Dead Reckon Navigation

Dead Reckoning

Dead Reckon Navigation computes the heading, distance, and time estimate to travel from one location to another.

Navigate from waypoint to waypoint with brief glances at the watch to stay updated on the bearing, distance, and time estimate to your waypoint. Navigating from waypoint to waypoint is essential when traveling off trail, on snow, or in sandy areas.

On treks without pre-planned waypoints, save your position at landmarks as you travel to log your position over time.

Navigators should also carry a compass, paper maps, and mapping apps. 

Creating Waypoints

Create waypoints along a route in your favorite mapping app. Waypoints are typically at junctions, streams, and other landmarks. Name each waypoint in sequence such as “1.01, 1.02 …” where day number is left of the decimal, and waypoint number is right of the decimal for sorting.

Export the waypoints as GPX , and open the file in DR Navigation on the phone.

Waypoints

Waypoints include the ordinal, notes, altitude, latitude, and longitude. DR Navigation sorts waypoints by ordinal. If there is no ordinal, the timestamp of when the waypoint was saved is displayed and sorted.

DR Navigation displays your heading and the bearing, distance, and time estimate to the next waypoint. 

While the DR Navigation app is open on both the Watch and iPhone, send the current waypoints to the Watch. 

Touch a waypoint to navigate to that location.

Navigating

The navigating view displays three rows.

The top row is the compass heading. Touching this row displays a detailed view of your current position, with an option to save it as a waypoint.

The middle row is the azimuth or bearing to the waypoint selected for navigation. Touching this row displays a detailed view, and a button to display the waypoints list for selecting the next waypoint on the route.

The  bottom row displays the distance and estimated time to the waypoint. Touching the bottom row displays settings.

Learn more

Learn more about navigation at Lyle Brotherton’s website

Privacy Policy

Dead Reckon Navigation does not collect or sell any of your data. Your location is used only on your iPhone and Watch. Your iPhone and Watch only transmit waypoints between paired devices.