Offline maps and navigation

What Stamio uses

• Your route: a GPX, TCX or FIT file, opened from Files or shared to Stamio, or a route from your Strava account.
• Your GPS position, measured by your watch.
• OpenStreetMap maps, which Stamio hosts and draws for your watch.

How navigation works

1. 1

   The route, read by Stamio

   Distance, elevation, turns and climbs are recalculated from the track's points, the same way on iPhone and on the watch. Turns are worked out from the shape of the route, with no online routing service.

2. 2

   The map, downloaded

   You pick an area or a route: your iPhone downloads the map and draws it in the Streets or Trails style, then sends it to your watch, which keeps it. During your run, it shows under your track, with no network. Your running direction stays at the top by default, and the crown zooms.

3. 3

   Locked onto the route

   The watch finds where you are on the track and which way you're running it. If you stray more than 40 meters (130 feet) from it for 10 seconds, it alerts you and points you toward the route, then tells you when you're back on it.

4. 4

   Turns, announced

   A banner appears as you get close, then the voice announces the turn: "In 40 meters, turn right". At the turn, it confirms and announces the next one. No abbreviations are ever spoken.

5. 5

   The rest of the route

   Climbs are announced before you reach them, the points of interest in your file (aid station, water point…) are too when they're on the track, and so is the finish when you get there.

What leaves your phone

• Only the map tiles requested, for the area you download. Your routes stay on your iPhone and your watch.
• With Strava, Stamio only reads your routes, never your activities, and never writes anything there.
• Outside your downloaded areas, Apple's map can take over when your watch has a network connection, except in Low power mode.

What can throw it off

• Obstructed GPS (dense downtown, thick forest, tunnel): your position can jump, and an announcement can come a little late.
• A rough or hand-drawn track: the turns will be approximate.
• A map that's incomplete in some places: OpenStreetMap is built by its contributors, and some trails may be missing.

What you can set

• The map style, the areas kept on your watch, the map orientation.
• Sounds: vibrations, beeps or voice.
• Routes "On my watch", and the route linked to a workout in your plan.
• Export a workout as GPX or FIT.

Questions