Have you ever found an app that both made you fascinated and gave you a desire to giggle unforgivably? That was my experience when first introduced to Waze.
I was first told about Waze by a couple organizing colleagues at the NAPO conference in 2014 (Thanks Scott Roewer and Debbie Rosemont). “It’s social GPS,” they told me which immediately fascinated me. “People can actively log road closures, traffic jams, etc., and it will reroute you around problems.” WOW, was my response, I mean really… how cool is that!
And then they added… “and you can see all the other Wazers on your screen with these little icons that look like sperm with faces.” Thus commences the giggling.
They weren’t really wrong either. The little Wazer icons do look an awful lot like the drawings from my childhood sexual education book, although I don’t think many of the drawings in that book had shields and swords or looked like ninjas or zombies while some of the Wazers do. *grin*
OK, but seriously folks, I LOVE this app not just because it’s funny and brilliant, but it can save you time. Sometimes there’s nothing to do about the traffic jam you’re going to hit on the highway, but sometimes there is! And Waze, in its brilliance, has suggestions to get you around the insanity.
Maybe there’s a special event going on in your city (like the Boston Marathon or the Pats celebration parade), if you’re not aiming for that particular adventure, then Waze can intelligently direct you around the worst areas to keep your plans rolling forward regardless.
It’s also gamification at its best, for various holidays they even have “road goodies” that you collect by simply driving down the road. Road goodies give you points which increases your ranking on the leaderboard of Wazers. (How much do I care about that? Very little, but it’s still fun. Brian and I spent a lovely drive through Maine collecting snowflakes, snowmen, and little candies last winter.)
Here are just a few of the other things I love about Waze:
- It syncs with the calendar app on my phone and when I have a meeting in a particular location it will show that location at the top of the navigate screen making it even easier to put the address into GPS.
- You can just start typing the name of a restaurant or other location into the search bar and it will find the address automatically. One step GPS navigating, no need to look up the address on the website first! I’ve even done this with my husband’s company office when I couldn’t remember the address and it found it immediately.
- If you are stuck in traffic, then it gives you an estimate for how long you will likely be stuck based on the other Wazers reports of locations and severity of the problem.
- You can send your ETA to your loved ones so they know that you’re on the way and will get notifications via text about when to expect you.
- The maps are community edited, so if you find an error on a map and report it, then someone will contact you and connect to get the map issue fixed! This happened to me several months ago when Waze told me to take a left, but there was a sign at the intersection that said no left turn. I reported the map issue and now the system is smarter for ALL of us in the future! How cool is that :).
- You can find the local gas prices around you to see if there’s a cheaper gas option just another half mile up the road.
- Get rid of your radar detector! People report where the cops are waiting for you too, and you’ll get an alert that tells you a half mile ahead of time.
- And just recently they’ve setup Twitter accounts for Waze in many major cities to give you reports on “Unusual Traffic” and know even before you get into your car what you might want to avoid.
Bottom-line: Give it a try. After all it’s FREE, which is a LOT less expensive than buying that next map update on your outdated GPS unit that can’t do half this many cool things!
Do you already use Waze? Share your favorite feature in the comments below.
Got other questions about it that I didn’t answer? Then ask away. I don’t know everything about it, but I have learned a bit. I earned Knight Level which means I’m in the top 4% of drivers in my state.
Download the app and have some fun! I’ll see you on the road.
