5 Most Anticipated Waze Updates for 2023: Making Google Maps Look Outdated

Google Maps, for instance, is an all-in-one application that has significantly evolved beyond the standard navigation software concept.

While it does help people go from where they are to where they want to be, it’s now a far more advanced application, letting users see business information, find out how crowded a store is, and even order food and track its status.

Waze, on the other hand, is specifically focused on the navigation component. And thanks to its crowdsourcing engine, it’s incredibly accurate whenever it comes to ETAs and finding faster routes to a user-defined destination.

At the end of the day, Waze has long been considered one of the main alternatives to Google Maps, and thanks to the updates that could go live in 2023, it could eventually become the navigation app that everybody wants to use.

Warnings regarding roads with an increased likelihood of accidents

One of the most important features that are already in the beta builds of Waze, and which should launch at some point this year, is the support for warnings about roads with a history of crashes.

In other words, whenever you’re driving on a road where Wazers typically report crashes, you should see a new warning on the screen.

As said, the feature is already available in the beta development stage, so it’s just a matter of time until it launches for everybody. Waze just needs to further polish the experience with these warnings, as right now, the dangerous roads are marked on the map with the same shade of red used for flagging heavy traffic.

Support for Android Auto Coolwalk

The Coolwalk redesign is coming to Android Auto, and needless to say, Waze is one of the applications that users will want to run on the new interface.

At this point, however, Google Maps is the only navigation app that supports Coolwalk, so without such a dedicated update in this regard, Waze can’t really be considered a competing product.

Fortunately, the Waze team has already confirmed that Coolwalk support is coming to their app, and it is expected to go live for users out there at some point this year. Coolwalk is still in the beta stage, so there’s no rush for the Waze developers to make it happen.

The good news is that Waze will eventually support Coolwalk, therefore becoming a Google Maps alternative in the upgraded Android Auto world as well.

Personal statistics

If you’ve never used Waze, you might be surprised that the application doesn’t provide any personal statistics, especially because Google Maps already shows such information at the end of a journey.

As it turns out, Waze will soon get both driving and personal statistics when you arrive at the destination, though for the time being, it’s not precisely clear how the whole thing is going to work.

What we do know, however, is that Waze wants to offer a personalized experience to users, so they could end up being provided with data related to the number of reports sent during the journey, the distance they traveled, and the accuracy of the provided ETAs.

More toll road controls

Now, this is something that all navigation apps out there, including Google Maps, really need. Waze will soon be updated with a new option that will allow users to choose if they want to use toll roads or not before starting the navigation.

In other words, while most navigation apps already allow users to enable or disable toll routes for the routing model, Waze will make it possible to control these settings on a journey basis.

The new option should show up right after defining a new destination in Waze, so you’ll be allowed to choose a new route based on whether you want to use toll roads or not.

Google Maps doesn’t come with such capabilities, so fingers crossed for the team working on the app to check this out as soon as it becomes available (which is totally possible given the Google Maps and Waze teams are now living under the same roof).

Vehicle profiles

Once again, this is the kind of feature that should eventually make its way not only to Waze, but to all the other navigation apps out there as well.

Waze will soon be updated with vehicle profiles, something that would essentially come in handy to users who own more than just one car.

For example, if you drive both a personal and a company car, you can configure different profiles in Waze and choose the one you want when launching the app. In the company car, for instance, you may try to avoid toll roads, so choosing the dedicated profile could help you look for routes in a more straightforward way.