Waze is a great Google Maps alternative with an original interface and a wide variety of feature enhancements for road navigation and adventure. In some ways, it’s both better and worse than Google Maps, and perhaps most interesting is that both are under the Google umbrella. Yes, Google acquired Waze in 2013. Regardless, Waze has a lot more personality largely thanks to its community features and the way it gamifies driving. When you start using it, you’re given the title “Waze Baby,” and as you submit reports and interact with the service, you progress efficiently – as if you’re leveling up – earning points not unlike XP (experience) in role-playing games. If you’ve never attended before or never heard of it, you probably have a few questions at this point. What are these Waze points, exactly? What do they do, how do you earn them, and how do you use them?
Ripping off the band-aid for the sake of brevity, Waze Points don’t really do anything outside of serving. They have no monetary value; you can’t exchange them for something tangible. They are simply part of an internal reward system. That said, for dedicated Waze users, they help you rank up, and in doing so you’ll earn small in-app cosmetics. For example, your Waze character or avatar changes with each rank, with a shield, sword or crown – the crown belonging to Waze royalty and the highest rank. Regular users can also earn badges for their accounts, which are displayed on community forums. But even if you use Waze often, if you never visit the forums, it’s not that exciting.
How to earn Waze points to progress?
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The key to Waze is understanding what all those icons and emojis on the map actually mean. The little faces or avatars represent other Wazers on the road, although they are not displayed in real time. But more importantly, these are the icons you see on the map that indicate various events or situations, such as a police hotspot, construction zones, accidents, and traffic jams. These icons appear, in large part, thanks to the Waze community. And that’s precisely where points earned come into the equation.
In Waze, you can earn points by completing various actions and improving everyone else’s experience. You get points for adding icon or voice reports, updating existing reports, such as notifying you when a supposed event or obstacle is no longer present, and sharing available road information, like fuel types or prices. You can also earn points by editing maps, usually filling in more detailed information such as street names, house numbers, or even adding locations. All participating editors also get a separate map editing rank, visible in Waze Map Editor. If you do nothing else, you simply accumulate points for your travels using the app. Initially, Waze awarded users points per mile, but now gives a flat reward of 5 points for completing a trip.
To be a top-tier Waze Knight or Waze Royalty, you need to be in the top percentage in your locality, and in the US that means top in your state. However, the higher percentage is calculated once a month, so the total points needed to progress may fluctuate. This also means that anyone has the chance to get top grades because things are constantly changing.
Do you need to participate when using Waze?
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It’s no secret that community features, including user event reports, silly icons, and creative personality, make Waze much more interesting than Google Maps. But what’s also great is that you can participate as much as you want. If you prefer to use the app like any other navigation tool, to stay informed about your current journeys, that’s exactly what you can do. You don’t need to submit reports, share your experiences, or do anything other than use the app on your phone or in your vehicle.
If you want to move up the leaderboard, experience everything Waze has to offer, and earn those valuable community points, well, you can do that too. And if you completely hate the idea and don’t like Google Maps either, there are plenty of other alternatives that users swear by.
If you want to learn more about Waze, we’ve got it covered, including how it makes money. This is useful information to know, given that the service is free, and that means you are technically the product. Spoiler alert: Google makes money from in-app ads, as you would expect.
