One voice does most of the talking. She’s cold and mechanical. She gives the directions matter-of-factly.
But occasionally, usually at the beginning or end of navigation, another one comes on. She’s more human-sounding, (and frankly seems like a more approachable person). Typically Ms. Matter-of-Fact steps on her after a fraction of a second, and the two overlap for a moment–and Ms. Matter-of-Fact eventually takes over. I’ve noticed that when this happens Ms. Human can be somewhat lagging, and gives directions that are too late to comply with.
What’s the deal with this? The result is disturbing sometimes–it’s like they’re arguing or something, and I don’t think it’s very conducive to safe driving.
Is it that some phrases are being replayed as they were recorded “{You have reached your destination!}” as opposed to being constructed from recorded fragments, i.e: “{in} {two} {hundred} {yards}, {turn Left}, {then proceed} {straight ahead} {two} {miles}”
Are they saying the same thing? If they’re overlapping because the instructions tend to come faster at the beginning and end of your journeys (because you’re exiting a driveway or parking lot etc) then it’s probably just a glitch due to trying to tell you too many things at the same time.
On the other hand, if one voice is saying “At the next corner, turn right” and the other is saying “…kill them…kill them all…” I’d definitely take your machine in to be looked at.
No, they aren’t fragments. Ms. Human will come on after there has been some silence–such as just getting off the freeway, or when starting up. Then, before she can finish what she was going to say, she cuts out and Ms. Matter-of-Fact in breaks in with a different direction–maybe one step ahead.
I believe they give the same directions–that is, they use the same phrasing, etc. Ms. Human is usually later than Ms. Matter-of-Fact, but she’s nicer.
I’ve noticed that my GPS has two voices, one for all the general things like “turn right on…” “go 6.8 miles and exit to the right on…” and another, slightly different one for the local street names. This was not the case when I first got it, but came with one of the upgrades. A lot of streets were mispronounces on the old one, and the new one seems to be better. Still seems to pronounce “Kingshighway” as “King Shyway”, though.
Ya’ll must have a different GPS unit than me. Mine’s a Garmin Nuvi. Always one voice.
We changed the default voice to an Australian male. My wife likes the accent. It also translates words, acronyms and phrases into Australianese with unintended results. So instead of an American voice saying, “Turn left in 500 feet onto WA 505,” he actually says, “Turn left in 500 feet onto Western Australia 505.” Lotsa fun when you consider we’re about 8,000 miles from Western Australia.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot. The Australian voice is much clearer to understand than the American voice. And we’ve used this GPS all over America.
Just wish it came with a VB or a Tooheys, though …
You haven’t got some accessibility or text-to-voice option switched on? Maybe you’re hearing the GPS reading directions, and some background app reading out the text that appears on the screen.
I don’t have an explanation, but Google Maps Navigation on my Android phone does exactly the same thing. Two different voices (I find the more human sounding one to be quieter), saying broadly the same thing and about the same sort of time.