Komoot’s Apple Watch App Gets Offline Maps & Routing: Hand-on!

In arguably one of the biggest bits of news for outdoor-focused Apple Watch owners in years, Komoot just announced true offline mapping and routing for their Apple Watch app. Up until now, their app required some sort of connectivity, notably to the phone, in order to have offline maps/routing.

This is a big deal in the Apple Watch world, which largely still lacks usable and globally functioning offline routing and route creation. While Apple rolled out native offline maps 1.5 years ago, that turned out to be quite limited. It mostly only worked in North America (with a few pockets outside of that), and was heavily dependent on being able to create the route you wanted in Apple Maps. If a trail didn’t show up in Apple Maps, you couldn’t plan a route over that chunk of ground (e.g., no importing in .GPX files/etc…). Here in Europe, where I live, I couldn’t even create a route out of my neighborhood via common trails, as they didn’t show up in Apple Maps. And finally, it’s all in a separate app in Apple’s case (so workout data is separate from map/route data).

Yet Komoot? No issues and all in one single app – thus, this is a big deal. Of course, to be clear, there is one other major Apple Watch mapping/routing app, which is WorkOutDoors. I highlighted that in my Apple Watch Ultra 3 In-Depth Review. It’s incredibly deep, and to be clear, has *FAR* more on-watch features than Komoot does today. Things such as a ClimbPro-like feature, customizable data pages/fields, nacho cheese dispenser, and more. But equally, it’s often seen as having a pretty high bar of complexity. Whereas Komoot’s implementation is super simple (perhaps a bit too simple right now).

Oh – and to be clear, *NONE* of this requires internet or phone connectivity once you’ve downloaded the initial route (and in fact, all of my testing with it is without phone or cell coverage).

So, let’s dive into it!

Using the Routing Feature:

The first thing to know is that you don’t actually need to be a Komoot Premium user here. Instead, you just need to have unlocked that map region (same as Komoot has always worked). So that could be a one-time map purchase, a one-time region purchase, or also Komoot Premium. There are a bunch of ways to fry this fish – but the point is, you don’t need another subscription here (and every Komoot user gets one free region anyway).

I’m going to assume, as a Komoot user, you know how to create a route on Komoot. You can, of course, do that via the app or desktop on a browser, and then either by just tapping your way through a new route, saving a route you found in a collection (Komoot’s strongest point), or importing in a GPX/etc file.

Once that’s done, you’ll go ahead and save the route to your account like normal. From there, open up the Komoot Apple Watch app, and you’ll see ‘Saved Routes’, then open the list of your routes:

From there, simply tap ‘Save Offline’. It’ll go ahead and start downloading the route, as well as the map area required for the route. In discussing this with Komoot, it’ll sync not just the route, but a buffer around the route too. Here’s what they said it does today:

Route downloads: It will download a 3 km-wide strip of map tiles around the route (roughly 1.5 km on each side – if you imagine the route as a straight line).

Recording: When you start a recording, it will automatically download a 5.5 x 5.5 km square around your current location. If you keep recording outside that square, you’ll need to be online so the app can fetch more tiles as you go.

Refresh: stored map tiles are refreshed every 7 days to ensure up-to-date info.

Note that today, you can’t simply select a big chunk/region to download ahead of time (regardless of route plans), though Komoot says that’s high on their priority list and is coming.

In any case, simply tap Navigate:

Note that the first time you do this, it’ll re-confirm some Apple Health settings (around rights to write the workout data/etc…). At this point, though, you’re off and following the route. You’ll see the route up ahead, directional arrows, as well as the distance until the next turn (and name details if applicable).

There’s also a data page that shows your total distance, total time, and current pace.

Additionally, if you tap the controls menu, you get the biggest pause and screen lock buttons you’ve ever seen in your life. Unfortunately, this page isn’t customizable yet.

You can use the Digital Crown to rotate through a slate of other metrics. And I mean a literal slate of them, it’s like a giant biblical scroll of all these data metrics (5 scrollable-down pages worth). And look, I’m the first one on team data metrics, but this isn’t super usable this way to render these. This feels more like a workout summary (post-workout), than it does something I should see mid-workout.

Instead, I want customizable data pages (like every other watch/device ever made), with customizable data fields. Right now, I can’t see heart rate on my main data page, or other metrics I want. Fear not though, Komoot says it’s coming. Specifically saying on this request:

“…the plan is to allow people to customise which data fields they want to prioritise, for each sport type. Either while viewing the map or on the data screen itself, we’ll make sure it’s customisable. Estimate about 3 weeks from now.”

So just to be clear, I’m looking for at least 2-3 customizable data pages, with at least 4 pieces of data per page. Why that many? Well, most people going long are going to have total-journey metrics (e.g., total distance/time/distance remaining, etc…), as well as close metics (e.g., lap time/distance/HR/etc…), and then if in mountains, also some ascent/etc metrics page (e.g., current grade, total ascent, total descent, etc…). And then ultimately, I want/need a ClimbPro-like page showing current/upcoming climbs.

For the ClimbPro side of things, Komoot says they know this is a gap area that they’re looking at closing (on more than just the Apple Watch app). But they don’t have a specific timeframe for it. Meanwhile, they did list a slate of other things that are near-term; check out the next section for that.

Anyway, back to my meander.. if you go off-course it’ll notify you that you’re off-course, and the distance away from the track. Unfortunately, due to a bug introduced in the most recent build, it’s not triggering an actual audible alert. Komoot says that’ll be fixed in an update this week.

In terms of re-routing, the app *will* re-route if you have connectivity, but it will not re-route today without connectivity. But, you’ll still, of course, retain the maps that are downloaded (per the earlier explanation), so you can see where you’re routing.

Speaking of which, you can’t zoom out very far on the route, though you can use the touchscreen to move around instantly. I’d prefer they allow me to zoom out a heck of a lot larger (like, my entire route if I wanted). But those are minor things.

There are a few other minor bugs that are being fixed on the hopefully-Wednesday release, such as Auto Pause not honoring the watch setting (it was pausing every time I stopped to take a picture, despite me having it set as off).

In any case, once you’re done with the route, you can save it as normal, and you’ll get a summary screen, and another slate of summary metrics.

After that, it’ll stay queued in the Apple Watch app until it regains connectivity to Komoot, at which point it’ll sync with your Komoot account.

Meaning again, you can be fully out in the woods without cellular/connectivity (or even your phone), and everything eventually syncs in properly.

Upcoming Changes & Features:

Here’s what Komoot says is coming specifically to the Apple Watch app in the near term:

Live route editing and sync: Make changes to a route on iPhone and see them reflected on the watch without pausing or restarting the recording

Auto-rerouting: Automatic route recalculation after a deviation from the planned route.

Live tracking: Share real-time location with selected contacts for safety

Map-view improvements: Zoom out to see more of the map with a broader view and download additional map regions for offline use

Organization: Sort and filter saved routes

Customization: Alter the order of data fields displayed when recording or navigating

Map and route details: See Highlights, Points of Interest, and relevant alerts (such as dangerous sections) along the route

Notably, this is separate to the larger list of changes that Komoot has published as their 2026 priority list.

There are also some other quirks that probably need addressing. I noticed in the Apple Fitness app, it doesn’t show the map (and DesFit noticed it doesn’t have calories showing there, but does in the activity summary on the watch). Seems like they aren’t quite doing the workout population correctly into Apple Health. So hopefully they can take care of those things too.

Wrap-Up:

Overall, this is a really strong start to things for Komoot in terms of offline mapping/routing. Sure, it doesn’t yet have the same features as a native Garmin implementation, or even Komoot’s own Garmin Connect IQ app. But, it’s a huge leap over Apple’s own native features, and easier to use than WorkOutdoors. Plus again, no subscription required here, which is great.

I’ll give Komoot some credit. Back when Bending Spoons bought them out (and basically fired everyone), I was very concerned we’d see the end of meaningful development (like most of the other companies Bending Spoons has acquired). But to their credit, Bending Spoons has actually invested here in getting a product out the door, and some of their other semi-recent acquisitions have also shown a bit of a change in policy on how they deal with growth after the firings (to be clear, they still fire basically everyone, as they did last week with Vimeo). How things go at Vimeo, of course, also remains to be seen.

Still, at least for Apple users who want to be outdoors with offline navigation and routing, this is a big step forward. I’m hoping Komoot can execute on the promises they outlined up above (some of which are planned for even just two days away), and of course, continue to improve the platform beyond that.

With that – thanks for reading!

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