Once more with feeling GPS

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Starting from a very cynical base and not wanting to be deskilled by
a mere piece of software my wife and I resisted initially buying and then using the GPS.
Mostly I drove and she navigated. This worked amazingly well. She had her head in the map book for fifty percent of the time and honed her map reading skills, always of course combined with the need to turn the book so that the direction of the line of the map corresponded with the direction of the actual road, to perfection.

On those rare occasions when roles were reversed my impoverished, unhoned, map reading skills compounded by my time consuming need to put my glasses on to read the map and take them off to read signpost plus and my insistance on demonstrating my manly superiority by not turning the map book led to some pretty extreme statements re-my limitation in general.

Now of course it's GPS, GPS, GPS all the way (with apologies to Jingle Bells).

The thing is the masochist in me misses the emotional intensity of the old pre-GPS days.

I am sure I'm not the only one who finds the bland or even perpetually accommodating GPS voice unsatisfying. I'd at least like to hear some exasperation in the voice after I've turned the wrong way for a second time and on occasion the odd criticism or expletive would let me know I was in the real world.

Once again with feeling?

Bill

 

Try downloading the Ozzie Osbourne voice. It tells you that you have gone 'f####ing wrong you f###ing moron; f###ing turn round etc., and all in a rich, cultured Brummie accent. Plenty of exasperation and more than a few expletives.

Hope you like it

Grant

 

I like GPS (now). I use one in the kayak too.

In the car I can answer back at the GPS female voice at no risk to my person.
When she gets it wrong I can shout at her .

 

The GPS has caused some angst in the Kidd household, not to the humans but to Molly our staffy furry faced princess. The need to look for the nice lady who is"somewhere", perhaps under the seats or on our knees, has caused a commotion at junctions and roundabouts. She is now firmly harnessed down between the seats, the dog that is, the lady seems to be sitting near the roof.
Ros

 

Just shows how far behind the curve I've been. I didn't know that you could get different voices!

Just been online to update myself and although there are a lot of voices out there I think there's plenty of room for expansion.

A few of my own ideas - funnily enough mostly women's voices and mostly it's with emphasis on the tone.(I'll have to think about that later):

The back seat driver
The wall to wall disapproving
The there's a bad smell voice
The nervous passenger
Exasperated tone mounting when driver doesn't follow directions beginning with tuts and sighs and mounting to incredulity that she can be associated with such a moron.
The shy voice
The disinterested voice
The school teacher voice
The head cold voice, coughing and spluttering, nose blowing voice
The voice of someone who is frightened of dogs and manages to transmit her fear through her voice in a way that sends the dog wild (that's for Ros)
The I am just containing The I'm anger and you are the cause of it voice


I would imagine you might have a different take on things?

I would also like a facility where the voice could vary at random, just to keep you on your toes.

Bill

 

I've often thought a mild electric shock delivered through, say, the steering wheel would be useful sensory feedback for when she told you to turn right and you sailed right past.
And a "RIGHT, YOU IDIOT!", as a back-up, just in case the shock wasn't enough.

 

Although it's probably pretty old, I watched an eipisode of Big Bang Theory, last night where Sheldon hacked into Leonard's (and unknowingly others) GPS. His voice becomes the voice of the GPS and he adds "interesting" facts about things and places they are passing and also initiates quizzes.

There's got to be direct commercial potential in the voice and interactivity associated with GPS?

Bill