I tested Waze out on the way home from Mass at a church I don’t normally attend. I was familiar with the area but Waze told me to turn right…. right into a residential neighborhood instead of going down the main road. It was a “Luke moment” – the Luke in the first Star Wars movie as he was flying blind but with his mentor’s voice telling him to trust in The Waze, I mean The Force.
Curious to see what this app was up to, I followed “The Waze” into what seemed to me a maze. Left, then right, right, then left, Waze ultimately took me back to my intended route but deposited me back just after an accident that had closed down an intersection. AMAZING. I was hooked.
How did it know? The strength of Waze is in the community of Wazers (users of Waze of course) whose location and speed are reported to Waze central. That data are crunched in an algorithm which identifies the best as well as a few alternative routes based on time and distance to your destination. Additionally, drivers help one another and work together to improve each others driving experience by issuing live traffic reports which can have an effect on traffic such as police activity, accidents, and hazards on the road.
Waze works in other countries as well. It worked like a champ getting me and my wife out of downtown Jerusalem (Israel not PA). Curiously though, the written directions on my phone were in Hebrew and not English although the voice directions were thankfully in English! Of course – Waze is an Israeli company. Shalom!
Lastly, it integrates nicely with my Google Calendar providing me with a list of my planned drives for the day. It also allows you to save your favorite destinations among other features not listed here.
The only thing Waze doesn’t do is identify a trip as business or personal. I know a number of Wazers have requested this functionality which would make tracking business mileage for taxes a snap. Connecting Waze to various hosted bookkeeping apps would be convenient as well!
Funny story – being from Denver I pronounced Waze “WA-ZEE” as in the street in downtown Denver on which sits a favorite brewery of mine. I was corrected by a very patient, somewhat amused Israeli tour guide who was originally from Birmingham (England not Alabama). He said “It’s pronounced Waze – you know, like “ways”, which is what the app provides you.” Duh. I have yet to use Waze to get me to Wynkoop Brewing on Wazee though.
Try the app – I dumped my beloved, but less flexible, Google Maps for Waze and haven’t looked back. Their blog has a number of really interesting data visualizations depicting all kinds of data collected by Wazers from around the world if you’re into data crunching/visualization.
Let go Luke and trust in the Waze!
