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Google Maps Rival Has a Feature That Turns It Into a Waze Alternative

One of the reasons people across the world love Waze so much is the support for traffic reports. And thanks to its huge userbase, drivers are always in the know about what’s happening on the road.
Sygic camera alerts 9 photos
Photo: Sygic
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Without a doubt, the speed trap warnings are among the reasons many drivers use the app in the first place. And while we’re not going to reignite the controversy on whether this feature should be legal or not, police traps being flagged on Waze come down to two different types of reports.

First of all, Waze can warn of static cameras that record your speed (and sometimes issue a ticket if you’re going over the limit). This is a feature that’s already available in many other navigation apps because the location of a fixed camera can be included in a database that’s then used to issue warnings to drivers.

Second of all, based on its crowdsourcing engine, Waze can notify drivers of mobile speed traps. These are typically mobile radars installed on police cars and which are often changing their location. Users report the current location on Waze, and other drivers are then provided with a warning to become aware of this in advance.

Needless to say, mobile speed traps warnings wouldn’t be possible without the huge community that’s powering Waze.

But a Google Maps rival has found a way to make the whole thing possible even without relying 100 percent on the reports sent by other drivers on the road.

Sygic is right now one of the navigation experts whose software is considered to be among the leading solutions on the market. The company’s GPS Navigation product comes with very advanced capabilities, in addition to the essential feature package already included in the likes of Google Maps and Apple Maps.

Sygic, however, has tried to step into Waze territory, and one of the features that it offers to users out there is support for warnings about mobile speed cameras.

Sygic speed camera alert
Photo: Sygic
Clearly, given Sygic doesn’t have Waze’s large community to power this feature, the company had to look elsewhere for an efficient way to make it happen. And right now, it’s using data supplied by “one of the world’s largest speed camera databases.” Sygic doesn’t share additional information on this front, but it adds that the data is being acquired from an external provider.

In other words, the mobile speed camera warnings that you get while running Sygic’s software are based on data imported from a mysterious source. And at first glance, the reports seem to be spot-on, which is quite surprising given they are available in the majority of countries across the world.

But at the same time, Sygic has also tried to go the Waze way, so the company’s own GPS Navigation product comes with support for user reports as well. This means Sygic users themselves are allowed to send reports on the location of the mobile speed traps, all by simply pressing the reporting button on the main navigation screen.

Just like in the case of Waze, Sygic will display the warning to other drivers out on the road for a limited time, as the likelihood of the speed trap still being there after a few hours is rather limited. The company says the report is automatically dismissed, and the camera location is removed from the database after a few hours.

As compared to Waze, which offers all capabilities free of charge, Sygic’s mobile speed camera warnings are only included in the Premium+ subscription. This means users need to pay to get access to this feature, no matter the platform where they are running the app.
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About the author: Bogdan Popa
Bogdan Popa profile photo

Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
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