Voice Controlled Navigation

[Scott Shepherd]

Anyone dealt with any voice controlled navigation on cars? We had a rental car, a new Chevy Tahoe a couple weeks ago. We were out Christmas shopping, so I thought I'd put it to the test. I said "POI" (Point of Interest) and it asked where I wanted to go. I said "CAPTAIN GEORGE'S" (seafood restaurant) very clearly. It said "Dunkin Donuts?". Huh? How'd you get Dunkin Donuts out of Captain George's? I told it "No" and started again "CAPTAIN GEORGE'S". "Dunkin Donuts?".....I told it "No" then I said "CAPTAIN GEORGE'S SEAFOOD RESTAURANT" and it came up with some random non sense location. I never got it to work. No matter how clearly or loudly I spoke. When I got to Captain George's, I decided I'd tell it to go to an address. I said something along the lines of "8214 (pronounced 8-2-1-4) Main Street" then the city and state (it asks for that). It came back with 615 Manhatten Ave some place 6 states away. I spoke very slowly and clearly and could not get it to even get 4 numbers right, no matter what. It was so frustrating I stopped trying. It literally failed 10 out of 10 times.

The screen on my GPS failed so I bought another one and this one has voice commands on it. I was skeptical based on my experience weeks earlier with the GM system in the Tahoe. First thing I do is ask for a restaurant. Bam, it popped up first try. WOW, this is going to be great. I decide to tell it my address to see how it routes me home. "6532 Aspen Lane" (fake address for posting this), and it says "653214 Wilcox Road". What the heck? Are you kidding me? How'd we get 653214 out of 6-5-3-2? I tried it 5 more times. Nope. Not having it.

Honestly, do the people that release this stuff ever actually try it? It boggles my mind that anyone could even remotely think that this "Works". So far, for addresses, on the GM system and the Garmin, I'm 15 out of 15 fails, or 0%. Not 50%, not 75%, not 10%, but 0%. How does anyone launch a product that's features are at 0%?

Anyone else experimented with voice commands? Have any luck? I've tried speaking fast, slow, and in between. Nothing remotely helps. It doesn't miss it by a little, it misses it by a LOT.

[Paul Lawrence]

The one thing we can't speak about on a forum post is the sound of your voice. That could make a significant difference.

I've had my Toyota Tundra for several years. I has voice controls in the Bluetooth system. I mostly use it to dial my phone (iPhone.) Works every time I use it.

I've also had a "voice" Garmin GPS that had no problem with decryption of my accent, but the menu system was so screwy I would never use it.

Perhaps do a little more research with random operators around you and see if your system has as much problem with other's voices.

EDIT: I remembered a friend that had minor throat surgery and lost the use of his voice control in his truck. You could hear a little extra "gravel" in his voice that wasn't there before.

[Kent Adams]

Google search, which is an app for a smartphone, has very good voice recognition. Using the bluetooth on my vehicles nav system, I use the smartphone app to give voice directions.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

The few times I've tried to make phone calls through the system in my RAM pickup, I had similar issues. Granted, I've never put any time into really learning how it works.

The best voice recognition I've ever seen is on my HTC phone. I use it for all my text messages, and it's about 99% accurate. Really incredible.

[Shawn Pixley]

The problem here is less with the voice recognition but with what data they have entered in the map system. Even Google maps which is largely good, when you search for restaurant close by, will onlypull up a fraction of the restaurants that exist. If in your case, Captain Georges is not in their data it tries to find the closest phonetics.

I think that the restaurant, retail, and commercial entries are all crowd sourced. The scan searches of users and add them in as obtained. The rental car GPS are usually a little behind Google. I used Hertz GPS in Europe. Good for many things not so good for restaurants.

[Matt Meiser]

The iPhone is pretty good at it. That's what I use. Its extremely good at getting directions to an address in your contacts, but I find that saying "Directions to the nearest Target" or something like that works pretty good too.

[Scott Shepherd]

The problem here is less with the voice recognition but with what data they have entered in the map system. Even Google maps which is largely good, when you search for restaurant close by, will onlypull up a fraction of the restaurants that exist. If in your case, Captain Georges is not in their data it tries to find the closest phonetics.

I think that the restaurant, retail, and commercial entries are all crowd sourced. The scan searches of users and add them in as obtained. The rental car GPS are usually a little behind Google. I used Hertz GPS in Europe. Good for many things not so good for restaurants.

I might agree with that, except, I skipped the voice control, typed in Captain Georges and it came right up, so it's in their database.

I just don't understand how you get a six digit address when I only said 4 digits. I don't have a severe accent and I'm speaking VERY clearly on purpose to try and make it understand. Surely someone, somewhere, has to actually TRY the products before they release them. We're not talking about Mom and Pop operations here, we are talking about GM, Ford (family member has a new Ford Truck with it and has the same issues), and Garmin.

[Lee Schierer]

We have a Garmin with voice control. What I have learned is to listen to how the system pronounces various words and then say the word I'm looking for the way the GPS says things if my first attempt doesn't work. For example we live on Fry road; however, Garmin pronounces it as Fairy Road. Trying to find Cabelas you have to pronounce it as Cab e laws. The Garmin voice recognition seems to be way behind Google and the voice recognition on my Samsung S4 mini. I have started using the voice recognition for text messages and rarely do I have to fix a word.

My grand kids love to play with the GPS from the back seat. Oh yeah and just the other day something on the radio triggered it to start looking for where I wanted to go.

[Matt Day]

I normally ignore the gps stuff built into cars. My iPhone is always far superior and simpler and has all my contacts and history.

Google has very good voice recognition too. I think car makers need to do a better job of integrating our devices that already have the technology, and better technology.

My car ('04 Forester) has none of the gps or voice recognition technologies that my parents '15 Audi S6, but plug my phone into my car and it's better than the Audi if you ask me. (Minus the backup camera!)

I could add Bluetooth and a microphone if I wanted, but it works good enough as it is.

The last IOS update, or the one before that I can't recall, added a voice recognition feature where you can say "hey Siri" when the phone is plugged in and it will wake up. That works great when driving so you're hands free.

[Scott Shepherd]

I agree, the phone stuff seems to work great. I don't have a car with it built in, and after seeing what I saw, I'm not sure I would give you a nickel for it as an option. I've only had the new Garmin for a couple of days, and it seems to do some things really well. It seems to pickup place pretty well. Addresses.....not so much.

At lunch, I navigated out and used it to go to 4 or 5 places and back to work, all through voice and it did a really good job. But those were all "Places" according to their setup. I was happy with it.

[George Bokros]

I have Sync in my Fusion and had in my Escape and have not had issues using to make phone calls, control the HVAC, tune the radio or for navigation.

[Roger Feeley]

We have a Garmin Nuvi with voice commands. I found that it has trouble with new addresses so I don't bother anymore. I do use it to navigate to places I've saved. There's far less to mess up.

The ultimate voice controlled navigation system is my wife. "Honey, would you please program in ..." Works most of the time.