Hammer: Truck GPS & Maps

Review by eFreeware

It is free to install, carries ads and offers in-app purchases, and it has been on Google Play since January 2020, with more than a million installs and a 4.7 average from a large body of ratings.

What makes it worth considering is its focus. Rather than adapting a general-purpose map app, it routes around the dimensions and weight of the vehicle you are actually driving, and it bundles the practical information a working driver needs along the way: weigh stations, fuel stops, rest areas and parking, with diesel prices attached.

Routing that thinks in truck dimensions

The core of the app is turn-by-turn navigation built for commercial vehicles. You enter details about your truck, including height, weight, length, axle count and the type of cargo, and the route is calculated with those figures in mind. For anyone who has watched a car-focused app send them toward a low bridge or a road with weight restrictions, the appeal of that is obvious.

The app also reroutes in real time around traffic, accidents and road closures. Traffic and weather overlays sit on top of the map, so you can see conditions on the route ahead rather than discovering them as you arrive. Lane guidance and spoken directions handle the moment-to-moment work of following the route, and the display can be switched to landscape or satellite view if that reads better on a dashboard mount.

Dark mode is included for low-light driving, which matters for anyone running overnight or starting before dawn. Taken together, these are the features of a navigation tool meant to be glanced at rather than studied, which is the right instinct for something used behind the wheel.

Offline maps and multi-stop planning

Offline map access is one of the more consequential features here. It is designed for use in stretches of the country where a signal is not something you can count on. For long-haul work that crosses rural areas, that alone can justify having a second navigation option on the phone.

Route planning goes beyond a single destination. You can build multi-stop routes with custom waypoints and have the app optimize the order. That suits a day with several pickups or deliveries, or a run where you want to sequence fuel and rest stops rather than improvise them.

The points of interest layer supports that planning. It includes weigh stations, fuel stops, rest areas, truck stops and parking, and the entries carry diesel prices, hours of operation, amenity listings and a click-to-call button. Knowing the price before you pull in, and being able to ring ahead, is the sort of detail that saves money and time on a regular basis.

Alerts, coverage and the shape of the trade-offs

Safety features lean toward the specific concerns of the job. Weigh station alerts warn you before you reach a scale, and speed limit notifications keep the current limit visible as it changes. Neither is glamorous, but both address the parts of the drive where a missed cue costs real money or time.

Coverage spans the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, plus Canada and Mexico. That is a wide footprint for cross-border work, though it is a North American tool rather than a global one.

The trade-offs are worth stating plainly. The app is free and offers in-app purchases. It also asks for a fair amount of vehicle information before it can do its most useful work, which is a reasonable price for routing that respects your dimensions but is still setup you have to do.

There is also a learning curve in the planning tools. Multi-stop routes, waypoints and overlays are not complicated individually, but a driver who only ever needs point-to-point directions will be carrying more app than they use.

Who this is built for

This is a tool for professional drivers in commercial vehicles. Owner-operators, company drivers and anyone running a rig with height, weight or length restrictions will get the most from it, because the routing is the whole point and it only pays off when those numbers matter.

Dispatchers and small fleet operators planning multi-stop runs also fit the design, since waypoints, optimization and the POI details around fuel and parking map directly onto that work. A driver who needs to find diesel at a decent price and a legal place to park for the night is squarely the intended user.

Someone navigating a passenger car would find the vehicle profile and weigh station alerts beside the point. That is not a failing of the app; it is simply built around a specific job, and the job defines everything in it.

A navigation tool worth carrying alongside your usual map app

Hammer earns consideration on the strength of its focus. Truck-specific routing, offline maps, weigh station and speed limit alerts, and points of interest with diesel prices and amenities are exactly the features a working driver asks for, and the app assembles them in one place rather than spreading them across several tools.

The app is free but carries ads and in-app purchases, setup asks for your vehicle's dimensions, and the planning tools reward regular use more than occasional use. None of that undermines the core routing, but it is part of the picture.

If you drive commercially and want a second navigation option that understands what you are driving, this is a reasonable one to install and configure. If your vehicle fits in a normal parking space, the app's main advantages will pass you by.

What's new in version 2.36.0

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