One More Waze Feature Broken Down, the Switch to Google Maps Is Almost Unavoidable

From a driver distraction perspective, this is critical. Because drivers can always keep their eyes on the road, Waze helps improve the safety behind the wheel, essentially addressing one of the biggest distraction causes in cars.

On the other hand, if you're a long-time user of navigation apps, you probably know already that voice command integration has been challenging, to say the least. The feature suddenly stops working due to reasons users can't figure out on their own, and patches often take up to several months to ship.

Waze is the latest big name to struggle with voice guidance, as a recent update apparently broke down how the app provides users directions.

A discussion thread on the official support forums reveals voice directions stop before speaking the entire information, therefore making it impossible for users to determine how they need to follow the suggested route. Instead of hearing something like "in one mile, turn left," Waze now simply says "in one mile." Obviously, this isn't the expected behavior, so keeping the voice guidance active in Waze doesn't make much sense anymore.

Several users have already confirmed the same behavior in their cars, but for now, the error doesn’t seem very widespread. For example, Waze is still working fine in my car on both iPhone and Android after the latest update, so presumably, the bug only occurs on certain devices.

A product expert explained on the Waze forums that corrupted voice files could cause the issue. In some cases, the voice files do not download correctly, and if the process is interrupted, the spoken instructions are broken as well.

In theory, the workaround comes down to clearing the voice files cache, but users who tried this solution claim no improvement was noticed. In some cases, trying this recommended workaround makes the whole thing even worse, as Waze sometimes ends up losing voice guidance entirely.

Removing the app and then reinstalling it doesn't bring things back to normal, either.

Someone explains on the forums that the bug only impacts the Natalie voice (this is the default configuration in Waze for all users), so clearing the cache and then changing the voice to any other setting should fix the problem.

The investigation is still underway, so for now, no universal fix that addresses the problem for everybody is known to exist.

The switch to Google Maps

While Waze keeps investigating the problem, so getting a fix overnight is out of the question, the need for navigation behind the wheel is critical for many users out there.

If this is your case as well, the only temporary solution is a switch to Google Maps. Unfortunately, more and more users are tempted to jump ship and move to Google Maps permanently, especially as Waze proves to be very buggy lately.

For example, a recent Waze glitch broke down voice commands completely for Android Auto users. The Google-owned company updated the app with support for Coolwalk (the new Android Auto design), but once the new version went out, the voice command integration became unavailable as well. For some reason, Waze claims this is the intended behavior, but it can't be true.

Voice commands in Waze worked properly before the update to the latest version, and removing them from the Android Auto version doesn't make any sense. Voice commands are an essential part of the driving experience, and just like voice directions, they help reduce the distraction behind the wheel. Users can therefore control Waze hands-free, as touch input is no longer required to configure the app and set a new destination.

Needless to say, Google Maps isn't a flawless navigation app either, but the increasing number of bugs in Waze lately is slowly but surely becoming unacceptable for more and more users. The crowdsourcing engine bundled with Waze is what keeps many people on board, especially because there are no fully featured alternatives out there.

Several companies have tried to build a similar solution, but none managed to create such a large community to make traffic reports accurate. Apple, for example, integrated incident reporting in Apple Maps, but the feature is yet to gain traction. Users can only report accidents, speed traps, and other hazards, whereas Waze supports a wide variety of incidents, including roadkill, traffic jams, potholes, vehicles stopped on the road, and broken traffic lights.

For now, the Google-owned company keeps working on refining the experience with the app, so fingers crossed for Waze to get polishing updates as fast as possible. If nothing changes in the short term and Waze doesn't urgently release bug-fixing updates on all platforms, don't be too surprised if the number of people moving to Google Maps increases overnight.