waze works even when cellular data is turned off

by **AlanOfTheBerg** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 9:56 pm

If you go off-route, you will possibly have issues. Right now, there are mixed results when off network and rerouting functionality. "Off-route" also means if your GPS tracks you off the planned route, even if you really are on it. This happens with phone GPS chips fairly often.

If you exit Waze without a data connection, your route data will be lost. If it is a long drive, you will not have all road maps cached and will eventually find no roads visible on the map and will be driving on an empty white background. You will also not get any traffic updates, hazard notifications, police, etc., nor will you be able to post the same. Turn-by-turn instructions with spoken street names will also likely default back to turn instructions without spoken street names at some point as that requires more data from the servers.

Other than that, it should work great. :mrgreen:

by **AlanOfTheBerg** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 6:21 am

I have yet to see Waze actually cache the maps on wifi. I set a route at home, wait five minutes and then drive. After 35 min I lose data coverage and 20 min after that the screen is blank. Five min is more than enough time to cache.

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If it looks strange, or I used bad grammar or misspelled anything, it's my phone's fault.

by **AlanOfTheBerg** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 2:57 pm

rajagursahani wrote:so alanoftheberg you are saying that you get about 35 min of gps after loading it from wifi while on your route?

For the five minutes I wait, yes. But that is also a straight-line route through areas I don't usually go through, with no part of the route going through the same tile more than once, so the caching of maps may be different. It's not the same as commuting through urban areas with many turns and the route hits the same tiles. Maybe if I let it sit for 10 minutes...

by **AlanOfTheBerg** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 5:06 pm

You aren't missing anything, Mike. The map is missing, however. :mrgreen:

The only way to get it to show the map data in those "dead" areas in the current version is to pan-n-scan over those areas while still at home or at least in an area with data coverage. This will force Waze to cache those parts of the map. Do it at a zoom level where you can see most of the roads for best detail. This should give Waze a rudimentary ability to deal with short-distance rerouting without data coverage.

by **crazycomputingdotnet** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:11 am

When I don't have a network connection (Didn't pay my bill) and there is a tile refresh I will navigate my entire route at home on wifi by traveling the route on the phone via moving the map on the route to cache all the tiles I need. This works well for me most of the time. (I have had small segments where I guess I went by too fast or missed and didn't get the tiles) It will even do turn by turn navigation the entire way. The tiles usually stay cached for a week on your phone so you don't have to do that every time.

The biggest drawback is any traffic issues will be as old as when I was at home and on wifi so if you have an hour plus commute your alerts and the road slowdowns may no longer apply.

by **fvwazing** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 2:21 am

Once the maps are loaded (using wifi) there is not that much data sent while driving, volumewise. There may be not much reason to turn cellular data off, compared to eg watching video (to name a datahog) it uses very little data.

by **gerben** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 5:18 am

This week, I have driven about 350 km on cached roads. My total data usage on cellular (including other apps) is 57.37 MB.

by **MikeOlsen** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:36 pm

I am new to waze. I have a 95mile one way commute. From what I have seen so far on my Droid is that waze does not seem to download all of the maps for the trip up front only as needed. If data connection is lost on route due to lack of service or being interrupted by a call the you can drive for a while and still see your location on the map as the GPS continues to work but will eventually drive off the map and can't get the map back until you regain service. If there is a setting to change the way maps a cached I can't seem to find it. Without a map passing through no service areas seriously limits the usefulness and relyability of this of this am for unfamiliar areas.

by **mpawlicki** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 4:24 pm

Not too long ago I took a "nature" trip fully expecting to loose Waze once I get out of data coverage area. To my surprise Waze took me all the way to my destination, about good 30 minutes without any data connectivity.
Once at destination we took a long hike and then drove up to another area, all without data. After that I asked Waze to navigate me home, which it had no problems finding the route. The only problem is that it kept saying "searching network" and that it couldn't provide with with an ETA and best route options due to lack of data connectivity.
I was very surprised, even more so because I tried Google Navigate and it couldn't tell me how to get out of the hills

by **rajagursahani** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 9:06 pm

i have turned off my cellular data on my att iphone 4s and the navigation still works on a route. of course i used wifi when calculating the route but the waze is still able to retain the route even with cellular data off. is it really not using cellular data (bypassing that i turned it off on my iphone). well what is your experience. i think that is great that you can find a route on wifi and then head out not having to use your cellular data to get the gps navigation. what has your experience been?