Pocket Nav
Walking navigation with haptic turn signals — eyes up, phone in pocket.
"Walking with your phone in your hand is the wrong way to walk. Pocket Nav doesn't ask you to."
Why it exists.
Walking navigation has a posture problem. You hold your phone, you look down, and you move slower and less safely than you would otherwise. The fix isn't a smaller phone. It's leaving the phone in your pocket.
Pocket Nav guides walking routes through haptic vibration patterns. Right turn is one pulse, left is two, an upcoming turn pre-alert is three pulses, a U-turn is a unique triple-strong, off-route is a long pulse. Disconnect, GPS loss, rerouting, and cancel each have their own dedicated patterns. The phone stays in your pocket; you walk with your head up.
Built as a deployable web app — no app store, no install required (though it's a PWA so you can pin it to your home screen if you want). Live destination suggestions while you type, ranked nearest-first based on your current location. Audio tones available as backup cues. iOS has lock-screen restrictions on background haptics, so the app uses a best-effort wake lock plus fallback audio for those cases.
The surface.
Right turn
Single pulse.
Left turn
Double pulse.
Upcoming turn pre-alert
Triple pulse, fired before the turn so you can prepare.
U-turn
Unique triple-strong pulse, distinct from any other signal.
Off-route
Long pulse, easy to recognise mid-stride.
Disconnect / GPS loss / rerouting / cancel
Each has its own dedicated pattern so system events are never confused with turns.
Live destination suggestions
Typeahead while you type, ranked nearest-first based on current location.
Audio tones as backup
For situations where vibration isn't reliable — pocket dampening, sleeves, devices without strong haptics.
Under the hood.
Worth knowing.
- iOS restricts background haptics on web apps; the app uses a best-effort wake lock plus fallback audio in those cases.
- Free to deploy. No app store gate, no review process.