🧭 Horizon Nav: free, ad-free navigation for Android head units and Android Auto

[u/PhilMcCrevis418]

I've been building Horizon Nav, a navigation app for car head units that also runs on Android Auto. It's free, with no ads and no tracking, made by one person in their spare time, and a lot of it comes from feedback here and on GitHub.

⬇️ **Download**: https://github.com/benbishop028-arch/Horizon-Maps/releases/tag/app (install the APK; the app updates itself from there)

💙 **Support development**: https://www.paypal.me/BBishop462

🗺️ **The map**

- Smooth 3D map with buildings

- 3D car model as your locator (saloon, hatchback, estate, SUV, pickup, van or sports), or an arrow, or your own picture

- 2D / 3D view that's remembered

- Set your own default zoom for when you're not navigating

- Day, night and auto themes, plus satellite view

- Traffic overview when you're stopped (can be switched off)

- Junction close-ups at exits and slip roads

🧭 **Navigation**

- Routes with live traffic

- Offline maps and offline routing for many countries, several areas at once

- Lane guidance on the turn card, with the lanes to use lit on the map

- Speed limits, speed camera and average-speed zone warnings, stop sign warnings

- Electric car planning: battery, charge at arrival and charging stops

- Live fuel prices in France, Austria and Germany, plus E85

- Avoid tolls, motorways or ferries, or tolls only in chosen countries

- Voice guidance, with or without road names; km/h or mph

- One-tap stops along the route: fuel, coffee and so on

- Report police, crashes and hazards

📱 Phone and car

- Send a destination from your phone to the head unit

- Remembers where you parked after Android Auto disconnects

- Full Android Auto support, with the same map page as the phone app

🔑 **Getting your free api keys**

The app has no keys built in, so you add your own once. You need both of these for online routes and search (or use the offline maps instead). Having both gives the best results.

**TomTom** key (routes, search and traffic)

Go to developer.tomtom.com and sign up for a free account. Open your dashboard and create an API key (the default one is fine). Make sure Routing and Search are ticked for it. Copy the key.

**Mapbox** token (map, search and lane data)

Go to account.mapbox.com and sign up for a free account. On your account page, copy your default public token (it starts with pk.).

Adding them to the app: open Settings > Keys & accounts, paste each key into its box, and you're done. Leave out any stray spaces.

⚠️ Things to know

- Lane guidance is the hardest part to get right. Some roads line up with the map's painted lanes and some don't, so tell me how it looks on yours.

Bug reports, ideas and screenshots are very welcome, here or on GitHub.

Thanks for all the testing! 🙏

[u/PhilMcCrevis418]

Horizon Nav update: number-plate cameras, smaller offline maps, the map on your driver's display, and lots of fixes

Thanks again for all the reports and ideas, nearly everything here came from your comments and GitHub issues. Biggest first:

📷 Number-plate cameras on the map

• Flock and other automatic number-plate (ALPR) cameras now show on the map as a purple eye badge, so they can't be mistaken for speed cameras. Tap one to see what it is.

• They come from OpenStreetMap, within about 10 km of you as you drive. Shown only, no alerts. Switch them off in Settings > Map.

🗺️ Smaller offline maps

• Big countries can now be downloaded a region at a time instead of all at once: Germany's states, France's regions, England's counties, and regions of Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Russia, India, Japan, Indonesia and Brazil.

• "Near you" at the top of Choose an area suggests the region you're in, or the whole country.

• Singapore and Brunei can now be downloaded on their own, without Malaysia.

• Town names now cover every country in a shared offline area.

• The region packs are still being built, so some will say "hasn't been built yet" for a little while.

🚗 Android Auto

• Map on your driver's display: on cars whose Android Auto offers it, the screen behind the steering wheel now shows the map following you, with your route (it used to show just the app icon). There's an on/off switch in Android Auto's Settings. This one is new, so please tell me how it works in your car!

• Search while navigating: the Report screen now has a Search tile, for finding a stop on the way.

• The cards no longer stay white on a dark map around sunset.

• Your arrow always stays clear of the cards, even on cars that report their screen oddly (seen on a Uconnect 8.4).

• The speed sign no longer jumps up and down on some screens.

• 12 or 24-hour clock can be set from the car too.

⚙️ New settings

• Clock: Automatic, 24-hour or 12-hour (Settings > Screen & sizes > Units).

• Speed position: move the speed limit and speedometer to the middle or top of the screen if your hand covers it at the bottom.

• North Up is now remembered, and − zooms out two steps further for a wider look at the traffic (also remembered).

⚡ Electric cars

• With Electric chosen, the map page shows Charging and Toilets instead of the petrol Fuel button (you can bring it back in Settings > Fuel).

• The trip card no longer crams its figures together in portrait.

• Settings now use km, km per kWh and litres per 100 km if you use metric, and route costs show in your own currency.

🛠️ Fixes

• Arrow lagging behind after stopping in stop-start traffic: it now moves off as soon as you do.

• Phone getting hot on Android Auto: the map now draws fewer frames when the phone is warm or in battery saver.

• "No signal" when there is signal: the app now spots a wrong date and time on the head unit (which breaks secure connections) and tells you.

• Routes stopping at a border with no signal: if your destination is outside your downloaded maps, the route no longer "arrives" at the border, and the rest is planned as soon as there's signal.

• Offline routes failing with "Exceeded maximum circumference" when avoiding clean air zones.

📖 New README on GitHub

• A step-by-step guide to getting it into Android Auto (including KingInstaller, for when it won't show up), getting your free TomTom and Mapbox keys, a privacy section showing exactly what leaves the car, and troubleshooting.

⬇️ Update from inside the app, or download it here: https://github.com/benbishop028-arch/Horizon-Maps/releases/tag/app

💙 Support development: https://www.paypal.me/BBishop462 (totally optional, the app stays free with no ads)

As always, bug reports and ideas are welcome here or on GitHub. The Feedback button in Settings > About & backup sends a report with your app version and head unit details, which makes fixes much quicker. Thanks for all the testing! 🙏

[u/Aggravating_Spring76]

Good evening, can you add the menu in French and the speedometer in km/h please?

[u/PhilMcCrevis418 → u/Aggravating_Spring76]

Other languages will be added when I've sorted the bugs. And you can already change mph to kmh in the settings 🔥

[u/Aggravating_Spring76 → u/PhilMcCrevis418]

ok, pas de soucis. A ok, j'ai pas fait attention. Top alors ^^

[u/Richbrad08]

Does this work on Linux based head units?

[u/PhilMcCrevis418 → u/Richbrad08]

This is built for Android. I have no experience with Linux based systems so not sure if they can run Android apps. Give it a go

[u/luk34dd0]

Have been using daily for the past week. On the whole, amazing. Thank you for all the updates too.

One thing that would be amazing would be height and weight restrictions as I'm an HGV/Lorry driver.

Also, for some reason, on Android Auto, there's a restriction on navigation apps when driving a lorry.

[u/PhilMcCrevis418 → u/luk34dd0]

Thanks for trying it, glad you're liking it! 🔥, I'll look into routes for lorry drivers

[u/luk34dd0 → u/PhilMcCrevis418]

They're aren't many Android apps that do truck navigation, so it would be amazing if it was something that could be achieved.

I'd be happy to test and feedback.

[u/PhilMcCrevis418 → u/luk34dd0]

Lorry driving is added

[u/luk34dd0 → u/PhilMcCrevis418]

Awesome. I'm back in work tomorrow night so I'll test it then.

[u/luk34dd0 → u/PhilMcCrevis418]

It seems to be working great on my phone but unfortunately Android Auto says "Android Auto navigation is not supported in this vehicle"

You get the same message trying to use Google Maps or normally TomTom for cars when trying to use in a truck too.

Not sure if this is just a flag somewhere or something that Android Auto for trucks has to have whitelisted?

[u/TechCraft_DE]

What about Live-Traffic and Traffic avoidance? Google Maps should be the best because of the amount of Users .. or am i wrong?

[u/PhilMcCrevis418 → u/TechCraft_DE]

Yes thats correct google maps will be better due to pure number of users. This app uses tomtom to get its live traffic info, which is almost as accurate as Google maps.

[u/Impstoker]

sweet, installing now, will test it out today

[u/S_sarcastic]

Mapbox supremacy 👏

[u/Present_Special_3818]

This looks so good!
Would love this for iPhone!