Navigation options on android phone

[Baldy881]

Hi all,

Not long into the idea of longer range riding on roads I don't know and we've been trying to ride out new routes using google maps. Problem being it always tries to find the fastest route unless I put extra stops in to make it follow a particular route I want. Pretty sure (but can't be certain), first time I tried this it just followed the route without me having to do anything. But every trip since, despite having multiple stops/way points, it wants manual intervention and for me to touch the screen to confirm the next stop. Not much use with a biking gloved hand!

Am I being stupid or is this a google maps PITA?? Any other decent apps available where I can plan a route, save it, and then set it going when leaving and it will just seamlessly follow the route I have set without me having to stop and take off my gloves every few miles?!

Thank you!

[Neal H]

Yeah, Google maps does that with waypoints so I only use it if I just want the quickest route from A to B.

I have the TomTom Go app on my android phone which handles waypoints properly and has live traffic. It costs (about £20 per year I think) but worth it. I tried all sorts of free apps but none of them were ideal.

[STe_rsv4]

I used calimoto while we toured Germany. You can create waypoints in the app and set them to whether you want fast or twisty routes. The free version only allows route planning so you cant record routes etc. but I found it really good so paid the £50 upgrade for the year.
We found some amazing roads using this app that we would never have normally found on google maps

[Baldy881]

Neal H said:

Yeah, Google maps does that with waypoints so I only use it if I just want the quickest route from A to B.

I have the TomTom Go app on my android phone which handles waypoints properly and has live traffic. It costs (about £20 per year I think) but worth it. I tried all sorts of free apps but none of them were ideal.

Don't suppose you can plan routes on laptop and export to phone/import on phone using it, can you??

[osterbo]

You could give OsmAnd a try. You'll find it incredibly clunky after google maps, but the amount of customisation available is on a different level.

There are various different workflows - it can do its own navigation with customisable profiles and waypoints, or you can feed it a GPX file to follow.

I've used it for long distance bicycle touring.

This explains the sort of thing you can do: https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-tet/

[Alex@POD]

Baldy881 said:

Don't suppose you can plan routes on laptop and export to phone/import on phone using it, can you??

I use Calimoto for that.

[s p a c e m a n]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com....

Kurvgiver let's you set how curvy you want the roads and set loads of other stuff

[bogie]

https://www.myrouteapp.com/en/home

My Route app works well and can import/export to other apps

There are so many apps to choose from. For ad hoc use and finding places in towns etc then google is hard to beat.

Just get a phone holder/charger thats easy to use, I have a RAM wireless charger plugged into USB .

[GriffoDP]

Yeah seems there's a few now that are decent. As above, I also use myrouteapp. Being able to sit at breakfast faffing away and then have the route immediately available as I/we attach the/a phone to the bike is super handy.

Though I also have BarButtons so I can zoom and pan about a bit to get context now and then.

[66mpg]

You can plan route for TomTom on your laptop. Go to plan.tomtom.com and sign in there. When you create a route you get the option to sync it to all your devices. With my iPhone I find that I have to force close the app and restart it for the routes to appear. I don’t know if Android acts that way.

[Neal H]

66mpg said:

You can plan route for TomTom on your laptop. Go to plan.tomtom.com and sign in there. When you create a route you get the option to sync it to all your devices. With my iPhone I find that I have to force close the app and restart it for the routes to appear. I don’t know if Android acts that way.

I didn't know you could do this. I'll give it a go with my android phone.

One of my key criteria for a nav app was that it must have live traffic and road closure information, which I found the vast majority don't when I was hunting around for a suitable alternative to Google maps.

[Birky_41]

Detecht

It's like calimoto but better

[rugbyleague]

Hijacking the thread a little, but is there route planning software for off road riding green lanes and smaller roads?

I've just got a display screen connected to phone on my trail bike which uses Android Auto with Google maps however what I really want to do is drop a GPX route into mapping software and follow it.

Any suggestions?

Ta muchly

Edited by rugbyleague on Friday 5th September 02:50

[Neal H]

Baldy881 said:

Don't suppose you can plan routes on laptop and export to phone/import on phone using it, can you??

As mentioned above, I just tried using plan.tomtom.com on my laptop and then syncing it with the TomTom app on my android phone. You can add places via the laptop and they automatically transfer to the phone app and you can create routes on the laptop and sync them to your phone and save them.

[Baldy881]

Neal H said:

As mentioned above, I just tried using plan.tomtom.com on my laptop and then syncing it with the TomTom app on my android phone. You can add places via the laptop and they automatically transfer to the phone app and you can create routes on the laptop and sync them to your phone and save them.

Yep, just tried myself and all good! Paid £13.99 for a years subs, seems fair enough to me. Thanks for the recommendation

[Biker9090]

Google Maps - as you said, good for speed/convenienace but not much fun. Flawless search function.

Waze - similar to the above

Kurviger - Absolutely brilliant for finding properly fun routes. Easy to use with a lot of ability to change routes and waypoints. However the search function is very poor and seems to get caught out with road closures. Easy to convert files into other formats and transfer to MRA or TTG etc. Doesn't seem to be self dimming which is a massive pain at night nor can I get it to show GPS speed.... BIG BONUS is the ability to just do a "round trip" with direction and mileage settting.

TomTom Go (App) - By far and away the most accurate and reliable for speed camera detection and knowing what the current road limit is (useful when abroad or in a heavily policed area like London and you aren't aware of the cameras). Reasonably easy to use. Good interface. Self dimming at night. Preplanned and loaded routes can sometimes still get caught out with roadworks though and you cannot make any amendments to the preloaded (i.e. one you planned on PC and saved to mobile) route albeit you can change normal ones easily.

I almost exclusively use Kurviger or TTG. Kurviger if I want an easy, fun route, TTG if I'm abroad and wanting more planning.

Haven't used Calimoto in years but if I remember rightly it was similar to TTG?

[Inky81]

Another vote for Calimoto (paid). Just back from a six day tour in the Voges and Black Mountains, used it to import some Simon Weir gpx files, worked really well.

[Crusoe]

Picked up a second hand £50 beeline on ebay, fun route option seems to work quite well and easy to add additional route points, though not sure I want a log of my speeds though you can delete them afterwards.

Edited by Crusoe on Friday 5th September 15:57

[66mpg]

Calimoto is comically bad at knowing what the speed limit is. TomTom can tell you how fast you have been travelling along a stretch of road with average speed cameras, which can be very useful.