Okay, this one is actually pretty cool.
Waze just dropped a Star Trek themed experience tied to “Starfleet Academy,” the new series streaming on Paramount+. And the hook here is not just some generic Trek branding slapped onto the app. The Doctor is your new navigation guide. As in Robert Picardo’s Doctor from Voyager.
If that means nothing to you, move along. But if you spent any time watching Voyager in the late nineties, you already know exactly why this works, folks. The Doctor was always one of the best characters in that show… a holographic physician with an ego the size of a Constitution-class starship and just enough self-awareness to be genuinely funny about it. Picardo voiced him then and he is back doing it here.
Hearing that voice tell you to take the next exit is going to hit different for Trek fans. Trust me on that.
Beyond the voice, there are a couple of other additions worth mentioning. You can swap your on-map icon for a custom Vulcan salute Mood, which shows up when you interact with other drivers on the map. There is also a new car icon option – the U.S.S. Athena, which is the starship introduced in Starfleet Academy. That is a smart tie-in. Instead of pulling out the Enterprise again, Waze and Paramount+ used the new show’s hardware. Fans of the series will appreciate that.
Does any of this make Waze better at actually navigating? No. Of course not. It is a themed overlay, not a software update. But Waze has always been a little silly in the best possible way, and leaning into stuff like this is part of what makes it different from just opening Google Maps.
And look, if you commute every day, you are staring at a navigation app for a combined hour or more. Having The Doctor narrate that experience beats a robotic default voice by a pretty wide margin. At least until he starts lecturing you about your driving habits.
The experience is available right now, globally, in English. Update Waze to the latest version and look for the Star Trek banner in the menu. Resistance, as they say, is futile.
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