Mobile data usage

Map Editors Community General Topics
1

Hi.

I wonder if anyone can answer this in simple terms.

For those of us with limited data usage on mobile phones (ie Pay As You Go) - does Waze work as a stand alone app for ts GPS positioning or does it use ‘data’ similar to a phone when on the internet?

Cheers

Tony

2

Maybe this will help you.

https://mashtips.com/setup-standalone-waze-gps/amp/

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

3

I can only share my own experience with iPhone 6S Plus and Waze, it may be different for others.

Under the iPhone’s Settings > Mobile Data you can see how much data each App you have installed has been using, the stats keep accumulating until you reset them. (the last reset date is all the way at the bottom)
My last mobile data statistics reset date
2 years ago

How much mobile data has Waze been using on my phone in the last 2 years
2.4Gb (or ~1.2Gb per year)

Let’s do some math
2.4Gb = 2400Mb
2 years = 730 days
2400 / 730 = ~3.3 (Waze used 3.3Mb of data per day)
3.3 * 30 days = 99 (Waze used 99Mb of data per month)

Additional notes

  • This mobile data was used by making an almost religious usage of the App: There isn’t a single drive I take without first starting the App in navigation mode, even for short trips.
  • 95% of the time it was used in the same 2268 km² (876 quare miles) area where I live, commute to work and/or visit friends and family. The other 5% were few occasions for longer trips in Europe or a two weeks long trip around Iceland.

So let’s imagine I had Verizon’s smallest data plan that I could find on their website: 2Gb (2000Mb) allowed/included per month, Waze would take about 100Mb, leaving me with 1.9Gb (1900Mb) that I can use for other Apps.
About pay-as-you-go plans then it all depends on how much data you get and how long you can use it for… If it’s those 5$ for 500Mb for 24h deals, then you might end up paying way too much with a daily use as Waze would only be using a small fraction and you’d lose the rest at the end of the day. However if the 500Mb stay usable for 30 days, then you should be safe as based on my experience Waze would only use about 1/5 of that data.

Again those estimates are just based on my personal experience of mobile data usage over the last two years while making an intensive use of Waze almost every day.

4

I regularly use the app with my data turned off but it only works for existing routes I’ve been on. It ‘waits for network’ if you deviate but generally, the app doesn’t use too much data in my experience.

5

Most data is downloaded if you explore new areas, which means new map tiles need to be downloaded. If you have a new longer journey coming, you could just pre-calculate the route in Wi-Fi and then drive the route with mobile data. This way you’ll only need to download real-time traffic data, which is really small in size.

6

I’m an Android user and I use Waze everyday. In my case, the app uses 125 MB per month in average.

7

Did a 3 hour Drive New area but trip loaded with wifi and Still Consumed 1.8gb is this normal?

8

Maybe you have other app’s running on background draining your internet? Check on definitions the internet usage percentage.

9

Are you able to check data consumption per each app? Waze is not supposed to consume so much data.