PASSWARRIOR

Making travel in Montana and Idaho a little easier.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does PassWarrior require a subscription payment?

No, PassWarrior is available for a one-time fee. If you buy the app in the App Store or the Google Play Store, then you have access to all features.

Will PassWarrior ever require a subscription?

Maybe. I have tried to keep PassWarrior affordable, but as a result, it does not always make enough money to cover server costs. As it becomes more popular, server costs go up at a rate that is not proportional to new downloads. At some point, I may need to switch to a subscription-based service, or limit some features to subscribers only.

Where does PassWarrior get its data from?

PassWarrior servers download images, weather data, incident reports, and construction notices from several Montana and Idaho state websites. The servers then store and organize that data so it can be presented to you in the iPhone and Android apps.

Isn't this data the same as what's in the 511 app?

Yes and no. The raw data the PassWarrior uses is available in one form or another from state sites. But much of what PassWarrior presents cannot be found in the state's 511 app.

For example, the 511 sites and apps do not offer time-lapse video or time series data. You see only one moment in time on state websites and apps, giving you no feel for whether conditions are improving or deteriorating.

The same goes for weather data: on the state sites, you see the road temperature at a single point in time. Because PassWarrior stores this data and displays helpful charts, you can see easily if the surface temp is rising or falling.

What makes PassWarrior different from state 511 apps?

PassWarrior was designed with one purpose: to help you view road condition info as easily as possible on your mobile device.

To do this, PassWarrior does a few things differently than the state's apps:

It is a purely native app, on both iOS and Android. When you use PassWarrior, you are not using a web page wrapped in an app container, which is can be slow and resource-heavy, using more memory and CPU than necessary.
It is location-aware, so if you are on the road, you don't have to know the nearby sites. PassWarrior tells you which cameras are close to your current position.
The PassWarrior backend was designed with the mobile user in mind. The apps only download the data they need, and thanks to a combination of caching and thoughtful API design, your phone gets all the data it needs from PassWarrior in a second or two.

Why are plow images not showing?

Unfortunately, since the new MDT system was launched in 2021, the MDT plow dashboard cameras do not always upload their images.

When plows do upload their dashcam images, PassWarrior will automatically consume them and turn them into time-lapse videos which you can view under the Plows tab in the app.

Have a question or a feature request? I'd love to hear from you: support@passwarrior.com