Sonav

Sonav (working title) is a navigation app that uses spatial audio to guide you to your destination – without having to look at or even hold your phone. ​The guiding sound is chosen by the user and could be music from Spotify or audiobooks from Audible. The app is designed with a minimalistic UI in mind and is currently developed in Unity. The project’s aim is to reduce the amount of required manual interactions that are needed to reach a destination. I am currently using the Mapbox and Movesense APIs to for map information and to achieve head tracking.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet (…it’s been a few years) been able to put much effort into this project, but I still think it’s a cool idea. In my opinion, there are two major issues with the overreliance on visual maps in urban navigation:

• It’s dangerous. You cannot really read a map and observe other traffic or pedestrians at the same time.
• It’s annoying. If you are walking or cycling, you have to get your phone out of your pocket, for which you often have to stop and interrupt your journey.