Waze users who rely on the Google-owned navigation app for daily commutes may be missing a set of features buried in its menus. The crowdsourced platform, which Google has owned since 2013, depends on real drivers to report accidents, potholes, congestion and police activity. Beyond routing, it offers tools for contacting saved friends, customizing the driving experience and planning trips in advance. Many of these options are not surfaced prominently, so they can go unnoticed.
One such tool lets users start navigation to a friend or family member without typing an address. After swiping up in the app and scrolling to the bottom, users can select Drive to friends & family and grant Waze access to their contacts. Typing a contact's name then pulls up their saved address for one-tap navigation. iPhone users can revoke access through Settings, Apps, Waze and Contacts, while Android users can do so through Settings, Apps, See all apps, Waze, Permissions and Contacts.
Waze also offers more personalization than many competing apps. Through Settings, View profile and Mood, users can choose how their avatar appears to other drivers, including options meant to match a particular state of mind. A separate sidekick selection changes the vehicle icon, avatar and the voice that guides the route.
Drivers can replace the default navigation voice with recordings of their own, or with lines recorded by a friend or family member. Voice packs are managed under Settings, Voice and sound and Current voice, where presets are available alongside a New voice option. Waze provides 39 prompts to record, each capped at six seconds, covering basic turns as well as hazards and speed cameras. Any prompt left unrecorded falls back to the default voice.
Trip planning is another underused capability. After searching for a destination, users can tap Leave later instead of Go now, then choose an arrival time in 15-minute increments while Waze shows expected traffic levels beside each option. The starting location and day of the week can also be adjusted for drives scheduled further out, and saving adds the trip to a planned drives list accessible from the hamburger menu under Plan a drive. Waze can also connect to a calendar so events with a location appear automatically as planned drives.
The app additionally accepts search-bar codes that open diagnostic tools and toggle certain features. Entering ##@morph unlocks a monster mood avatar, while ##@cctts clears the text-to-speech cache, which can resolve some voice navigation problems. Waze offers other search codes, but the article advises users to avoid codes intended for troubleshooting. For a US audience accustomed to Google Maps and Apple Maps, these options represent Waze's main point of differentiation.
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