Voice Recognition

[keywest]

I have had the RX400h since August and have not really tried to use the voice recognition button to operate anything.

However there comes a time to do everything.

I have searched the handbook and there appears to be no advice on what to say to get anything to work. When i have tried it by saying something that seems obvious to me it either doesnt recognise it or does something completely unrelated!

Is there any guidance anywhere on keywords and the structure of what you have to say?

What can be operated by the voice recognition system?

Any help would be appreciated

[Neil Morphett]

I think Lexus used up all the space in the manual with "Warning - Pay Attention Whilst Driving" safety instructions and ran out of room for more practical stuff such as a list of what the voice commands actually are - they've been captured in Full List Of Voice Commands thread. This list is for the RX300, apparently there are additional commands for the RX400h but no idea what they are; you can say 'Help' after pushing the button and it will reel the list off to you, so pencil and paper handy....

It's worth a play, if only to find something to demonstrate to your mates, but I've concluded that voice control is not a particularly useful feature in this Lexus implementation - maybe it could have been useful when most of the nav functions were locked out on the move and IF you'd spent a lot of time advance-programming and/or memorising voice controls for finding the nearest Ski Resort (as one frequently needs to whilst hands-free), but now touch control is largely unlocked it's usually far quicker to use the touch-screen. For me, it would have been useful to do <button> "Home" and it brings up the Home destination and starts navigating to it. I recall what it actually does is that the car voice then responds something like "Please say 'Set Destination <beep>'" and I can never remember whether you have to press the voice recognition button again or not, but I usually pressed it when I shouldn't have (or vice versa) and then I have to say "Enter Destination", then the car responds "Setting home as destination"... all a bit aggravating as I am now having to wait and then say a five-syllable confirmation message to confirm a one-syllable instruction, and the car is spending time talking to me when I thought I'd disabled all the voice tellbacks. It's probably most useful if you've set voice dialling up on phone numbers that aren't in the speed dial list - for everything else it's significantly quicker (and less annoying and therefore probably safer) to tap the screen times.

On the plus side, I've found it does the actual voice-recognition quite well, in that it recognises what I'm saying. All the more reason why I'd rather it just acted on the instruction (and maybe had an "Undo" command in case it got it wrong) rather than elaborate tellbacks and confirmations.

Overall, it struck me as a system that was designed on paper then never really tested in anger, otherwise there would have been screams of "Yes, go HOME, that's what I SAID, the clue was in the WORDS, just DO IT" from the test route.

But do enjoy....

[Parthiban]

I like voice recognition, it doesn't have as many commands in my IS as it will in your cars but I still find it really useful - like changing the nav volume on the move is much easier, or pausing guidance.........

[keywest]

I think Lexus used up all the space in the manual with "Warning - Pay Attention Whilst Driving" safety instructions and ran out of room for more practical stuff such as a list of what the voice commands actually are - they've been captured in Full List Of Voice Commands thread. This list is for the RX300, apparently there are additional commands for the RX400h but no idea what they are; you can say 'Help' after pushing the button and it will reel the list off to you, so pencil and paper handy....

It's worth a play, if only to find something to demonstrate to your mates, but I've concluded that voice control is not a particularly useful feature in this Lexus implementation - maybe it could have been useful when most of the nav functions were locked out on the move and IF you'd spent a lot of time advance-programming and/or memorising voice controls for finding the nearest Ski Resort (as one frequently needs to whilst hands-free), but now touch control is largely unlocked it's usually far quicker to use the touch-screen. For me, it would have been useful to do <button> "Home" and it brings up the Home destination and starts navigating to it. I recall what it actually does is that the car voice then responds something like "Please say 'Set Destination <beep>'" and I can never remember whether you have to press the voice recognition button again or not, but I usually pressed it when I shouldn't have (or vice versa) and then I have to say "Enter Destination", then the car responds "Setting home as destination"... all a bit aggravating as I am now having to wait and then say a five-syllable confirmation message to confirm a one-syllable instruction, and the car is spending time talking to me when I thought I'd disabled all the voice tellbacks. It's probably most useful if you've set voice dialling up on phone numbers that aren't in the speed dial list - for everything else it's significantly quicker (and less annoying and therefore probably safer) to tap the screen times.

On the plus side, I've found it does the actual voice-recognition quite well, in that it recognises what I'm saying. All the more reason why I'd rather it just acted on the instruction (and maybe had an "Undo" command in case it got it wrong) rather than elaborate tellbacks and confirmations.

Overall, it struck me as a system that was designed on paper then never really tested in anger, otherwise there would have been screams of "Yes, go HOME, that's what I SAID, the clue was in the WORDS, just DO IT" from the test route.

But do enjoy....

[keywest]

Thank for the replies. I have printed off the words and will have a play tomorrow as I am off work for the day