Columbus Sat Nav spoken directions are strange phrases like poor translations

[roo]

On 07/02/2018 at 01:08, freelunch said:

According to my infotainment manual, you can select a male voice (device settings, page 15).

 

I like the woman. I call her Susan, but best not say why...

 

I've heard of people buying voices for their sat nav, like Jeremy Clarkson or Homer Simpson, etc. I don't know if that's possible on the Columbus, or how it would be installed?

I call mine Sonia, because after a while the voice gets Sonia nerves.

 

I have a Stephen Fry voice, on a phone sat nav that I rarely use, but after a while it got annoying.

Tomtom do a Brian Blessed voice for their satnavs.  I really want it, just to hear the bellow.

[SwissRob]

35 minutes ago, roo said:

the voice gets Sonia nerves

 

Hahaha! Nice one! 

[CheshireBumpkin]

I noticed that 'Granny Smith' (as I call the lady employed by Apple Maps to read out their satnav directions) had a good stab at the pronunciation of Lllangollen yesterday - a sterling effort on the double-L I thought!

[johndavid158]

Hi to you all

I too have issues with Columbus sat nav. Maybe it’s me, but can you mute the announcements via voice control? I like  to set the destination at the start, mute the voice until I’m out of my area. I know you can turn down the volume, but you lower radio volume, even though the Satnav  is low on volume, when the announcement would be made. Hope this makes some sense, it’s the best way I can describe  it. 

John

[johndavid158]

Hi to you all

I too have issues with Columbus sat nav. Maybe it’s me, but can you mute the announcements via voice control? I like  to set the destination at the start, mute the voice until I’m out of my area. I know you can turn down the volume, but you lower radio volume, even though the Satnav  is low on volume, when the announcement would be made. Hope this makes some sense, it’s the best way I can describe  it. 

John

[BriskodaJeff]

Don’t know if you can mute the sat nav but there is a workaround. In the nav (?) settings you can uncheck the box that reduces radio volume during nav announcements.  If you then turn the announcement volume to zero it should not disturb you.

 

[penguin17]

1 hour ago, johndavid158 said:

Hi to you all

I too have issues with Columbus sat nav. Maybe it’s me, but can you mute the announcements via voice control? I like  to set the destination at the start, mute the voice until I’m out of my area. I know you can turn down the volume, but you lower radio volume, even though the Satnav  is low on volume, when the announcement would be made. Hope this makes some sense, it’s the best way I can describe  it. 

John

Adjust the volume whilst the Sat Nav is making directions/announcments and it reduces the sat nav command volume only and not the radio volume.  Use the volume scroll wheel on the steering wheel.  

[BriskodaJeff]

I've managed to resolve my biggest bugbear with the satnav. I can live with the mispronunciation, but the length of the announcements was really starting to spoil my enjoyment of the car. Yesterday I was playing with the nav settings. In there you can change the nav announcements from comprehensive to brief. Job done! Now it works just like it did on my SII. Very happy!
One word to the wise. It may be that you need to reset it back to brief a couple of times before it remembers your preference. I was also playing with my personalisation settings and don't know if that impacted - but it had gone back to comprehensive this morning. It's easy enough to do though and has really improved the unit for me. 

 

[SwissRob]

1 hour ago, BriskodaJeff said:

you can change the nav announcements from comprehensive to brief

Wow! This is interesting news! Will definitely give it a go. Very helpful, Jeff!

Maybe it will persuade "her" to say "Bear left" instead of "Drive to the left"! 

Many thanks, Rob

[BriskodaJeff]

6 minutes ago, SwissRob said:

Maybe it will persuade "her" to say "Bear left" instead of "Drive to the left"! 

Sadly not Rob. But it does stop her saying "drive to the left and continue to follow the A1234 towards blah-blah for two hundred yards" every 5 seconds. Blissful peace

[SwissRob]

Sounds good. Columbus in verbose mode really spoils my enjoyment of on-board music (I have 800 CDs in FLAC format on two SD cards). It'll be my first action when reaching home tonight! 

Edited 22 February, 2018 by SwissRob

[freelunch]

@SwissRob I know what you mean. I think I'm going to try the navigation with the sound turned off and just use the MaxiDot and the map display.

[BriskodaJeff]

20 hours ago, freelunch said:

I think I'm going to try the navigation with the sound turned off and just use the MaxiDot and the map display.

A couple of things you might want to try first @freelunch. The "brief" setting for nav announcements I mentioned in an earlier post is so much better than Rob's (aptly named) verbose mode. You can also change the amount by which the music / radio etc is reduced during an announcement. I find these two things together have turned my Columbus from something that was genuinely spoiling my enjoyment of the car into something completely acceptable or even good. If you do want to get rid of it altogether I think you will need to uncheck the "reduce volume during announcements" (or whatever it's called) box in the Nav settings as well as turning the nav volume off, otherwise you could be listening to silence every time it wants to make an announcement.

[keble6]

Good thread here. But we rather enjoy the Sat  nav's occasional  mispronunciation. 

Especially  "Breestol" for a city near me.

[BriskodaJeff]

Sounds like we've found  another potential member of the convoy!