nav voice recongition is garbage

Twsmith79 said:

Also, with Garmin I was able to type in things like "albertson's" and it would give me a list of all the albertson's near and far. With Tomtom you have to find it in a long list of POI's which is dangerous while driving.

T

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With the TomTom, under POI NEAR YOU, you can do the same. Works like a charm. Put in for example "Starbucks" - all the starbucks locations within the next 50 kilometers or so will come up. Also, if you only input "Star" - all places with the word Star in it will come up.

I am on the road a lot, due to my work, and i use the TomTom daily. I drive in the city - GTA/Toronto area - as well as in the rural areas - and the TomTom works just fine. Not great, but fine. I am not using the voice recognition, granted - but inputting a destination by hand takes 10 seconds. the POI search by POI near you works without problems.

Live Traffic Services work very well, here in Ontario. TomTom, so far, has always been accurate and found the quickest way to the destination. Is it perfect? Certainly not? Is it frustrating that i cant input a destination and that i get locked out? Absolutely. But - the navigation works well, 90 % of the time it finds the best/quickest route considering bad traffic and delays - and thats what im really using it for.

Comparing the TomTom to other built in navigation systems (BMW,Ford-Lincoln, Kia, Hyundai.. ) - i am rather happy with it.

Highlander said:

I am not using the voice recognition, granted - but inputting a destination by hand takes 10 seconds. the POI search by POI near you works without problems.

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You are faster than I am.

But - the navigation works well, 90 % of the time it finds the best/quickest route considering bad traffic and delays - and thats what im really using it for.

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When I'm on a long trip I often want to find list of a certain restaurant or fuel station near my route to help me plan my stops. But I don't think "search near route" is even possible. Also, the TomTom POI database is vastly inferior to the Garmin POI database (at least here in the US). And POI database is key unless you have actual addresses and don't mind inputting them manually.

Also, I haven't figured out a way to simply touch the screen to tell it where I want to go.

But by far the biggest problem is the way it doesn't display critical map detail (like secondary roads) until zoomed in so close that the map detail is useless. And if I'm going to pay for map updates, the maps need to be useful to look at. TomTom doesn't seem to understand that navigation is not always about getting from point to point as quickly as possible, sometimes it's about getting there via the most scenic and least stressful route (and this is often the route that consumes the least amount of fuel).

Unless TomTom fixes these things it is all but useless to me. I could live with an inferior POI database if the unit was more powerful in terms of how routes were created and if it was capable of displaying the maps without hiding so much necessary information.

MikeM. said:

You are faster than I am.

But by far the biggest problem is the way it doesn't display critical map detail (like secondary roads) until zoomed in so close that the map detail is useless. And if I'm going to pay for map updates, the maps need to be useful to look at. TomTom doesn't seem to understand that navigation is not always about getting from point to point as quickly as possible, sometimes it's about getting there via the most scenic and least stressful route (and this is often the route that consumes the least amount of fuel).

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I totally agree, I enjoy navigating on my own, but looking at the map. It is useless without secondary roads. It will label some secondary roads at random, or should I say tertiary roads. They are always ones that are useless to me. I have no idea how the unit chooses what to label. Its kind of annoys me and makes me like the car less likable. I just have to ignore the nav system for now.

I had high hopes for the in-dash navigation system but the TomTom integration is not very good. I have owned this 2014 CX-5 for 6 months now as it was one of the first delivered to the NW US. In that time I have fought with the navigation system and it just is not very good in many areas. Here is m y main concerns.

1. You have to agree to a legal notice every time to start the car. Bad design
2. The audio interface stops working even where you turn it on and the volume up.
3. Sitting is a parked car you cannot add your current location. More bad design.
4. It does not understand spoken commands. I ask for the navigation system and it prompts me for an address or POI like drive to the nearest restaurant, so I say drive to the nearest restaurant and it responds with Display on. Extremely bad design
5. The updated map is 10 to 15 years old. It shows 4 lane roads as 2 lanes even after they were widened in 2000.

I find that my iPhone does a better job of navigation than the TomTom does. I wish Mazda would fix this thing.

They will be phasing the whole system out in the near future (within a year). 'Aha' by Harmon Kardon will be integrated into a revised infotainment system, which is due to be released in Fall for the new Mazda3.

The Sanyo/TomTom system was already a generation behind when it came out in 2012. We all know the voice recognition works half the time, is extremely slow to react, screen is tiny 5.8", map details/graphics are mediocre at best, and that stupid system lock. Luckily for us, TomTom is supposedly releasing an update to eliminate the lock out.

BTW, POI search is practically useless when you live in any decent size city.

Gunnytoo said:

I had high hopes for the in-dash navigation system but the TomTom integration is not very good. I have owned this 2014 CX-5 for 6 months now as it was one of the first delivered to the NW US. In that time I have fought with the navigation system and it just is not very good in many areas. Here is m y main concerns.

1. You have to agree to a legal notice every time to start the car. Bad design
2. The audio interface stops working even where you turn it on and the volume up.
3. Sitting is a parked car you cannot add your current location. More bad design.
4. It does not understand spoken commands. I ask for the navigation system and it prompts me for an address or POI like “drive to the nearest restaurant”, so I say drive to the nearest restaurant and it responds with “Display on”. Extremely bad design
5. The “updated” map is 10 to 15 years old. It shows 4 lane roads as 2 lanes even after they were widened in 2000.

I find that my iPhone does a better job of navigation than the TomTom does. I wish Mazda would fix this thing.

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#1. There's a setting that after you start driving, it will go away by itself.
#2. Never had that issue.
#3. I've done it all the time. Outside my house, at the parking lot at work, etc.
#4. Voice recognition is bad on a lot of systems. Also depends how you talk. There's a supplemental pdf on all the voice commands the TomTom itself recognizes and all the store brands it knows.
#5. TomTom maps sucks I agree. NavTeq maps that Garmin uses is so much better.

iOS maps suck. Google Maps on Android is much better

SayNoToPistons said:

They will be phasing the whole system out in the near future (within a year). 'Aha' by Harmon Kardon will be integrated into a revised infotainment system, which is due to be released in Fall for the new .

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SayNo,

Will there be a Mazda sponsored upgrade path for us poor CX-5 TomTom users?

Not that I know of. I highly doubt it. Though as you can probably tell that all these Mazda units are modular, so hopefully they keep the same dash design for the revision and just update the unit itself and the trim around it.

Keep in mind that the new Aha system is a 7" screen. It will be strikingly similar to the Aha used in the new 3rd gen 2014 Mazda3