Watch Navigation for Android and iOS

You can now use your Apple Watch to navigate routes. When you are following a route on your phone, you can access navigational information on your watch. You will get:

• directional information similar to what you get on your phone,
• vibration on the approach to turns and when you have gone 'off route',
• and information on how far you have gone and how far is left to go. 

Apple Watch Series 5 and later and Apple Watch SE will show a directional arrow to point you in the direction you need to go. The arrow points 50 meters ahead of you which means it gives sensible instructions as you approach corners and bends in the route.

As the phone is doing the actual navigation and the watch is displaying information, you need to take your phone with you. If you don’t want to hear the phone’s audio directions, you can now switch this off directly from the watch.

There are two modes of navigation: connected to the phone or not connected to the phone (standalone mode). You can download routes directly to your watch with a map so you can use your watch in standalone mode. 

To make it easier we show a menu of routes on your watch

• Routes - a list of all your routes
• Recently viewed - routes that you viewed recently
• Routes Nearby
• Saved content - routes that were downloaded to the watch 

When you download a route, the app will automatically download a map for it as well. When you are operating the watch in standalone mode you are able to navigate routes, see your position on the map and see the route on the map too.

If you want to stay connected to the phone, you can navigate using the phone and see navigational instructions, route, position on the map just like standalone, except the phone is doing the navigating.

For watches with a compass, the watch will point along the route approximately 50 metres ahead. You can swipe down on the screen to enlarge the arrow for better visibility.