The Navigation SDK provides developers with a suite of functions, including the Maps SDK, which allows for the creation of a navigation service that includes a number of core functionalities.   Some of the functions included in the SDK include an embedded routing engine, navigation camera, enhanced arrival experiences with 3D building highlights, and predictive caching.

With the Navigation SDK, developers can create navigation services that are fully integrated with their native applications and customize many of the design elements to suit their business branding and design requirements.

This latest version of the Navigation SDK, version 2.0, will be replacing the existing v1 General Availability (GA) that has been in the market for over a year.  With the GA version of the v2.0, developers can use the SDK to launch their products into the market as all of its components have been thoroughly tested and there are no expected breaking API changes.

Here are the additions made to the new version of the SDK

The Navigation SDK v2.0 features:

• All the core navigation and UI features of Nav SDK 1.0* plus:
• Integration with Mapbox Maps SDK v10 - bringing 3D maps, terrain, a redesigned camera engine, and up to 40% faster performance to the Navigation SDK.
• Navigation Camera API - executes transitions to the best camera angle while taking into account the upcoming maneuver, vehicle speed, nearby POIs, and app’s overlaid UI elements.
• Junction Views - request a snapshot of lane-level guidance of the upcoming maneuver in a junction to give clearer instructions to users than just voice commands.
• Predictive Ambient Caching - Allows users to continue turn-by-turn navigation without missing maneuvers while crossing through areas with low connectivity.
• 3D destination building highlighting - highlight a building upon arrival with 3D extrusions and colors making it easy for the driver to identify the exact location of the destination.

The Navigation SDK v1.0 features:

• Enhanced location engine - continually filters and processes GPS signals to navigate complex driving scenarios such as sharp turns, tunnels, overpasses, and narrow parallel roads by extrapolating a driver’s current location, even when GPS signals are unavailable using dead reckoning algorithms.
• UI customization -  Traffic fill and edges of the route-line can be styled independently. The puck (location indicator) can be styled based on the navigation state - for example, it can be gray when a GPS signal is not available.
• Free-drive mode -  Drivers familiar with a route do not always need directions but do need to see traffic conditions and nearby POIs. In free-drive mode, the location indicator is always map-matched to the driver's current location and the map is kept centered even if the driver does not have active turn-by-turn navigation.

*Drop-In UI support for Android will not be available on the v2.x version but will be coming to the Nav SDK in Q1 2022.

For Android, you can download the NavSDK 2.0 here.

For iOS, you can download the NavSDK 2.0 here.

Navigation SDK v2.0

On Android, it supports Android 5.0 Lollipop (API Level 21) and above, and on iOS, it supports iOS 11.0 and above.

Navigation SDK v1.0

On Android, it supports Android 4.4 KitKat (API Level 19) and above, and on iOS, it supports iOS 10.0 and above.

The Mapbox SDK has been designed so that a developer can download, install, and create a basic running application in about 1 to 2 hours.  This would include the ability to display the map, request an address location, and begin a routing session to this location.

From this point, it is then up to the developer and their specific business goals to determine the amount of customization and specific features that are required in order to bring their application to market.  

To get started, please refer to these pages for the iOS and Android SDK solutions.

Yes. You are able to create and send your own route with the SDK.  There are two flavors of this option that is known as Bring Your Own Route (BYOR).  The first one is known as Map Matching in which you can create an entire route with every waypoint lat/long along the entire length of the route from origin to destination.  Once these waypoints are sent to the NavSDK, Mapbox will merely create a route from these location points and return a completed route back to the client.  From here, the map will be refreshed with traffic and incident data, but the original route will not be updated based on changing conditions. If a driver goes off course, your routing engine will need to handle any necessary re-routing. 

The second method is called Silent Waypoints.  This is similar to Map Matching, but only a few waypoints are provided to the Mapbox SDK along the path.  Mapbox’s Directions API routing engine will then optimize for the path.  In this scenario, route refresh can occur if an incident occurs along the path as long as all as waypoints are preserved. This option allows for a semi-customized route with the benefit of rerouting being handled by the Navigation SDK. 

There is a limitation of 250 way points but this is configurable and can be increased.

Yes, 3D maps are part of the latest Navigation SDK allowing the exact destination building to be highlighted upon arrival, helping drivers arrive faster and spend less time looking for the right building.

Yes, the SDK can be used to navigate offline. An offline routing engine included allows users to navigate when there is little to no connectivity. The full information about offline navigation can be here for Android and iOS.

Including turn-by-turn navigation directly in an application allows developers to create a tailored experience that caters to their drivers' specific needs. Apps can embed and control navigation as part of the user's overall workflow, whether it's a commute, rider pickup/dropoff, or meal delivery route. ‍

1. Customize navigation: developers can personalize the navigation experience for different use cases and audiences: display parking and doorsteps for delivery drivers, EV charging for electric vehicles, meal or beverage promotions for commuters and families.

2. Streamline workflows: developers have full control over the turn-by-turn workflow allowing smooth mid-trip adjustments like adding additional pickup/dropoff waypoints in real-time for drivers.

3. Keep drivers in-app: developers can engage and troubleshoot the driver experience end-to-end, collecting metrics and problem hotspots in operational workflows.

4. Data on User Behavior: Collecting metrics on actual driver behavior provides the ability to understand how end users are actually interacting with the application. Insights collected from this data can continue to add future improvements to the application including monetization opportunities.

Navigation needs enhanced locations to correctly determine a user’s location and give the appropriate instructions during navigation. We have designed the enhanced location engine to handle by map matching to snap the vehicle onto the road segments.  This helps to prevent deviation or gliding (such as cutting corners at an intersection).

Low or complete loss of GPS signal

• Routing in tunnels
• Routing in a city through tall buildings from both sides with both narrow and wide streets, i.e. urban canyon

Driving with deviations from the route under various conditions

• Going straight instead of turning (left, right)
• Turning instead of going straight
• Taking a highway exit where we should go straight

Complex road intersections and interchanges

• Taking an off-route highway exit on a parallel road on a lower level next to the highway and continuing to drive along the highway
• Routing on highways where we transition from lower level to elevated level and back to a lower level

The map is updated every 24 hours based on the data derived from the +300 million miles of driving data collected each day. Mapbox APIs stream data updates for maps, search, and routing to the Navigation SDK. The automatic updates and live correction pipeline marks newly opened or closed roads or changes in routing conditions as they happen.

Yes. Traffic updates at near real-time granularity for 2.3 billion roads segments around the world. The 700 million monthly active users using Mapbox maps on devices and in vehicles create a data feedback cycle. Mapbox data pipelines process 300+ million miles of aggregated, anonymized and privacy-filtered driving data daily to provide continuously updated traffic on the map everywhere in the world.

No. At this time, neither Flutter nor React Native are supported.

Navigation SDK UI is modular, allowing developers to customize up to eleven elements to tailor an app to be most efficient for driver needs or specific hardware.  For the Android SDK, they are as follows:

• Day and Night Mode
• Maneuver Instructions
• Feedback Button
• Recenter Button
• Alert View
• Way Name View
• Summary Bottom Sheet
• Map Route
• Route Scaling
• Unknown Traffic Level Color Substitution
• Navigation View

A full explanation of each of the elements can be viewed here for Android.

The iOS SDK also allows developers to customize several aspects of the design, though a smaller set than Android.  You can find the iOS list and explanations here.

Two example customization use cases are:

The location indicator (puck) in the Navigation SDK can be customized based on navigation such as off-route, poor signal, or arrival. For example, a delivery app may choose to prominently highlight the location puck when a driver goes off-route to draw their attention back to the planned route. 

Traffic styling can be customized to visualize congestion levels along the route. A driver can gauge prevailing traffic conditions with a simple glance using the route-line fill and edge colors custom options.

Yes. The Navigation SDK allows developers to add in-app turn-by-turn navigation by providing UI components, core navigation logic, and APIs that provide a map, a route on the map, and trip progress without the need to upkeep the underlying data or algorithms.

The Mapbox Navigation SDK features include live traffic maps, turn-by-turn directions, detailed visual guidance, audio instructions for complex maneuvers, enhanced location engine for dense urban environments with poor GPS, route tracking, and re-route management to display real-time progress along a route, and offline caching.

No. While Navigation SDK 2.0 includes the same core and UI features present in Navigation SDK 1.0, there are breaking API changes that require code changes to upgrade. Specifically, 1.0 UI components need to be replaced with new ones, and their data bindings should be updated too.

No. We will release every new feature in the Nav SDK 2.x going forward. New releases for the Nav SDK v1.x will only include critical bug fixes.

Yes, a public migration guide is available to developers. Use the following link for Android, and this one for iOS.

Mapbox will continue to support critical bug fixes on v1.x of the NavSDK until March 2022. After that, no additional bug fixes will be provided. By December 31, 2022, Mapbox will deprecate the v1.x and it will no longer be supported after that date.

Developers can use the Release Candidate version to start integrating the SDK in their apps, provide feedback to Mapbox before GA, and publish builds to their testing tracks. We recommend developers to migrate to the GA version of the SDK before releasing your application to the market.

Developers have two different pricing options for the Navigation SDK, 1) Unlimited trip MAU based and 2) Metered trip pricing. The flexible pricing options allow everyone to choose the billing format that best suits their needs. The latest pricing is available on the pricing page.

The Metered trip billing option is set as the default for the Navigation SDK. If you are interested in the Unlimited MAU option, please reach out to our sales team.

Developers must use the Nav SDK v2.0.0-rc.1 or newer so they can access the per trip pricing option. Prior versions only have access to the Unlimited trip MAU billing option.

Yes. The new billing is a pay-as-you-go pricing method that requires no upfront commitments or annual contracts.

Yes. It includes Directions and Maps API requests along with map matching for the Bring Your Own Route approach, which powers the navigation SDK’s functionality. API calls for use cases outside of navigation will be billed at their corresponding prices. Developers who wish to use Directions API-based billing may still do so by calling the APIs directly from within their apps.

Customers are free to select any billing option for the Nav SDK that they choose. The unlimited trip MAU option is intended for users that do more than 200 trips per month on average. The per trip option is intended for users that do less than 50 trips per month. A link to the full pricing page can be found here.

By default, OSM data is used for Navigation as there is a separate contract with Zenrin for Navigation SDK use case. Please check with Nav PM managers when Zenrin’s Japan Navigation is needed. There will be separate pricing in this use case. Visual Map is always Zenrin. Only the routing map uses OSM.

In addition to Zenrin Premium data pricing, additional costs for Highway Toll Pricing and JARTIC J-System per user pricing is needed.

No, for Japan use case the new pricing for Japan usage will need to be created which uses Zenrin Navigation backend. By default, Nav SDK will serve Zenrin map but still uses OSM routing.

No, the road network does not get updated as Japan uses Zenrin as base map. Zenrin maps are updated every 2 months, with 3 to 4 months old data. These time lags for major road openings are compensated through “pre-opened roads” system, where Mapbox Japan teams manually adds road opening dates to major road system flagged by Zenrin.

Yes and no. Traffic can be available from Mapbox Live traffic. Incidents information will need to come from JARTIC’s J-System data which requires additional license costs. J-System Traffic and incidents will be available later half of 2022. More on it in this doc.

No, VICS data is not available in Japan at the moment and we do not have this in our roadmap due to export restrictions.

Maps v10 is embedded into Nav 2.0 and the older version of Maps SDK is incompatible with Nav v2. For users that are using a combination of pre v10 Maps SDK and 3rd party Navigation API, migration will need to happen for any Map SDK related functions. 

Mapbox EV Routing is available in private preview via Directions API. To learn more, read the API documentation. 

For pricing and accessing EV routing, reach out to Mapbox Sales.

Finding the best route for a given live road conditions is not enough to meet the expectations of the EV auto market. Mapbox EV routing requires bringing together live location data, EV charging station data and vehicle characteristics into a unified solution. Companies doing it in-house incur high costs and several months of engineering time to bring the feature to life. Mapbox customers are able to upgrade to EV routing within the car-infotainment almost instantly, delivering a premium navigation experience that attracts more drivers to the EV market, accelerating the transition to electric.

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Automakers get access to ever improving live updates, lowering automaker’s engineering investments in future. This includes 100K daily map updates and regular updates to charging station data. Mapbox’s proprietary charger graph enables quick API response time and as new chargers are continually installed, Mapbox refreshes the charger graph to provide developers with up-to-date charging options. Developers can customize the API to any model of Electric Vehicle with programmable vehicle characteristics.

Electric Vehicle Routing is a new routing feature in private preview as part of Mapbox Directions API, enabling automakers to build smarter EVs that are easier to use and app developers to create intelligent navigation apps that accelerate the transition to electric. It enables automatic EV trip planning, range assurance and low battery alerts. 

Developers can define the static and dynamic characteristics of the electric vehicle such as battery level, consumption curve, and charger compatibility to generate routes that get drivers to their destination with the optimal charging stops as well as get precise battery prediction for the trip. Mapbox EV Routing can be added to in-car navigation systems and apps for mobile and web.

To plan charging stops for a long trip, EV drivers have to manually search for charging stations across mobile apps and figure out which are ideal charging stops out of dozens of fast chargers on the map as well as estimate how many stops to plan for and how long to charge for each stop. Mapbox EV Routing includes an EV trip planner that automatically identifies the charging stops along the journey as well as the optimal charge time for each stop. Mapbox EV routing algorithm that takes into account vehicle characteristics such as initial battery charge, speed consumption curve and max charge of a vehicle. For example, on the trip from Washington, DC to Boston, most electric vehicles need to charge 2-3 times to complete the journey, but drivers have to choose from over 50 charging locations. Mapbox EV Routing automatically identifies the best charging stops along the journey and the optimal charge time for each stop, saving up to 2 hours of trip time and about 1 hour of charging time, with no more unexpected low battery alerts.

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Typically, Electric Vehicles monitor historic EV efficiency in miles/kwh and use it to predict battery level at the end of a current trip. However, when the driver takes a journey on a road with varying speeds and elevation or on a road with changing traffic conditions, the prediction is unreliable. For an average trip of 100 mile, historic efficiency based prediction can be off by 30%-50%. Mapbox EV Routing accounts for factors that influence energy consumption, such as driving behavior, road speed, road elevation, battery level, speed accelerations or decelerations, vehicle cabin consumption, and battery temperature. Developers can auto-search for nearby charging stations or trigger a new route request in case the destination is no longer in range due to changing road conditions or driving modes.

Please contact Mapbox Sales if you are interested in Navigation SDK with EV Routing.

EV Routing can be customized for most EV models by programmable parameters. These parameters represent the battery characteristics and vehicle dynamics, and should be provided at the time of API request.

For list of parameters, see API documentation

For a list of geographies supported, see API documentation.

Please contact Mapbox Sales if you are interested in geography not listed above.

In case there are no high power charging stations available, the trip planning will fallback to slower charging stations.

Mapbox EV Router uses Open Charge Map (OCM), a non-commercial, non-profit, electric vehicle data service hosted and supported by a community of businesses, charities, developers and interested parties around the world. Mapbox EV router processes charging station data from OCM and builds a digital graph of interconnected stations. When an EV route request is made, the router will pick up the nearest stations along the route and identify the fastest chargers that are compatible with the driver’s model of EV.

No, EV Routing is currently supporting only Battery Electric Vehicles.

For pricing, contact Mapbox Sales

Please contact Mapbox Sales if you are interested in Mapbox Dash with EV Routing.