Before you write in

No. Android shows that warning for every app that does not come from the Play Store, whatever is inside it. LorryMate is not on Google Play today, so you install it straight from this site.

You can check the file is exactly the one published here: the download page shows an MD5 checksum. If your file matches, nothing was changed in between.

1. Open lorrymate.uk/download on the tablet itself, not on a computer.
2. Tap Download the APK.
3. Open the downloaded file. Android will ask permission to install from this source — allow it for your browser.
4. Tap Install.

About a minute in total. The driver's guide has the same steps with pictures.

Three usual reasons, most likely first:

• Your Android is older than 8.0. It cannot install below that. Settings → About tablet → Android version.
• Not enough free storage. The app and its map data need room.
• An older LorryMate is installed and was signed differently. Uninstall the old one first. You will lose your saved vehicles, so write your dimensions down before you do.

Two hard requirements:

• Android 8.0 or newer
• A GPS receiver — this is the one that catches people out

And one soft one:

• 3 GB of memory to run at all, 4 GB to run comfortably. On 3 GB it works, but close the other apps. Below 3 GB it will struggle.

Plenty of cheap tablets are Wi-Fi only and have no GPS chip at all. Such a tablet can never know where it is, however fast it is. Before buying, look for “GPS” or “GNSS” in the specification, not just the word “navigation”.

A new tablet with real GPS costs about £60–80. That is the cheapest insurance against a bridge strike you will ever buy.

Yes, it works on an Android phone. In a car or a van that is fine, and as a spare it is useful.

In a lorry I would not make it the main screen. A tablet can be read at a glance from the driver’s seat, it has room for the offline maps, and it leaves your phone free for calls and for Google Maps traffic. The reasons are on the download page.

Either the tablet has no GPS receiver (above), or LorryMate does not have permission to use it. Check Settings → Apps → LorryMate → Permissions → Location, and set it to Allow all the time.

A first fix outdoors can take a minute or two. Inside a building or under a steel roof it may never get one — that is the sky, not the app.

Tap the gear icon, then your vehicle. Enter height, width, length and weight.

Measure them. Do not use the figures from the brochure — trailers, roof bars and aerials are all real. Everything the app does rests on those four numbers being right.

Change the height in the vehicle settings before you plan the route, not after. The route is worked out from the height at the moment you plan it.

Yes — a list of vehicles with names, switched in a couple of taps. Drivers who change lorries during the day asked for this, and it is why the app works that way.

Gear icon → Language. The screen and the turn-by-turn voice both come in 26 languages, including Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian.

Street names stay in the local language. That is deliberate — what you hear should match what is written on the sign.

Yes, in settings. Units follow the country you are driving in by default — miles per hour in the United Kingdom, kilometres per hour elsewhere.

Mount it low — on the dashboard, or low in a corner of the windscreen — where it never blocks your view of the road. Set your route before you set off.

While driving, use voice commands instead of touching the screen: say “Hey LorryMate” and ask, for example, for fuel or a radio station. In the UK it is illegal to hold or use a phone while driving, and you can be stopped even with it in a holder if you are not in full control of the vehicle.

Because the map does not know it is too narrow. Almost no map does — road width is one of the worst-covered pieces of data anywhere.

That is what the Street unsuitable button is for. Mark the street, give a reason, and it is avoided from then on. Your marks stay on your tablet.

Check the signal first. Searching for a new address needs a connection — the search runs on a server, not on the tablet. With no signal the app tells you so and shows your own saved places instead.

If you do have a signal, the search itself covers the whole of Europe, so a street that exists should be found. Two things that trip it up:

• House names are often simply not in any map data. That is what Add house is for.
• Very new estates can be missing for a year or more after they are built.

If it is found but the route will not plan, that is a different problem — see the question about routing between countries below.

House names are the hardest part of UK navigation, and the reason this app exists at all. Most map data simply does not contain them.

Address search itself now covers the whole of Europe, so a street name will be found. It is the house name on it that maps tend not to carry.

Two things help:

• Type the full postcode to get close. It is always found, even without Royal Mail, and takes you to the middle of the postcode — usually about fifteen houses, so a few dozen metres from the door rather than at it. Use it to get near, then read the name on the gate.
• If the house is still missing, use Add house — put your finger on the building itself, not on the road, and name it. Next time it is found instantly, signal or no signal.

In every area it covers — yes, once the downloads are on the tablet. Tablet in flight mode, whole day, start to finish, as long as the trip stays inside the areas you have downloaded.

There are two downloads per area, and you need both: the map (what you see) and the routing file (how it works out the way round). A third, small pack adds road signs, fuel stations, shops and parking. The sizes are in the table under “Which countries does it cover?” — for the UK it is a 2.1 GB map and a 510 MB routing file, so plan the storage and download on Wi-Fi. A route from one area into another is joined up on my server, so planning one needs a signal.

Looking up a new address never works offline, in any region. But your own saved places do: favourites, and any house name you added yourself, are found with no signal at all — which is the case that matters most on a delivery round. When the search server cannot be reached the app says so and shows your saved places instead, rather than pretending the place does not exist.

Known, and being worked on. For now the reliable fix is to connect the tablet to the cab speakers over Bluetooth — louder than any tablet speaker will ever manage.

To fix it for yourself straight away, tap and hold the spot on the map and mark the road. That changes your own routes only — it is not sent to other drivers. To get it fixed for everyone, write to support@lorrymate.uk with the postcode or coordinates; I check it and correct the map data.

Reports about bridge heights are the most valuable thing you can send. Send them by email to support@lorrymate.uk with the place (street or postcode), what the sign says — feet and inches, exactly as written; the metric plate is usually rounded — and a photo if you can. The correction arrives with the next map update, not the same day.

Address search now covers the whole of Europe. Anywhere in Europe. Edinburgh, Belfast, Lisbon, Riga, Paris, Nicosia: all found, street and postcode.

Routes cross borders. Hampshire to Vilnius plans as one route, ferry and all. Inside one area the tablet works the route out by itself; a route from one area into another is joined up on my server, so it needs a signal when you plan it, and again if it has to be recalculated. Stops can be added within one area; a route into another area goes straight from start to destination.

Without a signal: every area in the table has its map and routing file to download, so the tablet draws the map and works out routes in flight mode. Searching for a new address still needs a signal. This list changes as areas are built, so it is worth re-reading before a trip abroad.

Every region routes the full set of profiles — there is no cut-down car-only version abroad. Bridge and restriction data covers the whole of Britain as its own download — see the question below.

Ferry crossings are included where the map has them: the Isle of Wight, the Lymington crossing and Holyhead to Dublin all plan as a single route, boat and all.

Yes. Hampshire to Vilnius plans as one route, ferry included.

The map comes in areas you download separately — Britain and Ireland, France, Germany, the Baltic states and so on (see the table above). Inside one area the tablet works out the route by itself, with no signal. A route from one area into another is joined up on my server, so you need a signal when you plan it. For now, stops can only be added within one area; a route into another area goes straight from start to destination.

Inside one area, borders make no difference: Belfast to Galway plans fine, and so does Holyhead to Dublin, ferry and all.

No — and anyone who tells you their app does is selling you something.

For the whole of Britain it now has a bridge and restriction database — 25,395 bridge heights, 35,527 weight limits, 16,559 level crossings — as a separate 24 MB download next to the Britain map. Until September it covered only Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight; this page said so, and now it does not. Checked in six cities from London to Glasgow.

Download it before you leave home. Without it the app uses only the small Hampshire set built into it. And a database is only as good as what it was built from — a bridge that was raised last month or a limit nobody recorded will not be in it.

The sign at the bridge is the authority, not the screen.

The app is there to stop you arriving at a bridge you cannot pass. It does not replace looking at it.

One driver. LorryMate is built by someone who still drives a 26-tonne lorry in Hampshire every week, because the apps on the market kept sending him down roads he could not use.

That is also why it is honest about what it cannot do.