WeWalk & GPS navigation in combination with public transport

By Tea Turkovic, 9 February, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi all,

I'm testing a WeWalk smart cane together with WeWalk smart map application on my iPhone SE 2022, iOS 17.3.1.

GPS navigation during walking works excellent, but I have a problem with GPS navigation in combination with public transport.

I have connected WeWalk, set location to always and turned on exploration mode.

I enter my home adress and adress of my work place. After that, I choose the best transport option, which includes walking, driving in a tram, than walking again, than driving in a bus, than walking again to the building I work in.

But, WeWalk doesn't recognize when I enter the tram or a bus, and the app turns me back till my start tram/bus stop, thus I don't get the correct navigation.

Any experiences/ideas to solve this problem?

Many thanks in advance!

Greetings from Croatia!

Tea Turkovic

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Comments

By Brad on Thursday, February 8, 2024 - 20:35

I've tried this device once but it wasn't for me, i'd recommend contacting the people who make it and seeing what they say.

That's really all you can do as they control the maps they use so they might not have any indoors maps. Although I honestly thought they were using google maps or something like that.

By Callum Stoneman on Thursday, February 8, 2024 - 20:35

Hi,

I bought the WeWalk cane a few months ago and have done quite a bit of playing around with both the cane and the app. There are a couple of quirks with the public transport navigation that you need to be aware of.

First off, you need to tell WeWalk when you have arrived at the tram or bus stop in your case, and when you have got on the tram or bus. I’ll use the tram as an example, but the same applies for the bus.

When you arrive at the tram stop, find the "I’ve arrived" button by swiping up with one finger on the cane’s touchpad and then double tap to select it. The app should then move to telling you when your tram will arrive if that data is available, which it should be. When you get on the tram, perform the same steps to select the "got on" button.

At this point, there is a bug that causes the same behaviour as you described where the type of directions you're receiving doesn’t switch to public transport properly. To get around this, once you have got on the tram and selected the "got on" button, power off the cane. The app should then switch to telling you your remaining stops as expected. You then need to power the cane back on again when you get off the tram. All being well the cane should connect back up to the app, and you can then switch back to walking directions by using the "got off" button.

The final thing that's worth mentioning is that your phone needs to be unlocked the whole time with the WeWalk app in the foreground, otherwise the directions also won’t change.

Hope this helps.

By Tea Turkovic on Thursday, February 8, 2024 - 20:35

Thank you, Callum, for the excellent Tricks, I’m gonnaa try them when I come back in Zagreb on monday.

In the meantime, I contacted the WeWalk team to get them know that problem exists and always repeats, so I hope they will find a Solution to fix this and make the app better.

By Jonathan Candler on Thursday, February 8, 2024 - 20:35

Been wondering about this. Not that I need one, but would be kind of cool to have in my arsenal. Also how much are they going for?

By Sebby on Thursday, February 8, 2024 - 20:35

Honestly unless you need the sonar feature, you don't need it. And when you do, chances are you'll switch among various apps anyway, in effect rendering the integration twixt cane and app kind of pointless really. I'm glad it exists, but only because nobody's been in touch to get their cane back from me (feedback unit); I'd not be too sorry to give it back. The app is really quite nice standalone and I think it's based on Google Maps. The key missing feature, IMO, is waypoint-based navigation using arbitrary drops; some people and places just can't function without those. In my leafy north London district that is very evident. JMO, YMMV, etc.