npeckio

i encouraged a friend of mine to buy a 09 GS 350 and we were both suprise that the ML/NAV dosent have text to speech. is there any aftermarket device or upgrade to remedy this. thanks for your help in advance.
regards, nick

vuiskool

text to speech? What do you mean by this? Typing something in and it says it aloud?

BinaryJay

He means getting it to speak out the street names, rather than just alerting you to an upcoming turn.

Honestly I've never been a fan of built-in nav in cars, as they cost more than getting a completely new portable device whenever you need a map update, and are non-upgradable in terms of features and screen quality etc. Sure it's cleaner than having something stuck to your windshield but overall it feels like it's just another thing to date the car after a few years.

My suggestion is to just go spend a couple hundred bucks and get a vastly superior Garmin unit and stick it on your dash when you know you're going to need nav if you absolutely need TTS.

nomobmw

It is extraordinarily frustrating, not to mention the lockouts while moving, that the navi IS capable of text to speech but only uses it when you use the voice command system.

When programming a destination using your voice, it repeats back the street names, cities, and states using text to speech, but of course they can't do this when you are actually navigating and call out the street names you need to turn on. Probably some lawyers told them it would be distracting as you tried to read the street signs or some sh$!.

Stormforge

if your friend wanted the navi to speak out the actual street name, he should have gotten the '10 GS350 instead. the '09 GS still uses the gen 5 navi, which does not speak out the actual street name. i believe the '10 GS is updated with the gen 6 navi (which should be the same as the 2010 RX), and should have the actual text to speech that you are looking for. someone correct me if i'm wrong on this.