Best Speedometer App for Android Beyond Google Maps
Google Maps and Waze both show your speed while you drive. For a big dial with no map, SpeedometerX and Speedometer Speedbox are free and carry no ads.
The navigation app that came with your phone already has a speedometer, one switch away in its settings, and it knows the road’s speed limit where the data exists. A separate speedometer app is worth installing for a large dial with no map behind it, a log of your trips, or a reading on a bicycle or a boat. SpeedometerX is the fullest of the free ones.
Google Maps and Waze show your speed already
Google Maps can show how fast you are driving while it navigates. Google’s help page gives these steps for Android:
- Open Google Maps and tap your profile picture or initial.
- Tap Settings, then Navigation.
- Under “Driving options”, turn on Speedometer.
Google describes the speedometer as part of navigation, so start a route to see it. Where Google has speed limit data for the road, the speed indicator changes colour when you go over the limit, and tapping the speed limit sign during navigation turns the speedometer on or off.
Google attaches a warning. The speedometer in Maps is for information only, and you should confirm your real speed on the vehicle’s own dial. The help page adds that outside factors can make the two differ.
In Waze, open Settings, tap Speedometer and turn on Show speedometer. On the same screen you can choose when the speed limit is shown, set what Waze should count as speeding, and switch on a sound alert. The speedometer turns red when you go over the limit. Waze’s help page says these settings, made on the phone, also apply when you use Waze on the car’s screen.
Google Maps and Waze are both free, and Google Play marks both as containing ads.
A big dial with no map
SpeedometerX : AdFree, from PrdpLabs, has more than the other free apps and no ads. Its listing promises no ads, no trackers and no sign-in, and says your trips stay on the phone. It has a digital readout and an analogue gauge, a HUD mode, alerts by sound and vibration, a home screen widget, and a trip history you can export as GPX or CSV. Routes are drawn on OpenStreetMap. Google Play shows in-app purchases, which the listing explains as an optional tip jar.
Speedometer Speedbox, from Hans Schneider, is for nothing to set up. You get four dial designs, a choice of mph, km/h or knots, and your distance, average and top speed, with no ads and nothing to buy. One of the dials is styled like a computer terminal, which the developer recommends for maximum nerdiness. It appears to be the app once called Speedometer Free Speed Box.
SpeedView comes in three editions, and the names do not make the difference obvious. SpeedView: GPS Speedometer is a cut-down version with a HUD mode and a speed graph, and its listing says it has no ads and no in-app purchases. SpeedView: Legacy Edition is the fuller one, with speed warnings for three types of road, GPX export and a background mode. It shows ads, and its listing says it sends raw sensor data, GPS included, to a company called Sense360 for analytics and marketing. Read that paragraph before you install it. SpeedView Pro is the paid edition.
Simple GPS Speedometer, from Flaki, does what its name says, free with no ads and nothing to buy: speed in km/h or mph and a HUD option.
Your speed on top of another app
Both of these show ads. GPS Speedometer: Speed Tracker from COOL NIKS, as far as we can tell once called GPS Speedometer and Odometer, has a floating window that keeps your speed on top of another app such as Google Maps, with a HUD mode, speed alerts, trip history and a compass. The same developer sells a separate paid edition, GPS Speedometer Odometer (Pro), whose listing says it has no ads.
Speedometer: GPS Speedometer from Simple Design covers the same ground: a limit alarm with vibration and voice, a HUD, a floating window, and your route on a map. It also sells in-app purchases.
Trip logs, bicycles and boats
Galileo GPS Speedometer, from GalileoApps, leans towards trip records, free with no ads and nothing to buy. It has an analogue gauge, speed and altitude charts, your route on a map, export to GPX, and a timeline that marks where the GPS signal was lost.
On a bicycle or at sea, SpeedometerX reads in km/h, mph, m/s or knots. Speedometer GPS from luozirui, free with ads and in-app purchases, switches between a car speedometer and a bicycle odometer. It also shows a speed chart, a map and satellite status, which helps when you want to know why the reading has stalled. The developer sells Speedometer GPS Pro as a paid app.
Ulysse Speedometer: paid only now
The free edition of Ulysse has left the store. Ulysse Speedometer Pro, from binarytoys, is still there as a paid app. Its listing offers overlays on other apps, a trip computer, track export in GPX or KML, a HUD and a timer for 0 to 100 km/h runs.
The same listing suggests using it on a camel, among other vehicles. The dial reads up to 1,900 km/h, which should cover the camel.
How far to trust a GPS reading
Every app on this page works the same way. It has no connection to your wheels. It reads the phone’s GPS receiver and reports how fast the phone is moving, so it needs open sky. GPS.gov, the US government’s site for the system, says a phone is typically accurate to within about 4.9 metres under open sky and gets worse near buildings, bridges and trees. It gives no single figure for speed, because that depends on the satellites in view, anything blocking the signal, the atmosphere and the quality of the receiver.
Tunnels are the worst case. GPS.gov lists underground use among the common causes of error, and Google Maps shows “Searching for GPS” in or near a tunnel or a parking garage. A speedometer app has nothing to read there, so ignore the number until you are back in the open. The phone matters too: Ulysse’s listing says its precision depends on the phone’s hardware, and that trip distance can be 2 to 3 per cent off the car’s odometer.
On which reading to believe, the app makers and Google disagree. Code Sector’s listing for SpeedView claims a GPS speedometer is more accurate than the one in your car. Google tells Maps users to go by the car. Android’s documentation does note that the speed a phone reports can draw on Doppler measurements of the satellite signals, which may be more accurate than timing the distance between two positions. Under open sky, then, the app is a useful second opinion. Among tall buildings or under trees, treat it as a rough guide. With a broken speedometer in the car, an app is a stopgap at best, so get the dial repaired.
The internet is one thing you can do without. The listings for SpeedometerX, GPS Speedometer: Speed Tracker and Galileo GPS Speedometer all say they work offline, because the speed comes from GPS alone. Galileo’s adds that its maps load only when there is a connection.
HUD mode and speed alerts
A HUD mode mirrors the digits so that a phone lying on the dashboard shows a readable number reflected in the windscreen. COOL NIKS describes its version as a mode for night driving, which suggests it is not much use at noon. DigiHUD Speedometer, HUD Widgets and the app listed as Speedometer Free Speed Limit Alert + GPS Black Box no longer turn up on Google Play.
The speed alerts in these apps are limits you type in yourself. For the real limit on the road you are driving, Google Maps and Waze are the ones that show it, where they have the data.
Speedometers on Android Auto
There is no separate app for it, going by Google’s rules. Its developer documentation limits Android Auto to certain kinds of app, such as media, messaging and navigation, and a plain speedometer is not among them. Waze’s help page says its own speedometer settings carry over to the car’s screen.
Several of these apps include a compass. If direction is what you are after, look at compass apps for Android.
