, 360 & Street Pilot

thanks

phranc wrote:
cbwatts wrote:

I've had the Waze app for quite a while. But haven't used it much.

I have a question. How much data would Waze use if I left it on, tracking my progress for 1,000 mile trip?

My last trip from VA to FL and back used less than 500mb.

Thanks. I'm told if you turn off TTS you use less data. We'll give it a good in a next week when we head for Florida.

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Garmin 205, 260W, 1450LMT, 2460LMT, HEREwego for iPhone ... all still mapping strong.

Waze traffic

I've had good and bad experiences with both traffic reports and the accuracy of directions on Waze, my Garmin, and a built-in Nissan OEM navigator.

Any one of 'em can burn you in a particular situation.

Waze does seem to react the fastest to a sudden change in traffic conditions, but I too have developed a slight preference for Garmin in accuracy of directions.

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JMoo On

Waze...

Waze is great 95% of the time. About 5% of the time it freezes or crashes on me or refuses to calculate the route because the connection to server timed out. Not sure if Waze's fault or if its an issue with my phone or cell service.

I've been using my Garmin a lot recently and I have found some really annoying things with it also. And it's HD traffic feature is beyond useless.

GPS + Waze

I use both Waze and Garmin's Live Traffic on my GPS and Smartphone. Neither is accurate all the time and both have their shortcomings but working together, they make a pretty good team.

WAZE is Great

For my area WAZE is very accurate and up-to-date for traffic. However unlike most of the responses above, I have found a significant data draw on my data plan. I basically use WAZE to see how traffic is before leaving work. That way I know if there is an accident and can delay or reroute myself going home.

--
Garmin Nuvi 2699 with 2017.30 Maps

that's what

Holydoc wrote:

For my area WAZE is very accurate and up-to-date for traffic. However unlike most of the responses above, I have found a significant data draw on my data plan. I basically use WAZE to see how traffic is before leaving work. That way I know if there is an accident and can delay or reroute myself going home.

Unlimited is for I suppose. I love the emails, "We've found a better plan for you." Look at it and it's $100/mo. for 12 gb, when sometimes I use 14. How is that better for me?

Unlimited is also good when a 2 y.o. acts up in a restaurant, time for streaming kids videos.

Thing is if you have a normal 2 gb or 5 gb plan, I do not think it's safe to do video at all.

Not for me

Waze app wants permissions to everything on my phone.
Why do they need access to my calendar, for example?

Privacy is a thing slowly being taken/given away.

--
I never get lost, but I do explore new territory every now and then.

Calendar

KenSny wrote:

Waze app wants permissions to everything on my phone.
Why do they need access to my calendar, for example?

Privacy is a thing slowly being taken/given away.

Because it will take appointments with addresses and create a route for you when the appointment is due.

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

I used..

bdhsfz6 wrote:

I use both Waze and Garmin's Live Traffic on my GPS and Smartphone. Neither is accurate all the time and both have their shortcomings but working together, they make a pretty good team.

I used Garmin for directions and Waze for traffic alerts on a drive from Ohio to Florida a few months ago. Worked great. I still team the two up on occasion.

Waze...

Gathers its data pretty much in real-time from subscribers. The more folks you have in the area actively using Waze, the better the reports are going to be -- I remind myself to start up Waze when I get into the car to add to the data flow.

This is sort of the inverse of the "tragedy of the commons" -- with Waze, everyone watering the flowers (providing data) we all get more flowers!

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

Fun

johnnatash4 wrote:

Waze saved us a lot of time last night due to police closing down a major road (rt 22 near Newark Airport). Garmin was solid green. I think like it or not Garmin is becoming slowly obsolete.

Have played with Waze - neat idea!

--
Garmin Drive Smart 61 NA LMT-S

downloading

think I will give a try

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nuvi 2757LM-65LM-65LM

Waze is my goto app simply

Waze is my goto app simply because the social input makes traffic data more reliable. That comes in handy when you live around NYC.

Waze however sometimes gives goofy or irrational directions even when there is no obvious avoidance measures at play. At most it is annoying...such as in a few local places where it loves to route you off of a main road (not traffic infested) to take a circuitous route through side streets that parallel the main street, only to place you back on.

If I am traveling in unfamiliar areas or on long drives, I run the garmin and waze side by side. The Garmin almost always gives the best directions, but is too often unaware of real-time traffic conditions.

Rob

--
Maps -> Wife -> Garmin 12XL -> StreetPilot 2610 -> Nuvi 660 (blown speaker) -> Nuvi 3790LMT

Garmin

Garmin & Waze together have worked best for me. Waze routing is often significantly longer than the Garmin. Waze is helpful for traffic but I wish it would give more notice of distant issues.

Mobile traffic cameras & Police reports

Mobile traffic cameras & up-to-date police reports are pretty nice features.
If Google would just integrate the above features into Google Maps ...WOW!!

phranc wrote:
KenSny wrote:

Waze app wants permissions to everything on my phone.
Why do they need access to my calendar, for example?

Privacy is a thing slowly being taken/given away.

Because it will take appointments with addresses and create a route for you when the appointment is due.

If you are rooted you can turn off over half of Wazes permissions, I feel more comfy using the app that way. It doesn't need to access my contacts, camera, etc.

--
Garmin nüvi 1390LMT(returned) * Garmin 3590LMT(stolen) * Garmin 3590LMT LOH

Waze was good before the new interface

The new "Fisher-Price" look and feel. I don't like it and the app crashed more than it worked. The purple line is so wide, you can't see traffic conditions on the road. You can't report a hazard on the opposite side of the street. It could not get directions from the routing server more often than not. I deleted it and restored the old, good version from my last backup. Old, and time tested. Problem free.

--
Striving to make the NYC Metro area project the best.

Garmin

Was useless again today. NYC metro area. Whatever excuse Garmin has doesn't really matter, as the traffic is always green when there is an issue or there is not. Often red when nothing is going on.

I dunno, maybe Garmin is checking a different Garden State Parkway....sheesh!

You get out what you put in

Waze is good for what is happening now. As long as you have enough info fed into the system to get good results. The GPS units traffic is hit or miss depending on traffic service. Google maps is also good but routing can be tricky sometimes. Take you poison as it comes and add some travel time.

Waze

My thoughts too.

New England

I find the Garmin traffic works well the more massive the event and/or the longer it has been going on. It seems to update (respond) to the big events fairly quickly (like a roll-over or multi-car pile up); the smaller tie-ups, not so much. The biggest problem though is the bug they introduced early on during a firmware update that keeps the icon green even when no traffic signal is available. This is a big problem in rural and remote areas. I can live with no signal being available, even for an extended time out in the boonies; but having a green icon when the unit is showing it's actually currently searching for a signal is unacceptable. The traffic icon previously would turn grey when this was happening.

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"Primum Non Nocere" 2595LMT Clear Channel and Navteq Traffic

WAZE is the only way to go.

WAZE is the only way to go.

I tried it and am not sold on it yet.

On a 20 minute ride it drained the phone 20%. It also reported an accident 1/10 mile in front of me. There was no accident.

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Nuvi 2460LMT.

Power hog--

Yup, as with many "always connected" apps, they can be power hogs. If I'm running Waze, or any map/nav app on my phone, I have it plugged in, and mounted in front of a vent to provide cooling...

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

I like Garmin routing. It is

I like Garmin routing. It is far superior but traffic info is lot superior on waze because it is being up by users. Garmin Live traffic works well for me. I am happy with it that is why I rarely use Waze.

--
Iphone XR, Drivesmart 61,Nuvicam, Nuvi3597

TTS?

cbwatts wrote:
phranc wrote:
cbwatts wrote:

I've had the Waze app for quite a while. But haven't used it much.

I have a question. How much data would Waze use if I left it on, tracking my progress for 1,000 mile trip?

My last trip from VA to FL and back used less than 500mb.

Thanks. I'm told if you turn off TTS you use less data. We'll give it a good in a next week when we head for Florida.

What is TTS?

INRIX

sunsetrunner wrote:

WAZE is the only way to go.

I like Waze, but for at-a-glance real time traffic all around, INRIX is better imho. INRIX gets real time feeds from DOTs iirc. Easy to read red, yellow and green coding. A number of TV/radio traffic reports use INRIX iirc. Its routing is also very good, but no turn by turn directions.

Is there a way to get Waze to give you a route overview screen while you are enroute on a navigation? Sometimes I want to see the whole route, start to finish, while enroute. Maybe I'm missing something, but the only way I've found is to pinch/zoom, which doesn't work that well.

not partial

to anything, whatever works best.

What doesn't work is Garmin traffic....

i ended up letting waze "outvote" garmin on last trip to SAT

Hit construction that closed ramps to freeway and created temporary feeder roads. Stuff like this is causing mine to go by the wayside more and more. To top it off, the garmin directed me to the employee parking lot at SeaWorld instead of the one for "guests".
The only gotcha for waze for me is it does not handle recalculating well on my phone. It gets stuck doing recalculating sometimes but not on my wife's phone. That could just be a android vs. apple thing. Anyhow, cancelling the trip and restarting the app seems to be the cure for me when it happens.

What did you...

cratecookie wrote:

... To top it off, the garmin directed me to the employee parking lot at SeaWorld instead of the one for "guests".
...

What did you ask it to do? Did it give you a "parking at SeaWorld" entry to navigate to?

TTS

I just looked it up. Here is the definition from

http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/text-...

text-to-speech (TTS) definition
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
WhatIs.com

Text-to-speech (TTS) is a type of speech synthesis application that is used to create a spoken sound version of the text in a computer document, such as a help file or a Web page. TTS can enable the reading of computer display information for the visually challenged person, or may simply be used to augment the reading of a text message. Current TTS applications include voice-enabled e-mail and spoken prompts in voice response systems. TTS is often used with voice recognition programs. There are numerous TTS products available, including Read Please 2000, Proverbe Speech Unit, and Next Up Technology's TextAloud. Lucent, Elan, and AT&T each have products called "Text-to-Speech."

Hope that helps

i use waze along side my

i use waze along side my garmin smile

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DriveSmart 50, DriveSmart 60, nuvi 2595, nuvi 3760,

I picked a points of interest entry for seaworld

The Garmin didn't have a separate entry for parking vs. park. If I had remembered to use my favorite's waypoint from a couple of years ago, I would have had it take me to the pay booths to the parking lot.

Waze & Garmin together

I use my Garmin daily but also have Waze running. Now if Garmin could just harness the power of Waze like Google Maps does, it would be wonderful together.

live traffic

ptownoddy wrote:

I use my Garmin daily but also have Waze running. Now if Garmin could just harness the power of Waze like Google Maps does, it would be wonderful together.

works for me. And, it doesn't draw down my data plan loading maps.

--
Illiterate? Write for free help.

same here

phranc wrote:

My last trip from VA to FL and back used less than 500mb.

That would be ~250MB/1000 miles. In comparison, I drvie ~1000 miles/mon with my 3597 and Smart link on pretty much all the time. The Smartlink uses about ~10MB/mon of data.

Box Car wrote:

(Live Traffic) works for me. And, it doesn't draw down my data plan loading maps.

Same here. Considering I have a meager 1GB/mon data plan shared, Waze would have consumed a good fraction of my data with only a few short trips.

Also, I found that the Smartlink Live Traffic has been quite accurate for traffic on the highways in the San Francisco Bay Area. For local streets, it is more more misses than hits.

Your math is off a little.

Your math is off a little. It's 1500 miles, round trip. Also, Smartlink is not Waze. Smart link only gives you traffic data. Wake give you the benefit of the maps as well as traffic an other info.

I understand your phone data problem. I only have 2gb/month myself.

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

????

phranc wrote:

Your math is off a little. It's 1500 miles, round trip. Also, Smartlink is not Waze. Smart link only gives you traffic data. Wake give you the benefit of the maps as well as traffic an other info.

I understand your phone data problem. I only have 2gb/month myself.

If you are using a dedicated GPS and getting traffic displayed via SmartLink and it does the job with little data usage why would you drain your data allotment by running Waze and having to constantly load the same maps as on the GPS?

My main issue with WAZE is it being crowd sourced and the number of people fiddling with their phones reporting and confirming traffic and long passed incidents instead of paying attention to their driving.

--
Illiterate? Write for free help.

Thank you

hjrw wrote:

I just looked it up. Here is the definition from

http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/text-...

text-to-speech (TTS) definition
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
WhatIs.com

Text-to-speech (TTS) is a type of speech synthesis application that is used to create a spoken sound version of the text in a computer document, such as a help file or a Web page. TTS can enable the reading of computer display information for the visually challenged person, or may simply be used to augment the reading of a text message. Current TTS applications include voice-enabled e-mail and spoken prompts in voice response systems. TTS is often used with voice recognition programs. There are numerous TTS products available, including Read Please 2000, Proverbe Speech Unit, and Next Up Technology's TextAloud. Lucent, Elan, and AT&T each have products called "Text-to-Speech."

Hope that helps

Thanks, Thanks, Sir (or madam).

Google maps baby....

Google maps baby.... google maps traffic I find to be extremely accurate. Because waze is now part of google you also get the accident /incident alerts as well. I still love Garmin for routing and ease of use not to mention that I don't need a data connection to use my Garmin, but for traffic, I haven't found anything better than Google so far.

.

GARYLAP wrote:

Google maps baby.... google maps traffic I find to be extremely accurate. Because waze is now part of google you also get the accident /incident alerts as well. I still love Garmin for routing and ease of use not to mention that I don't need a data connection to use my Garmin, but for traffic, I haven't found anything better than Google so far.

I'll still cast my vote for INRIX for traffic, but Google/Waze are a close 2nd.

can you imagine

perpster wrote:
hjrw wrote:

I just looked it up. Here is the definition from

http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/text-...

text-to-speech (TTS) definition
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
WhatIs.com

Text-to-speech (TTS) is a type of speech synthesis application that is used to create a spoken sound version of the text in a computer document, such as a help file or a Web page. TTS can enable the reading of computer display information for the visually challenged person, or may simply be used to augment the reading of a text message. Current TTS applications include voice-enabled e-mail and spoken prompts in voice response systems. TTS is often used with voice recognition programs. There are numerous TTS products available, including Read Please 2000, Proverbe Speech Unit, and Next Up Technology's TextAloud. Lucent, Elan, and AT&T each have products called "Text-to-Speech."

Hope that helps

Thanks, Thanks, Sir (or madam).

There was a time when this was expensive technology? I remember Fidelity Investments had it in like 1995, and it was amazing, you spoke your info into the pay phone, the IVR recognized it, while someone next to you jotted down your personal info...

Battery and data use

pwohlrab wrote:

On a 20 minute ride it drained the phone 20%. It also reported an accident 1/10 mile in front of me. There was no accident.

Waze is a battery hog, no question, at least on an iPhone 6. partly because you want to set the iPhone to leave the screen turned on when Waze is running. You have to have an iPhone plugged into the cigarette lighter to use Waze for more than a few minutes.

The accident report probably came from another user, not the traffic service, so your mileage will always vary with that. Oftentimes there really *was* an accident or whatever (such as "vehicle on side of the road"), and it got picked up before you showed up. That happens with AM radio traffic reports, and Garmin, as well. Other times people like to mess with Waze and deliberately report false data, but that gets shot down pretty quickly by other users.

As to Box Car's comment

Box Car wrote:

My main issue with WAZE is it being crowd sourced and the number of people fiddling with their phones reporting and confirming traffic and long passed incidents instead of paying attention to their driving.

only a passenger will report in our car on Waze; if it's just a solo driver, we just monitor Waze and don't try to report for safety reasons. I'm sure there are other drivers doin' stuff they shouldn't with their phones though.

DATA USE:
I don't remember it being a wireless data hog as a few other people have reported here. Oh it chews up data for sure, but I haven't had a billing surcharge because of it. I will test it in our next long drive coming up in January and try to supply some actual numbers. To some extent wireless data use will vary depending on your driving location, phone, settings, and wireless carrier though, so that may account for some people being more concerned with data use than others here.

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JMoo On
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