Quirky, poorly designed navigation system

Screen Brightness and Contrast | PriusChat

 

In short, IMHO the Toy Nav in our 2014 Pri is just not trust worthy. Besides the non user friendliness, it will miss direct you, at critical moments. I am sure given enough time, (your delayed time), the Toy Nav would wander you back around to where you want to go. But I dislike wasting my time, and do not want to get routed through down town Oakland CA, when it is totally unnecessary. (See below link). I bought a Garmin Nuvi 2558LMTHD for $139.00 delivered from Costco, and will use it on long trips. Especially trips where I really do not know the way to go.

Here is a my thread where the Toy Nav misdirection into Oakland is discussed at length. I am sure many more Nav threads exist, and will be created until Toyota goes with Garmin, as it IS the best! Better yet, if they can not go Garmin, make the sun roof an option that does not require Nav!

2014 Toyota Nav, who is it made by? Any updates? | PriusChat

Still LOVE the rest of the car, and its GREAT MPG!!!

 

It's the light adjustment by the mirrors. If you click it all the way to the top the gps and odometer lights up brighter. This only works when you have your light on during the day.

I had to use it the other day when it was raining but it wasn't bright enough for me to see it during the day. It's almost like daymode on the navigation itself but easier to turn on.

 

Navigation screen also dim for me. I read somewhere that I could try setting contrast all the way down and setting the brightness to high and that worked for me!

 

I would love to see someone successfully use voice recognition with my Nav system. It never comes close to what I say and is 100 percent unusable.

Worse, is I used it near the end of my recent trip, and it wanted to send my back 14 miles in the wrong direction--180 degrees wrong. Fortunately, the misrouting was so bizarre that I knew not to follow the directions.

Love my car; hate the Nav.

 

The above, is why we bought a portable Garmin to use on trips where we do not Know where we are. You Just simply can not trust the Toy Nav for accurate directions. As I said earlier, surely it would eventually get you to your destination, but at what cost of time, gas money, or even potential harm-- as for us, it tried to miss-direct us into downtown Oakland, CA! We "Love our car, hate the Nav" Too! Maybe it works GREAT in--------> Japan?

 

I have used voice recognition successfully several times with my C3 Nav system. It took a while to figure out how it wanted the destination spoken. I was doing it backwards at first. Now I distinctly speak the entire address all at one time: house number, street name, city, and state in that order. The Nav system then works in reverse to confirm, starting with the state first. Then it pauses a while, or seems to, and says the street, or offers several streets if its is not sure what you said. When you confirm the street by picking a line number, it then adds the house number, restates the entire address, and then asks if you want to begin route guidance.

I'm not sure what the "ecological" route of the three offered means, but I learned the hard way never to pick the "shortest". You'll find your self on every back street in existence, making turn after turn after turn, as it tries to save you miles to drive with the utmost determination. It may work if there is a simple path to where you're going, but it did not for me. The "fastest" route is the one I always choose now. It did once direct me down a dead end street, but it had not always been a dead end, and I just needed to update the map software.

 

I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate the navigation system in my 2012 prius v. It's so difficult to see the royal blue directional arrow in the black background. I'm unable to adjust the brightness so mostly I can't see it. Entering the address is SO difficult and it's ridiculous to have to pay so much to update it-given what I paid for the damn thing. I get angry every time I use it. A $99 GPS from Walmart would have been so much better. I have called Toyota and even written a letter explaining my difficulty with the system but I wasn't given the courtesy of a reply.

 

If you roll the light dimmer knob to the max bright it will get rid of the night mode black screen.

 

Have not had any problems using technology built into the NAV system. Reading the owners manual is key.

 

"When all else fails, read the manual."

 

Reading the manual--which I did--did nothing to help the NAV system understand my voice commands and it did not prevent the system from routing me 50 miles out of the way.

 

This is why I stick to Apple iPhone Maps for all my trips. It's proven that it works and let's you preview the trip (to abort any ridiculous detours). I imagine Android maps are also similar. Carmakers simply don't know how to program.

 

Yes, go into your display set up and turn the gain down for contrast and up for brightness. It made a he difference for me.

 

Just did that yesterday and it seems to be better; somewhat counter-intuitive though.