diablo1

Well, I read all the instructions in all the manuals provided with the car, but one very important feature is barely covered in the manual - the voice recognition. For anyone who hasn't done this yet (and I hadn't until today), it is TOTALLY worth it to spend like 10 minutes sitting in the car looking through all the voice commands. To get to this screen, press the voice command button on the steering wheel, and then press help on the screen. It won't work if you are locked out of entering destinations on the nav, using the phonebook, etc (over 5 mph I think).

I found that there are voice commands for almost every command I have been reaching down to the nav screen to input. Zooming the map, selecting which nav screen (full map vs. intersection guide vs. highway guide etc.), finding nearby destinations, etc. Pressing the button and saying "Nearest gas station" and then having it say "Finding nearest gas station" is the coolest thing ever.

Sorry, I know most people know about this already, and probably use it all the time, but since I hadn't taken the time to learn it yet, I thought maybe some other people also were not using this feature yet. It's very Star Trek.

kensteele

actually i haven't used any of it yet, only a few voice commands for one day testing it out. it is pretty cool so i guess i'll have to get around to it real soon.

encore888

Sounds good, lots more command for Gen 5 NAVIs I guess. How fast is the response time?

Kermee

iTrader: (1)

"Dial By Number" has been fairly accurate for me when I've used it. (About 1 out of 10 times, it gets one or two digits incorrect, but that's probably because I run the numbers verbally fairly fast). It's a great demo to show to friends. I have them dial their own mobile phone # thru "Dial By Number" with my SE T68i in my coat pocket over BT.

It blows them away.

As for response time, I'm not sure how to compare with others since this is my first voice-activated system, but I would say it's pretty quick. The time waiting isn't actually waiting for the recognition to figure out what you said, but rather the voice-prompt afterwards. I think that's been the biggest complaint so far.

Cheers,
Kermee

encore888

So there is no voice prompt at the beginning....right? I heard something to the effect of 'please say something after the beep' -- like a voice mail system -- it's not more difficult than Gen 4, which doesn't do that...simply touch the button, and say what you want to say. Then it will repeat the command verbally.

skynite

can you add a destination via the voice command while in drive or do you have to put it in park. That would suck if you couldn't do that.

diablo1

You can add a destination, but I don't think you can say an address and have it be added. But you can add "nearest fast food", for example, or any of the pre-programmed destinations you have set. It allows 6 of these (home + 5 more), so that's enough for me to get to my garage, apartment, parents house, and 3 more common places I drive. Once it has located "nearest" anything, it asks you if you want to add it as a destination. If you already have a destination, it asks if you want to replace your current destination, or add this on the way. So that's cool cuz if you are on your way somewhere and need to stop for gas, it will recalculate so you go to your destination and pass by the nearest gas station on the way.

I would say about one second between when you finish talking and when it tells you what it thinks it heard. Pretty reasonable.

Yes, it does prompt you with something like "Please say a command after the beep." However, you can turn this off by going into the setup menu, and on the second page there is an option that says "Voice Command Guidance" or something like that. Just turn it off and you will get the beep immediately after you press the steering wheel button. (I found that in another thread btw, haven't tried it myself.)

Two other cool things about voice guidance. First, it's not user specific, so you don't have to train it to your voice. It's pretty good with commands, and almost perfect if you speak slowly. The only problem I had yesterday was that I once said "Zoom in" kind of fast and it thought I said "Cinema". But, when I said it a little slower, no problem.

The other thing is that if you want to see all restaurants in the area, you can apparently say "I'm hungry." It's not listed in the help screen, but people say it works!

Bichon

Didn't you get the Navigation Quick Reference guide with the rest of your manuals? (It's the skinny nav book) It too has a listing of all of the voice commands.

diablo1

Oops maybe I did... So many manuals... I probably missed it. I'm surprised they don't cover it in the main nav manual.

jlin101

By default there IS voice prompt before a command can be given, but it can be disabled in the menu.

skynite

So let me get this right.... You can't tell the NAV the address verbally like in the infiniti system? You can only select the POI? Can you tell the NAV a street address verbally, with City and Street number and State and have it locate without having to actually stop the car?

Cypren

You can, actually. Touch the voice button and say "address". It will prompt you for the state, city, street, then numeric address. At each step, it shows what it matched to your voice, and pauses for you to hit the voice button again before continuing. You can also say "next candidate" if it's fuzzy on the match to cycle through potential matches, or "change <previous level>" if you mis-stated something. (i.e. if you give it a bad street, when it prompts you for the numeric, you can say "change street".)

diablo1

Wow, it's even more amazing than I thought it was! Sorry for the misinformation.

mslatter

You can turn the voice prompt on or off in the options somwhere. Once off, you won't hear the voice and beep, just the beep.

encore888

Thank you for the clarification...glad to hear that it's configurable.

And I think the "address" function is brand new to Gen 5...I don't recall that being mentioned in Gen 4. Is there a list of Gen 5 commands online somewhere? Sounds amazing.