gps navigation without internet

[dontaskwhy]

On a recent trip to Georgia, I lost cellular service but the basic GPS maps (with less detail) still worked on my Samsung Galaxy S4. I did not have to pre-load anything to my phone.

I've been using Navigon on my phone for years for exactly this purpose. It's a little pricey upfront, but it works great. You pick the states you want so it doesn't waste a bunch of space storing places you never go.

Now that other (free) services are around that support offline navigation, I'd probably just use those if I hadn't already bought Navigon.

[Ed_RDNC]

From all these different responses, it appears that there is a big range of capabilities and connection/storage requirements.
I'd expect the TomTom & Gaimon to be self-contained, and I know some (or most) smart phones need either the Internet to download map segments or have them pre-downloaded.

But it appears some smart phones do NOT need the Internet for that first step, Calculating The Route.

IE: My Samsung G4 uses Waze or Google Nav and it MUST transmit the start and end points to Google, which figures out the best route and DL's it back to my phone. If I ever go off-path, it must reconnect and recalculate.

Can anyone out there confirm that their phone (not standalone GPS), can do the initial calcs and off-path recalculations, withOUT Internet connectivity??

[stanley-88888888]

i am op so i dont have any solid evidence. but i think most gps apps like google and waze specifically compete to be smarter with social sharing features and real-time traffic updates (they probably also benefit from advertising). but since they make the assumption that everyone has 100% lte coverage everywhere, these features are mandatory and it makes your fone dumb when you really need it (like when you are lost in the woods).

old-skool unconnected gps's dont have extra features but they work 100% of the time.

edit: i have to look into the ones suggested by mr-geek (e.g. here) they may operate like stand-alone gps's.

[aquafarm]

>Can anyone out there confirm that their phone (not standalone GPS), can do the initial calcs and off-path recalculations, >withOUT Internet connectivity??

Nokia Windows phone do not need 3G/4G/Wifi connection for this. It functions just like my old Garmin but faster, cheaper and with up to date maps. It can even alert you if you go over speed limit.

You use WiFi to setup the GPS (download maps and app), and that's it. You don't need 3G/4G for GPS later on. If you try to search location, it will remind you you are offline if no internet connection, but you can still search using offline database.

My Garmin is about 5 years old, not sure if Garmin provides free map update now, but it didn't when I tried last time. The price for new map was about $100. I paid $50 for Lumia 520 a few years ago, best value compare to other more expensive smartphones I have. It also gave me new map update not long ago.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by stanley-88888888

old-skool unconnected gps's dont have extra features but they work 100% of the time.

Most of them today have features that are very competitive with the phone based apps.

[Ed_RDNC]

On-board maps are certainly usefull to some, and necessary to a few (who travel off the beaten path - outside cell ranges), but I suspect that most of us are within range almost always. I'm pretty sure that the cell towers follow almost all the Interstates, even in the boonies.

One major point that has pushed me to put my Garmin & charger in a ziplock, and dropped in my trunk as an emergency backup, is my smartphone's Google Maps are much more current, and it's traffic (using Waze) is much more Real-time.

By their very nature, TomTom and Garmin take years. They don't actually make the maps themselves. They get them from companies that creates digital maps. Those companies take a year or so to acquire the data, then a year or so to digitize, and then T & G take a year or so to release them. So the maps you drive on are at best 2-4 year old.

I live in a city that just extended it's perimeter highway and I saw how long it took each one of it's 8 or so segments to be changed from "under construction, not open", to "open" after each segment was sequentially opened. T & G took several years. Google maps took 3-5 weeks.
And Waze has a feature where, if you find they don't show a road, you can create it by driving on it while it remembers and uploads the updates.

Likewise, standalone GPSs get their traffic info from services that listen to reports and traffic web sites, and are typically realtime minus 10-20 minutes. Waze is realtime minus about 30 seconds.

Originally Posted by Ed_RDNC

From all these different responses, it appears that there is a big range of capabilities and connection/storage requirements.
I'd expect the TomTom & Gaimon to be self-contained, and I know some (or most) smart phones need either the Internet to download map segments or have them pre-downloaded.

But it appears some smart phones do NOT need the Internet for that first step, Calculating The Route.

IE: My Samsung G4 uses Waze or Google Nav and it MUST transmit the start and end points to Google, which figures out the best route and DL's it back to my phone. If I ever go off-path, it must reconnect and recalculate.

Can anyone out there confirm that their phone (not standalone GPS), can do the initial calcs and off-path recalculations, withOUT Internet connectivity??

This is not really a phone issue. It's purely a software issue. Every major smartphone platform has a mapping option or twelve that can do routing and rerouting without ever needing a cellular or wifi connection aside from the initial installation.

[Ed_RDNC]

Originally Posted by JasonF

This is not really a phone issue. It's purely a software issue. Every major smartphone platform has a mapping option or twelve that can do routing and rerouting without ever needing a cellular or wifi connection aside from the initial installation.

I now the smartphones have nav software, but my last two both requires a connection to establish or change the route.
I know this as every time I jumped in my car, (in a garage), mounted my phone and turned it on, and set a destination, Waze (using google maps) would display "finding network connection" as my phone lost it's home WiFi and went to cell network. When the cell connection was established, the route suggestions would then come up.

Also, there have been a few times when I was out, and tried to set course for home or somewhere else, and my phone would take 2-3 minutes to get a connection, and only then would a route be displayed.

For all the above, the current location, on a map, was displayed, so I know the GPS was locked and the map data (left over from the WiFi connection) still current.

Perhaps the delays in calc/recalc might be associated strictly with Waze, rather than the google maps part, as Waze does more than Nav. It's possible that Waze is looking for not only the quickest route home by distance, but also waiting for a net connection so it can add current-traffic data to the drive-times of each leg it evaluates.