Can the cx30 factory nav be voice activated or must you use the idiotic dial system to input addresses? Thanks,

 

Short answer: yes. The nav system can be controlled by voice. Trigger the voice system (the talking mouth/raised phone receiver button on the steering wheel) and, at the audible prompt, say “Address search”. The system should respond with a prompt on the centre screen, complete with helpful tips. As clearly as possible say the address you’re looking for, including street number, street name (including whether it’s a street, road, etc), suburb (or town, if you’re out in the sticks and where you’re headed is too small to have suburbs), and the state. Like this: “11 Station Crescent, Clayton City, New South Wales” (an entirely fictitious address, by the way, just in case someone from New South Wales is reading this!). That ought to bring up a list of possible addresses, one of which should be the one your looking for. Speak the line number of the address you want, and you’ll be good to go.

The system does have some drawbacks. There is no learning function to educate the system to your particular voice, intonation, accent or pronunciation, so God help you is you’re Scottish! It’s important to enunciate clearly, and in a slightly raised voice. You don’t have to get really loud/shouty, but speaking clearly is important. So, if you’re both Scottish AND drunk, you’re essentially screwed. I think there’s at least some adaptive learning capacity built into the smarts of the system, because it does get better over time. Not a lot better, mind you, and your mileage may vary. I found it helpful to go spend 15 or 20 minutes just sitting in the car with everything powered up, and just throwing a bunch of addresses at the system. Oh, and it also helps if you program in frequent destinations, like “Home”, “Work”, etc. Then, it’s just a matter of saying, “Address search”, followed by (for example), “Home”.

if you’ve got Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, both are somewhat smarter in how they go about voice-triggered nav. Best of all, they can both be invoked by the same button on the steering wheel.

 

Thank you

 

IMHO: The Voice Activation System is "State of the ARK". Could not be worse. It needs to use a system like the one on my Cell. Also the menu of commands is horrible.

 

Oh, geekgwk, that’s excellent! “State of the Ark”. I love it!