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5 Waze tips and tricks: Find cheap gas, send an alert and more
Thanks to your smartphone, you don’t need to stuff your glovebox with gas station maps or purchase aftermarket GPS units.
Can’t get enough of Kim Komando? We’ve got some excellent news for you. Kim recorded all the drive directions in Waze, and you can download her voice into your app! Tap or click here to let Kim guide you to your destination.
Navigation apps are great for getting to your destination as efficiently as possible, but they can do much more. Waze has some neat hidden features you may not be aware of. Read on for five Waze tips that will make you an expert in no time.
1. Find cheaper fuel
Gas prices are slowly decreasing, but refueling your car is still expensive. It can be worth driving a few extra miles for cheaper fuel, but you better know where you’re going, or you’ll waste more gas.
You can search for the cheapest gas stations nearby using the Waze app. Here’s how:
- Open the Waze app.
- Tap the Where to? search bar and then tap the Gas stations icon.
- Your device will start looking around for the closest stations, with prices for each one.
Want to see gas stations listed in order of price? Here’s how:
- Open the Waze app.
- Tap My Waze, then tap the settings icon at the top-left corner.
- Tap Gas stations.
- Select Price in the Sort stations by section.
NOTE: Like the rest of Waze data, gas prices are crowdsourced, so they might not always be up to date.
2. Find the best time to leave
You know that you can open Waze and see the current traffic, but what if you want to see the expected traffic conditions tomorrow or over the weekend? You can avoid traffic and obstructions on the way to your destination, which is especially important with the crazy fuel prices.
Here’s how Waze can help you plan a trip for later:
- Open the Waze app.
- Tap My Waze, then Plan a drive.
- Tap Plan a drive on the next screen to add a destination.
- Search for your destination in the Search bar.
- Choose the time and date you’d like to arrive at your destination, and then tap Save.
- Based on real-time traffic, Waze will remind you when it’s time to leave.
RELATED: Tap or click to find the most efficient route with Google Maps and Apple Maps.
3. Send an alert if you’re running late
If you’re meeting someone for dinner or another event and are running late, they could be worried about your well-being.
Let your family and friends know when you’ll be with them by sharing your route:
- Open the Waze app and start navigating to your destination.
- Tap Share drive.
- Choose how you want to share your drive. You can use a messaging app, email, or tap More options to copy or save the link.
- The receiver will get a link where they can view your drive and ETA.
4. Adjust speed warnings
You should always drive safely and obey traffic laws, but you don’t need a warning every time you’re one MPH over the speed limit. You can adjust the buffer so Waze won’t alert you unless you pass a certain threshold.
Here’s how to adjust speeding alerts:
- Open the Waze app.
- Tap My Waze, then tap the settings icon at the top-left corner.
- Tap Speedometer, then Speeding threshold.
- Tap the speeding threshold to set when you will be warned by number or percentage.
5. Declutter your screen
It’s nice to have so much information on the road, such as police traps, speed cams, traffic jams, road hazards, construction and other reports. But this can clutter your screen and distract you from what’s important to you.
Fortunately, you can customize your map to show what you want and get rid of everything else:
- Open the Waze app.
- Tap My Waze, then tap the settings icon at the top-left corner.
- Tap Map display, then Reports.
- Go through the list of reports and tap on each to show or hide them from the map or enable/disable alerts.
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