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# Vela Maps **Google Maps, degoogled.** Live traffic, real place data and turn-by-turn navigation, with zero Google on your phone. [![Stable release](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/PimpinPumpkin/Vela?label=stable&color=149387)](https://github.com/PimpinPumpkin/Vela/releases/latest) [![Build](https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/PimpinPumpkin/Vela/ci.yml?branch=main&label=build)](https://github.com/PimpinPumpkin/Vela/actions/workflows/ci.yml) [![License: GPL v3](https://img.shields.io/github/license/PimpinPumpkin/Vela?color=blue)](LICENSE) [![Stars](https://img.shields.io/github/stars/PimpinPumpkin/Vela?style=flat&color=ffd43b)](https://github.com/PimpinPumpkin/Vela/stargazers) [Install](#install) · [What you get](#what-you-get) · [Privacy](#privacy) · [How it works](docs/HOW-IT-WORKS.md) · [Build](#build) · [Discussions](https://github.com/PimpinPumpkin/Vela/discussions) · [Translate](docs/TRANSLATING.md) [

](https://pimpinpumpkin.github.io/Vela/)

A degoogled maps & navigation client for Android - *what NewPipe is to YouTube, for Google Maps.* Open vector tiles for the basemap, the device itself scraping Google's public web endpoints (per-user, no backend) for the things only Google does well: POI quality, routing, and **traffic-aware ETAs**. Built to run on GrapheneOS and other no-GMS ROMs. ## Screenshots | Navigation | Map & search | Place details | Directions | Search results | |:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:| |

| | Public transit | Departure board | Stops on the line | Light theme - map | Light theme - place | |:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:| |

| *Turn-by-turn with lane guidance, route shields and the speedometer; the keyless OpenFreeMap basemap wearing Google's own sampled colors and Roboto labels, with rated POI icons and the tiered dots; live place data; the directions panel with alternates, traffic in plain words and the avoid toggles; live departure boards with a tap-through stop list for every route; and the in-app light/dark themes (decoupled from the OS).* ## Install [ Get it on Obtainium

](https://apps.obtainium.imranr.dev/redirect?r=obtainium://add/https://github.com/PimpinPumpkin/Vela) [

](FDROID.md) Obtainium auto-tracks the **weekly stable** release. Turn on "include prereleases" and you get the **nightly** channel instead. The F-Droid badge is **Vela's own repository**, not the f-droid.org catalog - add `https://pimpinpumpkin.github.io/Vela/repo` to any F-Droid client and it serves the same signed APKs, weekly stable by default (fingerprint and nightly-channel setup in [FDROID.md](FDROID.md)). Or grab an APK straight from [Releases](https://github.com/PimpinPumpkin/Vela/releases). ### Check you got the real thing Every Vela APK, from any channel, is signed with the same key. Its certificate fingerprint is: ``` SHA-256 29:93:8B:48:58:06:3E:42:E6:77:FF:95:C9:01:CD:48:24:8A:7F:03:2A:3A:E8:5F:9B:9E:56:17:56:8B:0D:36 ``` Check a downloaded file against it before installing: ```bash apksigner verify --print-certs vela-maps-*.apk ``` Android enforces this for you after the first install: an update signed with a different key is refused, so a build that installs over your existing Vela came from the same place this one did. This is the certificate the app is signed with, and it stays the same across releases. It is not a checksum of a particular APK, and it is not the same as the F-Droid repo fingerprint in [FDROID.md](FDROID.md), which signs the repo index rather than the app. There's also a one-page tour at **[pimpinpumpkin.github.io/Vela](https://pimpinpumpkin.github.io/Vela/)**. [![Support Vela on Buy Me a Coffee](https://img.shields.io/badge/support%20vela-buy%20me%20a%20coffee-ffdd00)](https://buymeacoffee.com/PimpinPumpkin) --- ## What you get - **Live traffic, straight from Google.** Vela reads the same real-time traffic Google Maps shows, so ETAs are traffic-aware, the fastest route leads the list, and every option says light, moderate or heavy traffic in plain words next to its green/amber/red time. Turn-by-turn navigation rides on it: lane diagrams, exit shields, a speedometer with the posted limit, and automatic reroutes when a jam builds ahead. - **Real info about places (points of interest, or POIs).** Hours with holidays included, reviews you can search, photo galleries, busy times, phone and website, with a warning if a place would be closed when you arrive. - **Zero Google on your phone, and almost zero in your life.** No Play Services, no account, no app key, no ads, no GCM/FCM, no Play Integrity. Google never sees your map browsing, your saved places, or who you are; your GPS trail stays on the phone, with only anonymous re-route and traffic checks carrying a position while you navigate. The full breakdown is in the [Privacy](#privacy) section below. - **Flock cameras, on the map.** Mapped ALPR surveillance cameras (the community DeFlock project's OpenStreetMap data) draw out of the box, and the optional **Settings → Map → Avoid surveillance cameras** counts the cameras on each route and quietly picks a lower-camera option when the detour is small. The dataset lives on your phone and refreshes itself weekly. - **Vela Voice.** Spoken turn-by-turn from a neural voice that runs entirely on your phone, and a mic that transcribes your search on-device too. Nothing you say ever touches a cloud speech service. 🔊 **Hear it** - the actual in-app voice at the default pace: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/17f246e4-51c8-4d01-998b-dcd7f29dc15f - **Parking memory.** Tap **P** when you park, tap the pin later for walking directions back, long-press for your parking history. - **Material You theming, if you want it.** An optional toggle tints Vela's chrome with your wallpaper colors (Android 12+); off by default, and the map itself stays clean either way. - **Offline maps and routing.** Download a state or country once and its maps, turn-by-turn routing, and every place in it stay searchable with no signal - typed street addresses included. - **Live gas prices.** Search for gas and every station's current price is right on its map marker, in the result list, and on the place page. - **Live public transit.** Departure boards and station-by-station stop timelines come from open GTFS feeds (the schedules and realtime updates transit agencies publish, served by the community Transitous project), supplemented with Google for traffic-aware transit directions. Tap a stop for live times, tap a route for every stop it makes. - **Satellite imagery map**: See the world from a birds-eye view, powered by Esri. - **Street View**: real panoramas in-app, keyless - open on a place, look around, walk the street with arrows, and go back in time through older captures; half-screen over the live map or full screen. - **Lists**: the bookmark button next to the category chips opens **Your lists**. Create one there, or add any place from its page (⋮ → Save to list), with a note per place. Lists back up to a file from Settings. - **Import a Google Maps list**: paste a `maps.app.goo.gl` share link into the search bar. The list's places show up as results with the owner's notes; tap **Save list** to keep a local copy. - **Fixes itself when Google moves things.** The scraping recipes live in a signed config the app checks at launch - when Google shifts a field or an endpoint, a repair ships to every install in minutes, no update needed. The same channel can push a heads-up notice ("search is down, fix coming") straight onto the map. See [`docs/CALIBRATION.md`](docs/CALIBRATION.md): for details. - **Say it or type it.** "Take me home", "get me to work", "navigate to the station", "Davis to San Francisco", "nearest pharmacy", "what's my ETA": the search box understands those as actions, spoken through the mic or typed, in every language the app speaks, with English understood everywhere too, and a slip in the command words ("navigat to the station") still lands. Dictation is a small on-device speech model; the understanding is plain rules on the phone. Nothing leaves it. - **The rest.** Android Auto, 15 languages, in-app light/dark, full D-pad operation for keypad phones, place lists, and a built-in updater with weekly-stable or nightly channels. The complete running feature list lives in [FEATURES.md](FEATURES.md). ## Why a degoogled app uses Google A phone without Google Play Services cannot run Google Maps, and the open map datasets fall well short on search, reviews, hours, and live traffic. So Vela is a thin client over Google's public web endpoints. It asks them the same way a logged-out browser does, once per user, with no account, no shared API key, and no server in the middle. NewPipe does the same for YouTube. There are no ads, and your searches, saved places, and history stay on the phone. If you run GrapheneOS or another no-GMS ROM, this gets you working maps back. The map itself, the streets, the labels, and the house numbers all come from OpenStreetMap. Google is only used for places, search, routing, and traffic. So street names and house numbers can differ from what Google Maps shows, and how much detail you see offline depends on how well OpenStreetMap covers your area. I'm thinking of ways to improve OSM and fill the gaps in the data. Stay tuned. ## Privacy There is **no Vela backend, no account, and no telemetry**. Vela fetches from Google directly from your phone like a logged-out browser - Google sees your IP, query, and map area, but **not a Google account or any app key**, much like using `google.com/maps` in an incognito window. Your saved places, history, and settings never leave the device. **[Read the full breakdown of exactly what each service receives → `PRIVACY.md`](PRIVACY.md).** The short version: Google shrinks from *knowing who you are and everywhere you go* to *occasionally answering an anonymous question*. Your map browsing never reaches Google at all, and your GPS trace is never uploaded anywhere. While you're actively navigating, Vela does ask Google for fresh traffic from your current position every couple of minutes - that's what powers the faster-route offers and the live arrival time - and that re-check can be turned off in **Settings → Data & privacy** ("Live traffic re-checks"); off-course re-routes remain, since turn-by-turn can't work without them. | What Google gets | Google Maps app | Google Maps web | Vela | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Tied to your Google account | Yes, always signed in | Yes unless incognito | Never - there is no login | | A persistent device identifier | Yes (device + ad IDs via Play Services) | Browser cookies | No account, no app key; just an IP like any website visitor | | Your precise GPS position | Continuously while open, plus Location History if enabled | While the tab is open | Never while browsing - position stays on the phone; searches send the map area you are looking at. While navigating, anonymous re-routes and the optional live-traffic re-check send your current position (toggleable in Settings → Data & privacy) | | Every pan and zoom of the map | Yes - their servers render the map | Yes | No - map tiles come from OpenFreeMap, so Google never sees you browse | | Your searches | Yes, saved to your account history | Yes | The query text reaches Google anonymously, only when you search | | Place pages you open | Yes | Yes | The place lookup reaches Google anonymously | | Turn-by-turn routes | Yes, full trip telemetry | Yes | Routing runs on open OSRM/GraphHopper; Google answers anonymous traffic checks - at planning, and during the drive for re-routes and the optional faster-route scanning | | Saved places, home, work | Stored on their servers | Stored on their servers | Stored only on your phone | | Ad profile building | Feeds your ads profile | Feeds your ads profile | Nothing to attach it to | | Works with no Google contact at all | No | No | Yes - downloaded regions search, route, and navigate fully offline | Full per-request detail is in [PRIVACY.md](PRIVACY.md). ## How it works Every capability, the keyless method behind it, and the file to read first is laid out in **[docs/HOW-IT-WORKS.md](docs/HOW-IT-WORKS.md)** - the one-screen index into the codebase (basemap, the Google scrape, open routing, the offline stack, remote self-repair, …). Deeper still is [`SPEC.md`](SPEC.md). | File | What's in it | |---|---| | [`README.md`](README.md) | This - what Vela is, why, and the privacy comparison | | [`docs/HOW-IT-WORKS.md`](docs/HOW-IT-WORKS.md) | Every capability, the keyless method behind it, and the file to read first | | [`docs/BUILDING.md`](docs/BUILDING.md) | Building from source, module architecture, and the release pipeline | | [`docs/LANGUAGES.md`](docs/LANGUAGES.md) | The 15 supported languages, layer by layer (UI, spoken nav, neural voice, dictation), and how to add one | | [`docs/TRANSLATING.md`](docs/TRANSLATING.md) | Translating Vela - edit one file, open a PR | | [`FEATURES.md`](FEATURES.md) | The full, categorised list of every shipped capability (the encyclopaedia) | | [`SPEC.md`](SPEC.md) | The authoritative **rebuild spec** - architecture, extractor contract (pb layouts + response indices), resilience layer, hard constraints | | [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) | Planned work + big bets (opt-in telemetry, a Vela-own traffic layer, giant-country graph splits, …) | | [`PRIVACY.md`](PRIVACY.md) | Exactly what each Google endpoint receives, per request | | [`CLAUDE.md`](CLAUDE.md) | Build rules, module layout, and the hard-won gotchas - for contributors (human or AI) | | [`docs/dpad.md`](docs/dpad.md) | D-pad / no-touchscreen operation - design, findings, per-surface audit, and the merge-with-upstream policy | | [`docs/CALIBRATION.md`](docs/CALIBRATION.md) | The Google extractor + the signed remote-repair channel, in depth | | [`docs/MAP-STYLE.md`](docs/MAP-STYLE.md) | Basemap, fonts, custom layers and theming details | ## Degoogled / GrapheneOS notes - **Location:** AOSP `LocationManager`, never `FusedLocationProviderClient`. On GrapheneOS, enabling PSDS (Settings → Location) drops the cold GPS fix from ~30s to a few seconds - Vela shows a one-time tip when it notices a slow fix. ## Roadmap Everything shipped so far is in [FEATURES.md](FEATURES.md) (the complete list) and the release notes of each build. Still open (details in [ROADMAP.md](ROADMAP.md)): - [ ] Move to Weblate translations (project needs to exist for at least three months) - [ ] F-Droid submission + reproducible build - [ ] A Google Play listing, so Android Auto works on factory head units: a clean shell on Play (map, offline routing, places from OpenStreetMap) with the Google-reading half as an add-on APK from GitHub, the way Nova and CoMaps handle plugins Play would not carry. A big job (a developer account, review, a split build); on the radar, not started. - [ ] An iOS build. The engine module is plain Kotlin and would move to Kotlin Multiplatform; the map (MapLibre), the neural voice (sherpa-onnx) and the hidden-page scrapes all have iOS counterparts. The whole interface would be rewritten. On the radar, not started. **Not going to happen** - anything that needs you to sign in to Google or hand data to a backend: contributing reviews/photos/edits, live location sharing and share-ETA, a location timeline, and the login-gated data Google strips from anonymous requests (live busyness). Vela's whole point is that no account and no server ever sees you. ## A note on the name **Vela Maps** (`app.vela`) - the navigator's constellation "the Sails", and "sail" in several languages. ## Contributing Read [`CONTRIBUTING.md`](CONTRIBUTING.md) first - it covers the hard rules (no backend, no static Google keys, degoogled runtime, the `:core`/`:app` module boundary, docs-in-the-same-commit, and translations for all 15 languages) and how to send a change. There is no separate code-of-conduct document by design: keep it about the code. Security issues go through [`SECURITY.md`](SECURITY.md) (GitHub private vulnerability reporting), not a public issue. ## Map data The map itself is [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) data, © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License, served as vector tiles by [OpenFreeMap](https://openfreemap.org). Offline routing regions, place packs, house-number and building overlays are built from OpenStreetMap, OpenAddresses and Microsoft Building Footprints extracts and carry their licences in the release notes of the hosting release. Satellite imagery is Esri World Imagery, with Google imagery where Esri has none at close zoom. ## License [![GNU GPLv3 Image](https://www.gnu.org/graphics/gplv3-127x51.png)](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html) Vela is Free Software: you can use, study, share, and improve it at your will. You may use, modify, and redistribute this project only if your modifications remain open-source under the same license. 28:[false,["$","$L29",null,{"title":"About","defaultOpen":false,"mountChildren":"when-opened","children":["$","$L2a",null,{"owner":"PimpinPumpkin","repo":"Vela","children":"$30"}]}]]