Your talking tour guide
KawasZone tells you about the places you pass, like a guide on a tour bus. It names the sights, restaurants and shops around you, reads their stories, tells you which homes are for sale or rent, and lets local businesses offer you a deal on the way. This guide shows you every button and when to use it.
Getting started
- Open KawasZone. The main menu shows three cards.
- Pick the language the guide should speak (🌐 Speaks: English ▾). The first time you pick a new language, the phone downloads its translator once, so do this on Wi-Fi.
- Tap Touring, Real estate or both. A tick shows what's on. Touring talks about sights, food and shops; Real estate talks about homes for sale and rent.
- Tap ▶ Start the tour. The first time, allow precise location. The guide needs it to know which buildings you're passing.
- Put the phone away and listen. The map opens and the guide starts talking as places come up.
Driving? Mount the phone, turn the volume up, and leave it alone. KawasZone switches to short announcements when you're moving fast, so you can keep your eyes on the road.
The map screen
The map takes the whole screen. Everything else is kept small at the edges so you can always see where you are. The numbers on the picture match this list.
- Status pill: how you're moving (🚶 walking, 🚗 driving, ⏸ standing), your speed, and how much the guide says (Brief, Normal or Rich).
- Places line: where the places come from (Overture Maps, OpenStreetMap…) and how many homes are nearby. "Loading places… please wait" appears while a new area downloads.
- 🏷️ Offers: coupons and deals from local businesses. The number shows how many are near you.
- 🏠 Homes: every home for sale or rent loaded around you.
- ☰ Nearby list: everything around you, with the category filters.
- 🔖 Saved places: the places you starred.
- ⏸ Pause: stops the guide talking. Tap again to resume.
- ⚙ Settings: voice, detail, speed and more.
- The place being talked about gets a full pin, its name and a pulsing blue ring. Other places are small coloured dots.
- The card: what the guide is saying. Tap it to read it all. Its buttons: 🔊 tell me more, ☆ save, ➦ directions, share, and 🚫 never mention this place again.
- ◎ Follow me: brings the map back to your position after you've moved it.
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Listening: Brief, Normal or Rich
You choose how much the guide says in ⚙ Settings → What should I say?
- Brief
- The name, which side it's on and one line: "Approaching the Pentagon on your left, a government building." Best for driving and busy streets.
- Normal
- Two or three sentences from Wikipedia or the place itself. A good default for walking.
- Rich
- The full story, like a real tour guide. If the next place comes up before the story ends, the rest scrolls along the top of the map so you can finish reading it.
Auto-Brief when driving: above the speed you set (30 mph to start), the guide switches to Brief by itself, then back to your choice when you slow down.
Tap any dot or pin on the map to hear about that place right away. Tap 🔊 on the card for the longer version.
Restaurants and cafés often come with a Menu button. In Rich mode the guide says "Their menu is on your screen."
What the colours mean
Each kind of place has its own colour. Open ☰ → Colour key in the app to see this list any time.
The Nearby list and filters
Tap ☰ to see everything around you, closest first, about a kilometre (two-thirds of a mile) in every direction. Tap a place to fly to it and hear about it. Tap ☆ to save it.
The chips along the top switch whole kinds of places on and off, both on the map and in what the guide says. The number on each chip shows how many are nearby.
When to filter
| You are… | Leave on | Turn off |
|---|---|---|
| Driving on a highway or busy road | Sights | Services, Shops |
| Walking downtown, hungry | Food, Sights | Services |
| Sightseeing in a new city | Sights, Food, Hotels | Services, Real estate |
| House hunting | Real estate | Everything else |
| Shopping | Shops, Food | Services |
Homes don't crowd the list. They appear as two summary rows, Homes / apartments for rent and Homes for sale. Tap View ▸ to open just that kind.
Homes for sale and for rent
With Real estate on, the guide tells you about homes as you pass: the price, bedrooms and bathrooms, size, how long it's been on the market, and who is selling it.
Tap 🏠 at the top to see every home loaded around you (about 2 miles), closest first.
- 🏷️ For sale / 🔑 For rent: show one or both.
- Beds: Any, 1+, 2+, 3+.
- Price: appears when only one of For sale or For rent is on.
- Show all of these on the map: puts every matching home on the map. Turn it off again to see other places clearly.
Tap a home to fly there and hear about it. Its card has Call (the agent or owner), Directions, Website, Share and Save.
Several units in one building all show the same distance, because listings are placed at the building's front door.
Offers and coupons
Local businesses can put coupons, timed deals ("next two hours only"), a message of the day and specials on KawasZone. They show as pink pins, and the guide reads one out as you pass. Each offer is read at most once a day, and only a few per hour, so they never take over your tour.
Tap 🏷️ at the top for all offers near you, or tap a pink pin. The offer shows the business's photos and logo, the deal, when it ends, and buttons for directions, call and website.
Using a coupon
- Open the coupon in the app and show your screen at the counter.
- The cashier scans the QR code with their phone camera, or types your personal code (like K7QM-4RTX).
- Your screen changes to ✓ Redeemed within a second or two. Each phone can use each coupon once.
Something wrong with an offer? Tap Report this offer at the bottom of it.
Saved places
Tap ☆ on any card or list row to save a place. Saved places always show as gold pins, wherever they are. Tap 🔖 to see them all, hear their story again (even far away), get directions, or remove them. The story you heard is saved with the place.
Settings
- What should I say?
- Brief, Normal or Rich (see Listening).
- Auto-Brief
- On or off, and the speed where it starts.
- Show a ticker
- The rest of an interrupted Rich story scrolls along the top.
- Metric units
- Kilometres and metres instead of miles and feet.
- Real estate
- Announce homes for sale, for rent, or both.
- Offers
- On or off, and at most 2, 4 or 8 an hour.
- Voice
- Tap Change ▸ to pick from the voices on your phone. Each plays a sample.
- Pitch and speed
- Deeper or lighter, slower or faster.
- Travel mode
- Auto, Walking or Driving. Auto works it out from your speed.
- Left / right
- Say "on your left" or "on your right".
- Wikipedia stories
- Turn off for names only.
- Landmarks only above
- On fast roads, only important sights are mentioned.
- Reload places
- Downloads the places around you again. Use it if the map looks emptier than it should.
- Unhide places
- Brings back places you asked the guide never to mention.
Beacons
Some shops place a small Bluetooth beacon by the door. When you walk in range, KawasZone reads out the shop's message, such as today's deal. Open Beacons from the main menu:
- Receive: switch on to hear beacons around you. The list shows each one and how close it is.
- Transmit: for shop owners. Your phone becomes the beacon: enter your store name and message, then switch on.
If a banner says Bluetooth or a permission is off, tap it and the app takes you to the right switch.
Tips and fixes
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Weak location signal (±…)" | The guide waits until it knows where you are. Step outside or near a window. Indoors, GPS can be off by a few hundred feet. |
| The map looks empty | Wait a minute in a new area while places download. Still empty? ⚙ → Reload places around me. |
| Too much talking | Switch to Brief, turn off Services and Shops, or lower offers per hour. |
| Too little talking | Switch to Normal or Rich, and check the category chips are on. |
| Wrong language or accent | Main menu → 🌐 Speaks, then ⚙ → Voice → Change ▸. |
| Battery use | The screen uses the most. On long drives, plug the phone in. |
Your privacy: KawasZone uses your location only while a tour is running, to find and announce the places around you.
Places © Overture Maps Foundation · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · Homes by RentCast