When you start driving navigation in the Google Maps app on Android, a small circular widget often appears in the bottom corner of your screen displaying your current driving speed. This feature relies on your phone’s internal GPS sensor to calculate how fast you are moving.
While some drivers find this useful, others find it distracting or redundant, especially if their vehicle already has a prominent digital speedometer on the dashboard. Furthermore, because phone GPS calculations can sometimes lag behind real-time acceleration, the on-screen number may occasionally disagree with your car’s dashboard, causing unnecessary confusion. You can easily remove this widget from your navigation screen.
How to Disable the Google Maps Speedometer
You can turn off the speedometer from the main Google Maps settings menu.
- Open the Google Maps app on your Android smartphone.
- Tap on your Profile Picture (or initial) in the absolute top-right corner of the screen.
- Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
- Scroll down the settings list and tap on Navigation settings.
- Scroll down until you find the section labelled “Driving options.”
- Locate the toggle switch labelled Speedometer.
- Tap the switch to turn it Off.
The change is instantaneous. The next time you enter a destination and tap “Start” to begin driving navigation, the small speed circle will be completely hidden, leaving more screen real estate for the actual map and directions.
Note: Disabling the speedometer does not disable the “Speed Limits” feature. If Google Maps knows the speed limit of the road you are on, it will still display the legal limit on the screen.