Perhaps the worst part of going through a tunnel when relying on GPS directions is the situation you have to deal with as you prepare to exit the tunnel.
Sometimes the GPS will remember you’re on a road that goes through a tunnel and keep the directions it gave you when you went in, and sometimes it’ll miss the eggs and easter eggs, reminding you to go along the route as your car points to pass through a river, a railway station or a row of houses.
Google Maps is getting better at showing directions in tunnels, according to an announcement today. A new feature spotted by SmartDroid allows the Android version of the app to use Bluetooth beacons to pinpoint your location in areas where the GPS signal normally can’t reach.
The related beacons transmit various Bluetooth signals that give location data to your smartphone, according to Google-owned Waze, which has long supported the feature. The app then uses that information along with the device’s connectivity to “provide real-time traffic data, just as it would with a standard GPS connection.
The only caveat is that the feature will only work if the tunnel you’re traveling through has Bluetooth beacons installed. Waze already has partnerships in various cities around the world, such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Brussels and others, where such beacons have been installed. It’s unclear whether Google Maps will use the same beacons, given that both apps are owned by Google, something the company has yet to clarify.
To enable the feature, select your profile from the top right corner of the app, then select Settings > Navigation Settings. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page, turn on Bluetooth tunnel beacons, and select Allow when Google Maps asks for permission to turn it on. As pointed out by 9to5Google, some users reported seeing the feature for the first time in October 2023, but now it seems to be rolling out widely.
At the moment the feature is not available in the iPhone version of the app, which is expected to be in the future.
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