Today, I attempted in looking up a POI using the voice command button on the steering wheel. It prompted to specify if I was searching for a nearby POI or for a specific city. Then, I'm prompted to speak the name of the category, but what if I want to search by the business name? Is that feature disabled when using voice commands because it does work if I'm parked, allowing me to manually type in the business name. For instance, I was looking for a specific restaurant but didn't know how to get to it. The only way I was able to search for it was to first say "Restaurant" then go through 30 pages worth of results. Is this how it should work? PS - We don't have Entune or any apps here in Canada.
My Nav is an older version than yours (probably, anyway, no idea what you've got up North), but it's probably similar enough for me to take a stab at answering... ...anyway, welcome to state-of-the-1990's voice recognition technology! It can only recognize words in a select, limited vocabulary. Just because it knows how to spell the name of the restaurant doesn't mean it knows what it sounds like, or how to recognize it when you speak it. There are few enough POI categories that it's easy to program it to recognize them all, and it's not likely to confuse one for another due to the sizable differences between recognizing "restaurant" and "gas station". The number of individual business names is much larger than the car is capable of handling. Modern voice recognition (like you might find on your smartphone, or *maybe* a luxury car) is a lot better than that.
loll...totally agreed. The whole system feels like I reverted back Windows XP! I came in from a Ford with Sync (nothing luxury!) and it worked flawlessly for recognizing POI (business names). So from what I understand from your message, it confirm that I can only speak the names of the categories (gas stations, restaurants, etc.) and not business names. Thanks!
I don't have a "v", I don't know the difference in voice command capabilities and I'm certainly no expert. In our 2014 Four I simply say "find next <brand name>". If I say "find next restaurant", it tells me to specify the brand name anyway. Nowhere do I get any prompt to specify a city. For me, the problem is the Prius seems to limit voice commands to national brands and doesn't recognize locals, or at least no all that are in its database. For example, while near Cody WY, I asked it to find "Granny's Restaurant". It correctly recognized what I said but couldn't find it. So, I stopped and entered the name manually and there it was. When we got there, I tried using voice commands again and it still couldn't find it. I suppose it's possible it couldn't correlate the spoken Granny's to the typed g-r-a-n-n-y-s, but that seems odd since it never has a problem with national brands.
Yup, that's exactly how it works with my "v". There are a few national brands that can be easily recognized (WalMart, Starbucks) but nothing local. You have to stop the car and then type it manually in order to filter the results. With my previous Ford, if it would fail to recognize the business name you spoke, it would prompt you to spell it out. That's one nice feature Toyota could add (amongst bringing the UI to 2015 rather than 1990!).
No doubt Toyota could enhance the Prius nav system, but all they really need to do is get rid of the lockouts they've imposed while the vehicle is moving so a passenger could work the system manually. Personally, I think the voice commands should simply work the menu system and not be limited to a subset. I'm actually surprised it doesn't do that. I already had a Garmin, so I use that to search for POIs, etc., and then I use voice commands to enter the address because I like the audio directions integrated in the audio system. Given the cost of upgrading maps, I expect I'll always keep the Garmin and use it alongside the Prius system.
