Nav System Announcing Street Names?

It will say stuff like "continue on I-5 south", but I don't remember it announcing the name of the upcoming street. It usually says something like "left turn in 500 feet".

I don't use guidance all that often, but I have found that its a little bit passive-aggressive when I have used it. For example, the last time I used it, I knew the area reasonably well, but did not recognize the street that the business was on so I entered the address as the destination. During the drive, on the freeway, about 5 miles before the actual turnoff, it started telling me to take the next off ramp. I knew it was too early, but thought maybe it knows something I don't. As soon as I exited the freeway, it started to tell me to get back on the freeway. Doh!

 

I don't know whether the distinction is built-in, but I think it only announces Interstate Highways and U.S. and State Highways. I don't believe it tries names, but only numbers.

 

It will say "exit to i880 north is on the right," but does not give street names, unfortunately. The display will give the name of the street you are on. What I'd like is for it to also (or instead) give the name of the next cross street coming up, like my old Garmin did.

 

It doesn't announce street names, unless they are interstate highways. It does tell you of an upcoming turn, then chimes to announce the actual turn, but doesn't give names.

On the highway, it will say things like: "Right turn onto I-75..."

Tom

 

The really weird part is the system is capable of saying the street name, because when you enter a destination via "address" voice command, the system repeats the street name it matches in the database. So it can say them all, it just doesn't for turn guidance. Intersting .

I have surprisingly good results with all types of voice command, including the address feature. It's really effective, but a little unusual to do at the first time.

 

My NAV system doesn't say "I suck" either, but if it did at least it would be accurate for once.

 

I like mine. It works well for me. That must be why there are multiple brands of almost everything. Sorry it doesn't work well for you, since it makes for an expensive paper weight.

Tom

 

My NAV does not say the street name here in Norway, but when I went on holiday in Denmark this summer it said the name on several main streets, not the number but real name. It sounded a bit strange because the NAV usually speaks norwegian but the street name was spoken in danish....

 

Unfortunately only one brand was available in my Prius. At the time I bought the car I really had no option -- it was take it or don't take the car. That said, I get far more funtionality from my $300 Garmin Nuvi than I do from the $1000+ (?) NAV system. It may just be my area of the country, but I frequently find roads that have been in place for quite a few years are simply not there (I have map v. 7.1) So where am I? A lot of times, apparently, driving in a nice green field. I could say other things but I really don't want to start a big argument about the NAV system. (We've had many!) People seem to either love it or hate it. To those who love it, I say great! It's just a big disappointment for me.

 

My cheapo garmin announces street names and gives better directions...

But I'm a bit fond of the factory nav because it's much more convenient and faster to program, and a much bigger, nicer map to look at than the garmin. Though I can't get over the facts that it doesn't show one way streets in the city, and it fails at giving directions that make sense.

 

The Toyota NAV also announces exit numbers in addition to US Interstates.

Mapping data does vary from one region to another, if you are in a metropolitan area, coverage should be very good. If you are in a rural area, maybe not so good.

I've been using the NAV in my car for 2.5 years in the Toronto area and almost always set a destination (mostly for entertainment, since I know my area fairly well, but I like to know my ETA ) and the directions are overall quite accurate. In certain areas, it seems to bias toward main streets vs. residential a little heavier than I would like - even with "Short" route selected - but whatever...

I do second 9G-man's comment that since the computer already has the text to speech engine to echo back the street names during the 'Address' command, this functionality should be available as an option that can be enabled for guidance as well... By no means is it a life or death feature, but a "nice to have". Version 8.1, perhaps? We can dream...

 

This is because Toyota is using Navtech for the Prius nav. Navtech is the worst data GPS street data provider on the planet.

 

And so does Garmin...

 

I'm betting that EVERY US street database, whatever the manufacturer, starts with the Tiger database maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau. I assume there are a bunch of value adds put on by the various companies that make GPS gear or street maps (DeLorme comes to mind, and of course Yahoo and Google... And Navtech). But it simply would not make sense to roll your own from scratch when that beautiful, FREE, Tiger database is there for the downloading, already paid for by our taxes.

The point being: If the Tiger database is wrong, Navtech (or Google or ...) may not ever know it unless the mistake gets reported. I bet every provider of map databases has their own list of corrections, so some might be correct where others are wrong.

And of course, the Tiger database is updated continually, I believe. It's not an easy problem to maintain a database of this size. So the amazing thing is just how accurate they are most of the time (even NavTech...)

 

No way, no how, not by a longshot.

 

I and most of the nav uses in North America would beg to differ.

 

My Prius NAV is lazy. It picks a route and tells me to find my way from where I am to the start of the route it picks. It doesn't alway start to direct me from wherever I am. Nevermind the fact that the whole point of me asking it for directions is because I'm lost and would probably get even more lost trying to find the route it wants me to follow. It also takes the looooongest time to recalculate when I miss a turn and goes cracy if I don't go the direction it wants me to go.

I would take an el cheapo garmin any day over this (and actually do use one). I honestly didn't want it but like some others, it was either take the car with the NAV you know you'll hate or no car at all.

 

You can beg all you want