Wanted: Hiking profile with foot routing and minimal navigation guidance

[pelderson]

Can we have a "Hiking" profile that suppresses all regular turn-by-turn voice guidance and just gives "You left the track for more than X metres" ?

Hikers tend to avoid routing, navigation and (voice) guidance. Main reason: it does too much! A hiker's need is: routing along a pre-existing route (currently using an imported gpx), but only look at it when the waymarks are unclear or missing, or when leaving the track for more than X metres.

So the hiker's requirement for (voice) guidance is: to keep quiet unless the hiker leaves the track, in which case a (voice) warning is given. Until then, the hiker does not look at the screen most of the time. But when (s)he does, the normal on-screen navigation for walking should show, including optional speed, remaining distance, estimated arrival and gps-recording.

Indeed, this warning is currently given by the voice guidance, but you can't suppress the rest of the voice guidance. Or can you?

[sonora]

@vshcherb Since this is in a milestone: Do we have a concept yet how to implernent?

• The obvious way would be to add a switch 'Turn instructions' on our screen 'Voice prompts' where you already can enable/disable all sorts of prompts from street names to traffic warnings.

  But that would still mean hikers have to have OsmAnd in navigation mode for many hours, which may be overkill for the purpose intended?

• An alternative could be we simply introduce a sort of 'Proximity check' (perhaps in combination with trip recording, so we can re-use its mechanisms and parameters for keeping the phone and GPS awake), where OsmAnd would simply check if your position is within a certain distance of any displayed GPX track, and issue a warning if not? No route calculation or navigation needed at all then?

[pelderson]

Both options are ok! The first one works when the user turns navigation on, so it would not be overkill, it's just an extra option while navigating. Many situations require the hiker to check the screen or get other navigational help, because waymarking is generally not all that great! I think navigation itself is not changed by this request?

The second option is a really neat way to help the user who does not want guidance, just a timely warning when leaving the track.

The options are not mutually exclusive I think?

[sonora]

My hinking is navigation is heavier on cpu load and battery drain, hence maybe less apt for hking situations.

[pelderson]

Voice navigation in earphone, screen off, just now and again take a look to make sure, gets you through a day's walk easy. I used to take a powerbank with me, but never needed it.

[vshcherb]

@sonora I didn't prepare the issues for milestone yet though certainly it will require a special setting for leaving track announcement. I don't think we have this one yet though if it requires significant new UI it will be probably delayed to 3.9