Waze App for New Zealand

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FineWine

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Nurse (R)

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#245634 14-Feb-2019 10:12

Today, lunch time, we become the proud owners of a brand new Kia Sportage EX urban 😀 with a whole bunch of the latest techno for cars. The actual car manual is about 50mm thick (worse than War & Peace). All this tech is mostly brand new to me and my partner so it is going to be a fabulous learning curve 🎓. Anyway it has Apple Carplay and being 🍎 nuts we will be taking full advantage of this technology.

My question is: The Waze app for New Zealand.

Is it better than Apple or Google maps ?

What are the pro's & con's ?

What are members thoughts and opinions on it ?

Are there any other Apple Carplay apps (any app) members can recommend ?

Cheers 🍷

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#2178137 14-Feb-2019 10:16

Congratulations.

Two weeks ago I took delivery of a LX Diesel AWD. Very happy with it so far (and it drinks a lot less than my previous car).

I am using Google Maps with CarPlay, and find it great. I've never used Waze, but I hear good things about it.

I also use iHeartRadio and Amazon Music (which I have offline music in).

sidefx

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#2178139 14-Feb-2019 10:23

Yeah, have friends who swear by waze but I tend to stick with google maps. One friend was showing me in a traffic jam how you can see other waze users around you - it wasn't a massive jam just the usual queue on a busy day to get out of auckland through the tunnel on northern gateway. There seemed to be about 5 other waze users around us. I'd wager there are a lot more google maps users... but I think waze is well ahead on showing speed limits, cameras, etc?

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Ge0rge

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#2178150 14-Feb-2019 10:29

I was using waze for a while but found it simply cannot handle not having a data connection. It won't start without one, and will get very upset if it loses it during a trip.

Senecio

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#2178151 14-Feb-2019 10:30

I was a avid user of Waze when I lived and worked in Europe. It is community driven so more adoption makes it more useful. When I came to NZ I found so few using it that I just went back to Google maps.

CrashAndBurn

668 posts

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#2178173 14-Feb-2019 10:39

Waze is a great app in countries where there are a lot of users. I used it in south east asia and its great as you get close to real-time updates from other users which explains the need for a data connection. If you prefer not to use too much data then I guess Google Maps would be enough.

rp1790

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#2178175 14-Feb-2019 10:40

I use Waze a bit and find it's really good. Wish more people would use it and contribute to reporting things though.

gzt

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#2178251 14-Feb-2019 13:13

As I understand it Google bought Waze and the data is integrated in Maps although not the same form.

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rogercruse

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#2178264 14-Feb-2019 13:55

I used Waze when I lived in the UK for a couple of year before moving to New Zealand eight years ago. So, a total time of over ten years.

In the early days you had to run Waze in 'builder' mode and construct the road network. I think this option has been discontinued now that most roads have been fully mapped.

True, it does work best when there's plenty of input (traffic, speed traps, accidents, etc) from other drivers and it needs a live link for this.

Where the mobile phone signal is weak and / or where there are fewer other users then Waze is no better than a static map.

It loves reporting on regular car journeys where is can provide a realistic estimate for your arrival and even suggest alternative routes from time-to-time.

frankv

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#2178272 14-Feb-2019 14:26

I used to use Waze, but have now have switched to Navigate (on Android).

I think all the maps are essentially the same, derived from Open Street Map community-produced maps. For me, the big benefit of Navigate is that maps are downloadable and it runs happily with no data connection (so it's good for overseas, with no roaming costs). But I gather that Google Maps does this as an option nowadays.

jnimmo

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#2178319 14-Feb-2019 16:38

Ironically I only use Waze for non navigation purposes - for the speed limits, as the only app which shows the speed limit in CarPlay.

It is very battery hungry, and when using for navigation I get much more accurate traffic and timing information from Google Maps. i.e. driving through Matamata in January Waze had no idea about a large delay due to road works. Hopefully they can incorporate data from Google Maps users into Waze in future

davidcole

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#2178352 14-Feb-2019 17:09

I tend to use ease...which feeds google with traffic data. Mostly for reporting incidents, gas pricing. For navigation it’s ok. Seems to route fairly similar.

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Dial111

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#2178402 14-Feb-2019 17:41

Funny that, I used Waze for the first time today for my trip home from work after being prompted to try it when Spotify kicked in, I actually like it better than Google Maps.

shk292

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#2178412 14-Feb-2019 18:01

I used it for a while a couple of years ago but found the Traffic info completely useless compared to google maps Traffic. It always seemed to prefer motorway routes even when said motorways were car parks

davidcole

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#2178416 14-Feb-2019 18:20

It seems pretty accurate now. Last Sunday was coming home from Upper Hutt and hit a tail back. Started Waze and saw heavy traffic originating from a traffic light. And after the traffic light it had freed up, both irl and in waze

Coil

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#2178419 14-Feb-2019 18:26

I sign in to check where the new speed cameras are lol.... Otherwise I only trust google and even then I still make sure the route is logical etc.

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