OT Car GPS without cell signal

[NHAero]

Earlier this week in northern NH neither Waze nor Google Maps worked reliably. I don't know if this was an artifact of so many cars in a place where there usually are few? We had essentially no cell coverage the day before though, scouting possible viewing sites north of Pittsburg NH, and the apps weren't working then either. This is despite having downloaded and updated my offline maps in Google Maps.

Do these apps need cell coverage to work in normal situations?
Are apps such as Gaia GPS or OnX usable for routing in vehicles on roads (vs. backpacking on trails)?

[eddief]

https://www.google.com/search?q=Car+...u29biaReM,st:0

[jkbrwn]

I use Gaia heavily for backcountry travel - i.e. on foot. I've tried to use it in the car and didn't like it. Something like OnX Offroad is definitely more vehicle focused. Yes they need cell service, unless you've downloaded areas local to you for offline use. I have most of California south of Tahoe downloaded in Gaia and I think its only about 10GB of storage used on my phone.

[Alan]

https://support.google.com/maps/answ...Platform%3DiOS

Practice before you head out off the grid next time

Alan

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by jkbrwn

I use Gaia heavily for backcountry travel - i.e. on foot. I've tried to use it in the car and didn't like it. Something like OnX Offroad is definitely more vehicle focused. Yes they need cell service, unless you've downloaded areas local to you for offline use. I have most of California south of Tahoe downloaded in Gaia and I think its only about 10GB of storage used on my phone.

Thank you for your response. The fellow who told me about these two apps at the eclipse viewing site does off-roading all over the country and he said they use satellites directly and don't need a cell signal. I think that's true for my Wahoo Elemnt also. So which if any of these apps have you foind to not need cell service?

Am I misunderstanding also that Google Maps needs cell service even when I have downloaded the offline maps?

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by Alan

https://support.google.com/maps/answ...Platform%3DiOS

Practice before you head out off the grid next time

Alan

Thanks for this. I understood that when offline I would not be able to get traffic info or other transit options, but I thought it would keep me on the route. So maybe I mis-used the app while we were driving, because we were looking for alternate routes, and we noticed that the time given was normal driving time, not updated for actual conditions.

[jkbrwn]

Originally Posted by NHAero

Thank you for your response. The fellow who told me about these two apps at the eclipse viewing site does off-roading all over the country and he said they use satellites directly and don't need a cell signal. I think that's true for my Wahoo Elemnt also. So which if any of these apps have you foind to not need cell service?

Am I misunderstanding also that Google Maps needs cell service even when I have downloaded the offline maps?

Yeah, you can absolutely use it all over the country with just satellites and no cell signal, but you need to have downloaded the maps you are due to use.

I.e. when I'm backpacking in the Sierra, I have no service, but as I've already downloaded all of the topo maps, I can just rely on satellites for location etc.

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by jkbrwn

Yeah, you can absolutely use it all over the country with just satellites and no cell signal, but you need to have downloaded the maps you are due to use.

I.e. when I'm backpacking in the Sierra, I have no service, but as I've already downloaded all of the topo maps, I can just rely on satellites for location etc.

This is my experience with Google Maps and GaiaGPS as well. Download the maps (and double-check day-of) and they work with GPS alone (which can still be flaky if you're in a valley or something).

[Mark McM]

The ability to use GPS without cell service can vary between devices. Due to the requirements of the e911 system, essentially all cell phones today use some form of A-GPS (Assisted GPS), which uses location information from cell towers to improve GPS performance, particularly the time to first fix. Without cell services, many devices can fall back to using autonomous GPS (just uses satellite data), but some devices will stay in A-GPS mode.

[benb]

Garmin has a completely free App called Explore as well. It links to the smartwatches but you don't need a smartwatch and it's not even that great to use with them.

It doesn't give you access to the cycle map that's in the Edge devices but it has access to lots of maps.

But like the other off-grid type apps it's really not great in the car. You'd probably need a passenger to run navigation on it.

It is kind of an astounding app in the grand scheme of things though.. Garmin used to try and make you pay through the nose for maps and now here is this app that has every map under the sun for free.

Most smartphones handle being off the network fine. It's just apps from Google are never going to get tested well off the network cause Google's business model is advertising & data collection which both require you to be connected.

I have had situations Google Maps seemed to be working fine and then we drove out of Cell coverage.. everything *seems* fine but you better just keep driving to your destination. If you try to change where you're headed you might be in trouble and then be unable to restart.

[AngryScientist]

The problem with smart phone based navigation, as I understand it is that the maps are not downloaded and on the device, rather they are loaded via the web in real time as you move through time and space. They do use GPS signal to locate you, but the actual map image comes from the www.

I believe there are aps that allow you to download the map for the area you will be in, but I have yet to explore this solution.

[gravelreformist]

The default area for downloading maps is tiny, for me it's like a 20x20 mile square box. Not even suitable for bike riding. If you use the Select Your Own Map option you can download a larger area, but it still limits it to a few hundred square miles.

[zmalwo]

the gps signal itself only works iffy if it's very cloudy. your problem with google maps most likely stems from lack of cell signal to load the maps correctly so next time when you travel to a remote area, make sure to download the offline google maps of the area before hand.

[benb]

It's not the map downloading, obviously they put that in and you can download a big area ahead of time if you're on top of things.

It's more they're not going to go out there and drive around to make sure it works with human testing, and even though the maps are there someone throws in a network call without an error handler that can deal with no network and you run into that and it stops working. They're big complex apps with lots of people working on them and it's easy for that to happen. Testing & support on these apps for consumers is of minimal priority.

[p nut]

Google maps offline maps has been a hit/miss for me. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. No rhyme or reason. (And no satellite layer option. Only standard).