How to use poifiles on android smartphone?

Purchase and install Sygic. It has custom POI support and works offline.

A search shows not much discussion about Sygic on POI Factory. Maybe this would be a good place. Sygic.com looks good. I especially like the head-up display that projects the smartphone screen on the windshield at night.

Is it really offline in that it doesn't use a lot of data?

dobs108

I had sygic and it is not bad, but the most bang for your buck is Locus+
it makes importing POI files simple and easy.
Just make sure you put them into a new or unique folder otherwise you have a mess.
Yeah I did that.

Locus seems to be designed for running, biking, and off-road use such as geocaching. It can be used on the road:

http://www.locusmap.eu/

Locus on the Google Play Store says:

"Online maps - US - USGS, ChartBundle, OpenStreetMaps, MapQuest...,"

"Offline maps - OSM based vector LoMaps of the whole World – with switchable themes for hiking, cycling, skiing, road or city use - downloadable for a symbolic fee directly in-app."

The open-source maps commonly available cannot be used offline.

An additional app has to be added to make Locus work offline:

http://www.locusmap.eu/locus-map-can-navigate-offline/

dobs108

The number of installs on the Play Store for Locus is 1 million to 5 million. For Sygic it is 50 million to 100 million.

This one? Sygic GPS Navigation & Maps. Thanks!

Installed both for comparison:
Locus can import gpx and kml, unfortunately not csv. It also can't import a bunch of files into different groups, so you have to load each one individually. Still, the poi handling is much better than with sygic, which does not have the import capabilities. For me the verdict is Locus.
Thanks a lot for suggesting!

Locus is probably my daily driver in general, the mapping is based on OpenStreetMaps, and (as others have noted) it will take GPX files. (It will also take KML, if you tend to use Google Earth Pro for pre-planning.) I actually tend to find KML and KMZ files are easier to work with in Locus, but that's my own two pence.

Another potential option is CoPilot Live, which uses both its own CSV format and TomTom format (OV2). It IS possible to have your own categories and it IS possible to import the POI Factory speed camera/red-light camera files (I've not found a really elegant way to do this in Locus just yet).

co piliot like like and hate all at the same time. When it came out a few years ago it was the best around. Now that alk was purchased by another company development seems to have slowed down, where Locus has only gotten better and more useful.

Oh, I definitely agree Locus has gotten more and more useful (Hence why this tends to be the "daily driver".) If I could figure out how to have it do proximity alerts it'd be just about perfect...

And really that's about all I'm missing from it. CoPilot Live I *do* tend to use for longer (interstate) car trips, Locus I tend to use more for regional and "local to area" travel. Proximity alerts are still useful (at least to me) for some things, like where the next rest area is.

CoPilot is a phone app that allows loading POI files, but my personal experience with it has been mixed.

I really like that it does not require a cell connection to operate. In addition, I like that it allows the use of POI files from here, and I find some aspects of the user interface superior to the alternatives. However, on more than one occasion I have found its mapping deficient and its directions poor.

In the end, although it would be convenient to just use my phone that I always carry anyway, I continue to depend upon my TomTom PND almost all the time.

- Tom -

Does anyone know how to install custom POI for Here maps for Android. Their website is practically useless if you need to find anything different than "propaganda" texts.

Not aware of a way to do custom pois.You can do collections and have them by category. Go to this link and click on collections. The good thing about this is that you can do this on the computer and it will syn to all your Android devices with Here maps installed. https://help.here.com/android/maps/#g273

You may also want to view this app.Make sure to watch the video.It shows that you can use a 3rd party map to navigate to the custom poi. Also a pro version https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lentz.poil... and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lentz.poil...