I have an iPhone with Waze. Would a Garmin GPS be better?

May 24, 2019 12:43 PM

I've enjoyed using my iPhone with Waze as a navigator when I'm driving. I used to have a Garmin GPS which also worked really well until it finally kicked the bucket last year. Should I buy a new GPS, or stick with the iPhone?

The Waze app has live traffic updates and accident reports, which is great, but it also eats through my iPhone battery and cellular data. The GPS runs on a cigarette lighter and works nicely even in the deep backcountry away from cell towers, and in 2011 I purchased a lifetime map update package which hopefully would apply to any new GPS, but it doesn't seem like it has all the features of Waze. Which to do?

posted by fuzzy.little.sock to Technology (10 answers total)

What are your driving habits today? When I drove 200 miles per week over three counties and some rural areas, I loved having a dedicated GPS. But I don’t drive nearly as much anymore so it has seemed like overkill to me to have a GPS unit.

On the other hand, a lot of GPS units are pretty cheap these days so unless money is really tight you can probably have both.

(Personally I find all the features of Waze distracting and I’ve never used it for long)
posted by girlmightlive at 12:50 PM on May 24, 2019

I think you want two things:
1) Offline HERE maps (which I recommend often here on AskMe, but really is bafflingly underknown).
2) It sounds like you might not have a car charger for your phone? Sorted.
posted by kickingtheground at 12:54 PM on May 24, 2019 [3 favorites]

Waze is superior.

You can buy a cigarette charger for your iPhone to solve the battery issue.

For data usage, I'm not sure. Google maps you can download an offline version of the map for designated areas, and is slowly gaining more of the Waze crowdsourced data features. You can also dig through wazes settings to see if there are any data options.
posted by TheAdamist at 12:55 PM on May 24, 2019 [3 favorites]

How much data are we talking here? If you switch to Google or HERE and make an offline map of your whole typical driving area (even a huge urban area is only a gigabyte or two) you won't download any map tiles. If you're really worried about it you can turn off cellular data for Maps. Now, you won't get traffic, like you would with your Garmin. Don't cheap out on the charger, the crappy ones produce a ton of heat and poor quality power, but I always charge my phone as I'm driving. It's better for the battery than one big charge at the end of the day anyway.
posted by wnissen at 1:30 PM on May 24, 2019

If you're doing city driving, where constantly updating traffic issues -- accidents! closures! construction! -- are a thing (as they are for me), stick with Waze + a car charger. The crowd-sourced aspect of Waze, like people reporting accidents as they come upon them, is the game-changer.
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:36 PM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

I actually prefer my Garmin to using Waze and my iPhone, and I do most of my driving in a major urban area (Los Angeles). Waze has sent me on supposedly time saving detours that were anything but a few too many times, mostly on account of it thinking unprotected left turns from side streets onto major congested main streets are a thing that is possible or at all time-saving. I also kind of find Waze to be a distractingly lot of information to take in while driving. I only open it up when I'm basically stopped on the freeway at a non-rush hour time and wondering what's going on.

As another point in favor of using a separate GPS, I like having the certainty that even if I've forgotten my phone or it's out of battery or otherwise out of commission, I've still got my GPS.
posted by yasaman at 2:10 PM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

(Just FYI there's a setting in Waze where you can avoid "difficult intersections" or something like that, so it'll stop having you make a left across eight lanes of traffic with no light.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:52 PM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

I would triple check that "lifetime" guarantee - almost every time I've bought an electronic device with any sort of promised software or data updates in the last decade or two, "lifetime" meant "lifetime of the unit." Buying a new GPS would mean you'd have to buy a new subscription, too.

I do not have an informed opinion on using a dedicated GPS unit in a car, as we just use our phones and Google Maps or Waze for directions, but we do have a USB-A charger that we can plug our phones into. However, if you have a fairly new phone, you may find that using maps runs your phone battery down faster than it can recharge via the cigarette lighter plug. I'm looking at picking up a USB-C car charger for this reason. Because that's a pretty cheap option, and because we don't drive a lot, Mr. Kouti and I would not bother buying a dedicated GPS unit and subscription, but you almost assuredly drive more than we do. But with the "deep backcountry" driving you do, how high that proportion is might tip us more towards picking up the GPS as a supplementary option anyway were we in your drivers' seat.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 3:04 PM on May 24, 2019

Best answer: Confirmed: picking a random Garmin model on their website and inquiring about updates confirms that Garmin's lifetime maps subscriptions are for the "useful life of your device." Buy the fast phone car charger and stick with the Waze you enjoy, and maybe pick up a physical map book for the backcountry roads you drive.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 3:12 PM on May 24, 2019

Another vote for Waze and/or offline Google Maps. I routinely keep rural areas where I drive a lot in offline form for those times I don’t have cell service (unlimited data, I still has it, for which I suffer the rural consequences of t-Mobile). My car came with built in GPS Nav in 2014, which I almost never use. In my major metro area (NYC) Waze is as necessary as your glasses and the vocabulary of a drunken sailor.
posted by spitbull at 4:29 PM on May 24, 2019