Voice-guided navigation

SUPPORT

navigation

Markus

2026-06-10

Machine translated

The Trailmap mobile app now has voice-guided navigation: when you follow a route you've picked in advance, the app warns you about upcoming turns out loud and shows them on screen as well. The idea is familiar from car sat-navs, but here it's adapted to trails and terrain — where junctions come thick and fast and glancing at the map at speed isn't always easy.

This guide covers what navigation can do and how to use it. If you've only used the Trailmap app for recording rides or for following a route line on the map, this is an easy next step. The new navigation is built on top of the new "Navigate" view, which replaces the old "Record" page and gives you a map view optimised for navigation.

Voice guidance is an aid, not a replacement for the map. At its best it handles most of the turns for you so you can concentrate on moving, and you only need to glance at the map when the terrain really calls for it.

The clearer the road or trail network along the route, the better voice guidance works. On wide trails, forest roads and cycle paths the guidance is reliable and clear. In very dense trail networks, where junctions can be a few metres apart, no voice guidance can be perfect — there, take the guidance as an aid, but keep the map visible and navigate by the route line you see on it.

In urban areas, too, voice guidance sometimes needs the map to back it up: working out how a cycle path crosses a road junction, for example, can be hard on voice prompts alone. In that case it's better to check the direction of the route on the map and then work out for yourself the smartest way across the junction.

Navigation needs a route to work with — one you've planned in Trailmap or imported into the app. Drawing routes has its own guide, so this one sticks to navigation itself.

Navigation also supports tracks, such as GPX files. A track has to be converted into a route before you can navigate it, but this happens conveniently as part of starting navigation: when a single track is open on the map and you tap "Navigate" in the bottom bar, the app asks you to pick a routing profile (e.g. mountain bike, on foot or gravel) and automatically converts the track into a route, for which it calculates turn instructions. After that, navigation starts as normal.

Two ways to use it

The tab in the app's bottom bar (formerly the "Record" page) is where everything starts. The tab name changes with the situation: when a route (or a single track) is open on the map, the tab says "Navigate"; when no route is open, it says "Record".

From there you get two ways to get going:

Recording only — you record your ride as a track without voice guidance. This is the familiar old recording.
Navigating a route — when you have a route open, you navigate it with voice guidance. Typically you open or pick a route (or a track) first — from the route list, say, or a route you've just drawn — and only then start navigating. The ride is recorded automatically in this case too.

In both modes recording starts at the same moment as navigation or recording itself, so you can't accidentally leave it switched off.

The Navigate tab and the start view

With a route

Open the route you want from the route list (the "Routes" page in the bottom bar) to its details view.
Tap "Navigate". The app switches to the navigation view and shows the start button.
Tap the "Navigate" start button. Navigation and recording start.

On starting, the app says "Navigation started" out loud (unless you've chosen silent mode). That's also a handy way to check the volume is right. The map centres on your location and the view is ready. You can zoom the map to a scale that suits you.

Alternatively: if you already have a route open on the map — one you've just drawn, or opened earlier — you can start navigating straight away by tapping the "Navigate" tab in the bottom bar, without going via the route details view.

From a GPX file

Open the "Routes" page in the bottom bar and select the "GPX" tab.
Tap the GPX button and open the GPX file you want. The track appears on the map.
Tap the "Navigate" tab in the bottom bar. The app asks you to pick a routing profile (e.g. mountain bike, on foot or gravel) and converts the track into a route, after which navigation starts as normal.

Note: for this to work, only one track may be open on the map — no route and no other tracks at the same time. If necessary, remove other tracks or the route using the buttons at the top of the "Routes" page before you open a new GPX file.

Without a route (recording only)

Tap the "Record" tab in the bottom bar.
Tap "Record". Recording of the ride starts.

You can add a route to be guided later, mid-ride — more on that under Changing and editing the route mid-ride.

The navigation view is an ordinary map view apart from the parts added for navigation, and the bottom bar is hidden to leave more room for the map. The navigation view also has its own power-saving features tailored to it.

The parts of the navigation view

The turn prompt appears at the top of the screen as a turn approaches. It has a big arrow, the turn direction in words, the distance to the turn and the name of the road or trail you're turning onto. If another turn follows right after, the prompt tells you about that too ("Then 40m right").

The recording stats show at the top when no turn prompt is on screen. They show distance covered and time elapsed.

The Actions button at the bottom of the screen opens a menu with all the navigation settings and recording controls.

The back arrow in the top left takes you out of the navigation view to the ordinary map view. Note that this does not stop navigation or recording — they carry on in the background (more under Running in the background).

The familiar map buttons are also visible, including the camera for taking photos and the recentre button ("Recentre" at the top of the screen), which brings the map back to your location if you've moved it. Positioning is always on during navigation, but you can change how the map rotates if you want (by default the map turns to match your direction of travel).

Voice guidance

Voice guidance is the most important part of navigation: thanks to it you don't have to keep looking at the screen. How the prompts behave is set with the "Prompts" setting in the Actions menu, which has three options:

Silent — no sound, prompts show on screen only.
Beep — turns are signalled with a tone, but no speech.
Speech — turns are also announced with speech ("50m left").

How turns are announced

As you approach a turn you first get an early warning in good time, and at the moment of the turn itself you hear a tone. Distances are scaled to your speed, so the warnings come at the right rhythm whether you're walking or riding.

If two turns come one after another over a short distance, they're announced together ("70m left, then 40m right"), so you have time to prepare for both. On long straight stretches you get an occasional reassuring "Continue" confirmation, telling you you're still on the right route and there's no turn nearby. At the end of the route you'll hear when you reach the finish point.

When there are no prompts for turns, always follow the path you're currently riding, including its bends — those usually aren't announced separately.

Controlling other audio

If you listen to music, a podcast or an audiobook while navigating, you can choose in the Audio settings how the voice prompt behaves relative to the other audio:

Lower — the other audio quietens for the duration of the prompt and comes straight back.
Pause — the other audio is paused for the duration of the prompt and comes straight back.
Audiobook — like pause, but the app waits a longer quiet moment before resuming the other audio, so you can concentrate on the turns. Good for a more demanding audiobook, for example.

The Audio settings also have a Bluetooth delay, which compensates for the time wireless headphones or a speaker take to wake up, and a test button so you can check how well the prompt sound carries before you set off.

Voice prompts work even if you've turned off the phone screen or put the app in the background. A simplified version of the voice prompts is used then.

Going off route and warnings

If you drift off the route, the app notices and warns you:

Off route is shown in orange, and you also get a tone. If you carry on in the wrong direction for longer, the app reminds you once more with speech.
The Back on route notice (green) tells you when you've returned to the route.
The Wrong direction warning comes up if you're travelling along the route but the wrong way.

Sometimes a route crosses a stretch for which turn instructions can't be calculated (a straight line between two points outside the trail network, for example). Voice guidance then pauses and tells you so — you follow the route line on the map for that stretch, and guidance resumes automatically when you get back onto a routable road or trail.

Off-route warning

Navigation has its own power saving, tailored to navigation, which replaces the power saving previously found in the settings whenever navigation is running. It knows how to dim the screen when you don't need the map, and to wake it in time before turns. That way the battery lasts noticeably longer without you missing any of the guidance. Power saving is chosen from the Actions menu, and there are three options:

Off — no power saving. The screen and map work normally at full brightness.
Basic — the screen dims on quiet stretches and brightens at turns. Positioning and map refresh rates are also lowered slightly. This is a good everyday choice for most rides.
Maximum — like Basic, but on quiet stretches the screen goes almost black and the map is hidden entirely. The map and brightness come back just before the next turn. The most effective way to save power when you're mainly relying on voice guidance.

Note: if only recording is on (without navigation), "Basic" mode works differently: you turn the dimming on and off by touching the map with a finger. Be careful not to move the map by accident — just tap briefly.

How dimming works

When power saving is on, the screen dims on stretches where the next turn is still a long way off and you don't need the map. The screen brightens automatically as a turn approaches, and whenever you touch the screen. In Basic mode the screen wakes as early as the first early warning; in Maximum mode only right before the turn (the early warning and the "Continue" confirmation come as sound only, so the screen stays dark as long as possible). The screen also stays awake when you've gone off route or are travelling the wrong way — that's when you need the map.

How dark the dimming goes is set with the "Dimming" setting (two levels). On iPhone there's also a "Brightness" slider, which lets you set the brightness of the "bright" state to suit the light around you — in bright sunshine, for instance, it's worth turning the brightness up. The slider takes effect immediately, so you see the change right on screen.

Tip: Maximum mode combined with a dark base map (Map settings) saves the most power, because an OLED screen uses almost no power to show black pixels. You'll find more power-saving tips in the separate power saving guide.

On longer rides, over a couple of hours, power saving matters more. More precise estimates of power consumption and other measures (phone mounting, a power bank and so on) are gathered in the separate power saving guide.

The Actions button opens a menu from which everything during navigation is controlled. Its contents in a nutshell:

Change route — switch the route you're navigating.
Stop & start navigation — recording continues, but you can stop navigation and start it again.
Prompts, Power saving and Dimming — the voice prompt mode and power saving, as described above.
Landscape — turn the view to landscape, if your phone is mounted sideways on the bars, for example.
Map settings — dark map, drawing the route line beside the trail (so the trail itself shows from under the line), the size of the location dot and whether the direction arrow is shown. Map style: navigation uses a simplified "background map" by default.
Audio settings — controlling other audio (Lower / Pause / Audiobook), Bluetooth delay and testing the sound.
GPS settings — GPS heading stabilisation and high-accuracy positioning.
Recording controls — pause (Pause), resume (Resume) or finish (Finish) the recording.

The Actions menu

Changing and editing the route mid-ride

You can change the route you're navigating, edit it or delete it mid-ride — and recording still carries on uninterrupted. This is useful if you decide along the way to make the ride longer, pick a different route, or notice you've ridden onto the wrong route.

You change the route from "Change route" in the Actions menu: pick a new route and tap "Navigate". The app starts guiding you along the new route and says "Navigation started" again. If you pick the same route you're already navigating, the app asks whether navigation should be updated (useful if you've edited the route on another device).

You can also edit the route you're navigating, or delete it, mid-ride. While you edit the route, recording carries on, and navigation restarts when you come back from editing. If you delete the route, voice guidance ends but recording continues — you can pick a new route to be guided along if you want.

You can pause recording at any time (Pause) and resume later (Resume). After the pause, guidance continues along the same route when you resume recording.

Running in the background

You can leave the navigation view with the back arrow and use the app normally — browsing the map or looking at other routes, for example. Navigation and recording carry on in the background: you still hear the prompts, and the ride is recorded.

While recording is running, an indicator shows on the "Navigate" tab: green when recording is running and orange when it's paused. You get back to the navigation view by tapping the "Navigate" tab.

Navigation and recording also carry on when the screen is locked or the app is in the background — so you get voice prompts even with the phone in your pocket.

It's easy to get confused here, so let's go over the differences:

The back arrow (or the X on the turn prompt) takes you out of the navigation view, but navigation and recording carry on in the background.
Stopping navigation (in the Actions menu) stops the voice guidance only, but recording continues. You can start navigation again from the same menu.
Finish (in the Actions menu) ends the recording. After that you can save, share or export the ride as GPX — these actions keep the recording, so you can still carry on with it if you want. The ride is only deleted when you choose Delete.

TIP: If you just want to hide the navigation view for a moment, use the back arrow. When the ride is over, use the recording finish in the Actions menu. Note that recording and navigation don't stop by themselves!

Tips and troubleshooting

Check the volume before you set off. The "Navigation started" message at startup is a good gauge for this. You can also test the prompt sound with the test button in the Audio settings.

Bluetooth headphones or speaker. If the start of a prompt gets cut off, increase the Bluetooth delay in the Audio settings — the app will then wait for the device to wake up.

The screen dims "too much". This is normal power-saving behaviour on quiet stretches. Touch the screen to wake it, adjust the "Dimming" level, or (on iPhone) turn up the "Brightness" slider. You can also choose a lighter power-saving level.

Phone mounting. Avoid mounts with a plastic film over the screen — it causes reflections and forces you to use a higher brightness. A solid bar mount also makes it easier to glance at the map at speed.

The app closed mid-ride. If the app is closed or crashes during navigation, recording and navigation are restored automatically when you open the app again. You'll get a notice about this on screen.