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Tsamaya and Waze: two different jobs.
Looking for a Waze alternative in South Africa? Tsamaya is a navigator that plans around risk, closures and protests. Here is what it adds, and where you may still want both.
What each is for
Two different questions
Waze is a general-purpose navigator, built to get you there quickly. Tsamaya is a navigator built around risk on South African roads.
A general-purpose navigator asks which way is quickest. Tsamaya asks that too, and then a second question: which of the ways there passes through the fewest areas with a history of vehicle crime, at the hour you are driving? It plans the answer in 14 South African metros, grades the options A to E, and guides you turn by turn with voice, on the phone and on Apple CarPlay.
This page describes Tsamaya and the kind of app Waze is. For what Waze offers today, its own site is the source: we do not list another app's features, because they change.
Which job is which
What Tsamaya adds
| You want to | Tsamaya | A general-purpose navigator such as Waze |
|---|---|---|
| Get there quickly | A Fastest option with traffic-aware arrival times, alongside the others. | This is the job it is built for. |
| Avoid areas with a history of vehicle crime | Routes around rated areas, with separate ratings for day, evening and night, in 14 metros. | Check the app itself. |
| Go around protests and closures | Searched for each morning and routed around while they last. Gated and closed roads are kept in a record of their own. | Check the app itself. |
| Know about police, roadblocks and cameras | Police and roadblock notices from nearby drivers for an hour, known fixed speed cameras, camera vans for about three hours, and hijacking hotspots. | Check the app itself. |
| See that a trip will end after dark | The route card warns, and says how soon to leave to arrive in daylight. | Check the app itself. |
| Call for help or let someone follow you | An SOS button that calls 10111 or 112 or texts your emergency contact, and live trip links that open in any browser. | Check the app itself. |
Using both
You can keep both
- Use Tsamaya for trips to somewhere unfamiliar, late in the day, or through a metro with ratings. Keep whatever else you use for the rest.
- Tsamaya can hand a route to Google Maps with the detour points already in place, and it opens locations shared to it from other apps.
- Outside the rated metros Tsamaya is an ordinary map and navigator with no risk data.
Tsamaya is in open beta, it is free, and lower risk is not no risk.
Questions
Asked often
It does a different job. Waze is a general-purpose navigator; Tsamaya is a navigator built around risk in South African metros. If you want routes that account for areas with a history of vehicle crime, closures and protests, Tsamaya is built for that, and you can keep both.
It can: it is a full turn-by-turn navigator with voice. It can also hand a route to Google Maps with the detour points already in place. Whether to keep Google Maps as well is your call.
14 metros: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Ekurhuleni, West Rand, Secunda, Stellenbosch, Rustenburg, Pilanesberg, Mossel Bay, Durban, Gqeberha, Kruger & Lowveld, Bloemfontein. Outside them Tsamaya is an ordinary map and turn-by-turn navigator with no risk data, and a blank map means no data, not no risk.
Yes. Everything that routes you around risk, the SOS button and trip sharing included, is free and stays free. There is no account and there are no ads, and we do not sell anything about you.
No, and we will never tell you otherwise. Tsamaya cuts your exposure to areas with a history of vehicle crime. Crime is not predictable, and no route is safe. Lower risk is not no risk: treat it as better information for the choice you were going to make anyway.
Get the app
Try it on your next drive.
Free, in open beta, on Android and iPhone. Lower risk is not no risk.
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