From left to right, Waze ETA screen, Planned Drives screen and Planned Drives alert

Crowd sourced traffic, mapping and navigation app Waze has a new feature for you. Called "Planned Drives," a Waze user like yourself can post information about a future trip including the destination, the time and date that you need to arrive at the destination, and whether the trip is for today or for the week ahead. Waze will immediately recommend the best time for you to hit the road. And when it gets closer to that time, the app will send out a reminder that it is time to depart.Waze will also work its usual magic, and if it determines that traffic or weather conditions warrant it, the app will tell you to leave earlier than originally recommended. This way, you can make up for the slow going it sees on the way. To use Planned Drives, open Waze and enter your destination in the search bar. Click on the Waze Planned Drives logo on the bottom left. The screen opens with your route illustrated on the screen, along with peak traffic hours.Waze uses a combination of smart algorithms, aggregated traffic history and predictive analysis to come up with your best departure time. And don't think that Planned Drives is only for long vacations. It can also be used to tell you when you should start running your errands. You can send your ETA to friends and family so that they will know when to meet you at your destination.

Even though Waze is owned by Google, iOS gets first crack at new features when it comes to Waze, and this is no different. Planned Drives will first be available for iOS, with the Android version of Waze 4.3 coming soon.

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source: Waze via MobileSyrup

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