# Your opinion of WAZE ?



## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

I'd like some others to tell me about their overall experience with WAZE as a GPS.

I heard a lot of good things about WAZE, so I tried it's GPS. In San Diego, on the southbound I-5, going towards downtown form north county, there's a fork where the 805 forks off, and it's an alternate route to downtown ( onward to the 163 then downtown from there ). I normally avoid the 805 since in the late afternoon, it's always at a standstill, whereas the 5, though slow, the traffic does move, which is a lot better thna the parking lot on the 805, but this time, WAZE told me to take the 805, and man, did i regret it.

Sorry waze, you shoulda known. I'm sticking to my old GPS ( a Magellan , old tech, but it does work fine ).

Although I do find WAZE generally good at is real time traffic info, sometimes it doesn't get it right. On the above incident, the 805 was clear, no orange or red highlighting. Also, most of the time it will alert me to a road condition, but the vehicle on the side of the road, or the cop that was supposed to be there, vanished, people input stuff, but they don't take it down, so you get false road conditions all the time, so much so, that I turn the volume down 'cause it's annoying. 

ON the other hand, I was going to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse ( sucky name, eh? ) from north county, which means usually getting off at Carmel Mountain Road, and jog a quartermile backtracking up El Camino Real. But, WAZE said to take Del Mar Heights, about a mile and a half north of the destination ( not as close as Carmel Mountain, the more logical choice ), and my passenger objected, and I told the passenger, hey, WAZE said to do it and it usually has a good reason. Well, I found out why, when we got close to the restaurant, the northbound traffic ( which I would have been on for about a 1/4 mile ) was jammed up --- I mean parking lot city. so, it does work as it should. I'm wondering what percentage of the time does it get it right compared to when it gets it wrong? The thing I like about WAZE is traffic info on surface streets, my Magellan does not do this.


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## Transportador (Sep 15, 2015)

I use Google Map for most driving situation, and only use Waze on long trips for spotting the cops. Waze does not show you which lane to take, while GM shows a lot of details. As far as routing around traffic, since GM bought Waze already, it is part of GM. There is no point in using Waze while on Uber, in my opinion.


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## rickybobby (Jul 13, 2015)

I've got enough distractions driving these pax around and don't need a busy gps like Waze distracting me even more. Just drive safe and use the simple but effective Google maps.


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## tohellwithu (Nov 30, 2014)

Talk too much...


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## iamkitkatbar (Nov 17, 2015)

Needs more ADs


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## SECOTIME (Sep 18, 2015)

Too cartoony and distracting for Uber. Great for medium to longer distance personal travel with friends /relatives


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## Uberest (Jul 29, 2015)

I use waze in dc, mostly o spot speed traps and cameras. It has some features i do not like:

1. Will route you zig zag through neighborhood instead of go a mile to the traffic light and turn right at main road.

2. Will ask that you turn left across ruh hour traffic when at next block there is a left turn arrow.

3. If you disobey it gets steadily more confused and tries to route you back to the route originally chosen. It does not seem to update itself quickly 

I like the accident pothole and construction heads up.....

Never realized there were so many vehicles that stop on the shoulder !!!


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## Bart McCoy (Nov 4, 2014)

Transportador said:


> I use Google Map for most driving situation, and only use Waze on long trips for spotting the cops. Waze does not show you which lane to take, while GM shows a lot of details. .


What do you mean which lane? Waze shows me where to go with no problem. Even cirles, like in my area have double lanes, divided by a barrier.It will say take inner circle or outer circle.



Uberest said:


> I use waze in dc, mostly o spot speed traps and cameras. It has some features i do not like:
> 
> 1. Will route you zig zag through neighborhood instead of go a mile to the traffic light and turn right at main road.
> !!!


So other than Waze, what map app do you use? Dont forge Google Maps owns Waze so eventually they might be one app or share the internals


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## forqalso (Jun 1, 2015)

If you have a choice of two or more lanes to make your turn, GM will tell you which one to use to be set up for your next turn, if it is coming up soon. Nothing worse than making a turn from the far left going to have to get to the far right in less a than a block.


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## Uberest (Jul 29, 2015)

Bart, I use combo WAZE and the Uber app, just depends on the trip. In DC always WAZE, but only after I visualize where I am going, kind of get oriented. oops, just got pinged LOL.


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## EscUber (Oct 12, 2015)

I use waze in san Diego and love it.


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## gearhead (Nov 30, 2015)

I use waze in STL. Was using Google maps but for me waze seems to work better with more detail, but you're right, I don't like the ads that pop of every once in a while but I simply ignore them.


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## RobGM84 (Oct 26, 2015)

i use waze for personal and GM for uber/lyft. Waze doesn't deal well with multiple incoming requests (ie dropped off pax and then starting trip to new location) GM seems to handle this in stride. Waze often takes a lot of time to connect and makes a lot of unnecessary noise on my trips and has all kinds of pop up ads. GM recently introduced offline maps so it is lightning fast when i need to get going quick. I also like to zoom and pan around on the map while i am at traffic lights to plan my arrival. It is easier to do this with GM than waze.


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## Transportador (Sep 15, 2015)

Waze also sucks up a lot more data (for those who cares) than Google Map.


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## Uberest (Jul 29, 2015)

Its true that you can't pan/zoom with Waze and that is a disadvantage. You can't with the uber app, either, so if I want to pan and get oriented (or re-oriented) I have to go back to uber app and hit "navigate" again. I do like in Waze the easy avail of menu of next turns. Also, obviously, the ability to check different route time and distance is very helpful in the presence of traffic. Like you-all, I don't like the pop-up ads and the occasional freezing/crashing.


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## Uberest (Jul 29, 2015)

The bottom line to me is that navigating by app is still a work in progress, though very advanced from only a few years ago. As a driver, there's no substitute for knowing where you are and where you are going. Blindly and unthinkingly following any of the apps -- sooner or later -- will lead to an unhappy pax and a rise in your internal frustration levels.


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## UberEricLong (Oct 28, 2015)

I've used both Waze and Google Maps and Google Maps works best for me by a wide margin. I do, however, run Waze in the background in-case I need to double check an address or have a need for multiple addresses and don't want to alter the final destination in the Uber app. For example, dropping off pax's friends at different locations or taking a detour to the closest McDonald's. I agree with what others have said though, Waze is just too busy and distracting to use as your default navigation. Another helpful piece of advice is to use Google Voice instead of typing into Google Maps or Waze. For example, pax wants to stop by nearest Taco Bell and you are unfamiliar with the territory, just ask google "Where is the closest Taco Bell" and it will provide you with the address and an option for navigation. (I know this seems basic for some drivers, however, older drivers who aren't as familiar with technology may find this helpful) Another piece of advice is to practice using Google Maps when you don't have pax in your car. For example in "Navigations Settings" you can select "Tilt Map" which makes the navigation easier to use while driving. You can also turn off the voice directions or optimize your location accuracy. Play with all the settings and features until you are comfortable with them. Then you won't have to fumble around when you have a pax in the car.


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## Bart McCoy (Nov 4, 2014)

Uberest said:


> The bottom line to me is that navigating by app is still a work in progress, though very advanced from only a few years ago. As a driver, there's no substitute for knowing where you are and where you are going. Blindly and unthinkingly following any of the apps -- sooner or later -- will lead to an unhappy pax and a rise in your internal frustration levels.


but Uber driverless cars will work TOTALLY on GPS. So man unhappy pax in its future?


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## Uberest (Jul 29, 2015)

Yeah probably !!! Unless the driverless car prodes outweigh the corns


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## Transportador (Sep 15, 2015)

Bart McCoy said:


> What do you mean which lane? Waze shows me where to go with no problem. Even cirles, like in my area have double lanes, divided by a barrier.It will say take inner circle or outer circle.


Waze does not show you all the lanes, highlights the lane you should take, grey out all the others. Google Map does and that is very helpful in dense city traffic, helps set you up for the next turn after the current one. I don't know why people still use Waze since Google Map bought Waze and has incorporated the live traffic routing feature into GM. The interface and sound are much better on GM, as well as seamless integration with Google voice command like others have pointed out. I do use both, but Waze is only for long trips on highways ( 500 miles or more) to spot cops. When I don't need the social network reporting, I stick with GM.


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## FrankMartin (Nov 27, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> I'd like some others to tell me about their overall experience with WAZE as a GPS.
> 
> I heard a lot of good things about WAZE, so I tried it's GPS. In San Diego, on the southbound I-5, going towards downtown form north county, there's a fork where the 805 forks off, and it's an alternate route to downtown ( onward to the 163 then downtown from there ). I normally avoid the 805 since in the late afternoon, it's always at a standstill, whereas the 5, though slow, the traffic does move, which is a lot better thna the parking lot on the 805, but this time, WAZE told me to take the 805, and man, did i regret it.
> 
> ...


I tried WAZE for exactly 1 day. It had a lot of problems:
1) Pop-up ads at stoplights! When I'm at a stoplight I have limited time to review the route. The ads made me really angry.
2) Would not announce on audio which side of the street the destination was. When I'm getting close to the destination I want to use my eyes to look for house numbers, not looking down at the app.
3) Blackouts. WAZE frequently f'd up and went black forcing me to pull over to the side of the road and restart UBER.

IN SUM TOTAL FAIL .... UNINSTALLED. HELLO GOOGLE MAPS.


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## Margot (Jan 1, 2016)

Uberest said:


> Its true that you can't pan/zoom with Waze and that is a disadvantage. You can't with the uber app, either, so if I want to pan and get oriented (or re-oriented) I have to go back to uber app and hit "navigate" again. I do like in Waze the easy avail of menu of next turns. Also, obviously, the ability to check different route time and distance is very helpful in the presence of traffic. Like you-all, I don't like the pop-up ads and the occasional freezing/crashing.


You can pan and zoom with WAZE. Just pinch the screen.


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## Fluber (Jul 11, 2015)

Waze too distracting for me (felt like I was playing Candyland).


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## Uberest (Jul 29, 2015)

Margot said:


> You can pan and zoom with WAZE. Just pinch the screen.


Yes you are correct ... Thank you


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## LadyDi (Nov 29, 2015)

In the newest release of the Android app for Uber, it keeps asking me to select a non-selectable option for GPS. GM is the ONLY option now that they own Waze but I never got to use Waze at all prior to this.


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