Park anywhere.
Get warned before
the ticket.
ParkGuard saves your spot the second you park, works out what the curb you're on actually allows, and tells you when you need to move — while there's still time to do something about it.
You're on the list.
We'll email you as soon as ParkGuard is ready where you park.
How it works
Three things happen while you walk away.
You don't drop a pin. You don't set a timer. You park, and the app does the rest.
It notices you parked
The moment your phone leaves the car's audio — CarPlay, Bluetooth stereo, the aux cable — ParkGuard drops a pin at the kerb you're standing on. If you walked or cycled, one tap saves it manually.
It works out the block
It matches your GPS fix to a specific block and side of the street, then checks what applies there: the city's own schedule where one exists, plus any sign you or another driver has scanned nearby.
It warns you in time
Each kind of zone gets its own lead time, because they aren't alike. A 15‑minute kerb nudges you five minutes in. A sweeping day is worth knowing about the evening before.
What's in it
Everything you'd want a parking app to actually do.
Automatic parking detection
Uses the same audio-route signal your car stereo already sends your phone, corroborated with motion, so it knows the difference between parking and pulling out your earbuds.
Find your car again
A map pin, the street address, the side of the street, and walking directions back — from anywhere, days later.
Scan any parking sign
Point the camera at the pole. It reads every sign on it separately, tells you all the rules that apply at once, and says which one makes you move first.
Reminders tuned per zone
One question at setup — how much warning do you want? — sets sensible lead times for all fifteen zone types. Change any one of them later if you want something different.
It says when it isn't sure
Every answer carries where it came from and how confident it is. When the app can't pin your car to one block, it says so and tells you to check the signs — instead of guessing.
Better because your neighbours use it
Scanned signs are shared block by block, and only shown once two different people agree on what a sign says. A friend on your street measurably improves your own answers.
The app
Real screens, not mockups.
Every screenshot below is the app running — on real streets, with real sign photos.
One number that matters
How long you've got, what's coming, and which side of the street it's on. The colour tracks how urgent it is — green through to dark red.
Reads a whole pole at once
Three signs stacked on one post is normal. ParkGuard reads each separately, applies all of them, and warns you about whichever bites first.
Shows its work
The next four dates, the city's exact wording, where the answer came from, and how far away the street it matched is. Nothing is asserted without a receipt.
Every zone, its own warning
A 15‑minute kerb and a sweeping day need different reminders. All of them arrive set up sensibly — change one only if you want to.
Walk straight back to it
The pin, the countdown and walking directions in one card. Tap the map from anywhere in the app.
Honest outside its data
Parked in a city ParkGuard hasn't loaded yet? It still saves your spot and gets you back to the car — and says plainly that you should scan the signs.
Where it works
Most of ParkGuard works wherever you park.
Saving your spot, finding your car and reading signs don't need a city to publish anything. Official schedules are the part that does — and that list is growing.
No setup, no city required
- Your spot saved automatically when you leave the car
- Map, address, side of the street, walking directions back
- Camera sign scanning — every sign on the pole, read on your phone
- Reminders built from whatever the sign actually says
- Parking history, so you know where you left it last Tuesday
Official schedules, block by block
- San Diego, CA — live. Street sweeping straight from the city's records, for your exact block and side.
- Next up — cities are added in the order our waitlist asks for them. Tell us yours and it moves up the queue.
Anywhere without a dataset, ParkGuard says so on the screen rather than inventing a schedule. Signs you and other drivers scan fill the gap in the meantime.
Request your cityStraight answers
What ParkGuard won't promise you.
This card is in the app too, on the last screen of setup. One overclaim would poison every honest warning after it.
Not "no more tickets"
Fewer tickets, not none. ParkGuard can be right about the block and you can still be five minutes late.
Signs change
Kerbs get repainted, temporary no-parking goes up overnight. The posted sign is always the final word, and the app says so.
Not every rule is published
Cities publish sweeping. Meters, time limits and permit districts mostly aren't published anywhere — that's what scanning is for.
From our testers
What testers say after a month with it.
I've paid for sweeping tickets three years running on the same block. Got the alert the night before, moved the car, and it's just… not a thing I think about anymore. The alert comes in the evening, which is the only time it's actually useful.
The sign scanner is the part I didn't expect. Downtown there's a pole by my office with four signs on it and I could never work out which one won. Took a photo, it split them out and told me the 30‑minute one was the one that mattered.
I park in a different neighbourhood most nights and I genuinely could not tell you where the car was half the time. Never once had to open it and tell it I'd parked — it already knew.
What sold me is that it tells you when you don't need to move. I'd been shuffling the car every sweeping morning out of paranoia. Turns out half those mornings I never had to.
My city isn't in it yet so I'm scanning signs by hand, which is more work than I'd like. But it's the only app I've used that admits it doesn't know something instead of showing me a confident wrong answer.
Alternate side here is brutal and I'd tried three other apps. This is the first one that didn't need me to remember to open it. The countdown sitting on my lock screen has already saved me twice.
Questions
Before you ask.
Does it work in my city?
The parts that matter most do, anywhere: saving your spot, walking back to your car, scanning signs, and reminders built from what the sign says. Official city sweeping schedules currently cover San Diego, and more cities get added in the order the waitlist asks for them — so tell us where you park.
Do I have to open the app when I park?
No. ParkGuard watches the moment your phone leaves the car's audio — CarPlay, a Bluetooth stereo, or a cable — which is the same signal Apple Maps uses to know you've parked. If you cycled, took a scooter, or your car has no stereo connection, one tap on the button saves the spot instead.
Do my sign photos get uploaded anywhere?
No. Signs are read on your iPhone using Apple's on-device text recognition. The photo never leaves the device. What can be shared — with your say-so — is the resulting rule, tied to a block, so other drivers on your street benefit. And a scanned rule is only ever shown to someone else once two different people have agreed on it.
Will it stop me getting tickets?
Fewer tickets, not none — and we'd rather say that up front. ParkGuard can be right about your block and you can still be late back to the car. Kerbs get repainted and temporary signs go up overnight. The posted sign is always the final word, which is exactly what the app tells you whenever it isn't certain.
What happens when the app isn't sure?
It says so. Every answer carries where it came from, how confident it is, and how far away the street it matched was. If your GPS fix can't be pinned to a single block, it tells you to check the signs rather than guessing at a schedule. Rules the city doesn't actually enforce are labelled and pushed down the screen instead of dressed up as a deadline.
Android?
Not yet. ParkGuard is a native iPhone app and leans on iOS-specific things — audio-route detection, on-device Vision, notification scheduling — that need rebuilding rather than porting. Join the waitlist and say you're on Android — it's the clearest signal we can get.
What actually happens when I join the waitlist?
You get one email when ParkGuard is ready where you park — and that's it. Cities are loaded in the order the waitlist asks for them, so the location you give us is the whole reason we ask. No drip sequence, no sharing your address with anyone.
The waitlist
Be first when ParkGuard reaches your street.
Two questions: your email, and where you park. That second one decides which city gets loaded next.
You're on the list.
We'll email you when ParkGuard is ready where you park. Tell us a bit more and your city moves up the queue.