Improving your GPS

We’ve had some adventures with our “Map Man” recently. After he tried to take us from Arizona to Utah via California and Nevada (sounds like some airline flights I’ve taken), we started to laugh at him even more. And we have a few suggestions.

We finally figured out that if we told him to take us the fastest route via Panguitch that he actually ended up with the most efficient route. Which is our first suggestion. I can choose between fast (which we think means speed limit rather than time), short, avoiding freeways, walking, bicycle, or limited speed. But I cannot choose efficient. There should be an efficient option.

One thing we do like, he doesn’t announce when he has to re-plan the route because we didn’t follow his suggestion. Last summer we were using a GPS that said “recalculating” a lot. And when we didn’t get on the closed freeway she actually said, “There is a more efficient route.” She sounded really put off by it too. But perhaps with that model we could pick efficiency as one of our options. When we were stuck in LA traffic he kept reassuring us that we were still on the fastest route, despite the fact that we were going 5 miles per hour.

There’s also the possibility of different voices. We chose a male voice for ours, can’t remember exactly why now. And it’s fun to listen to how he says different city and street names. He really gets into the Spanish accent on Los Angeles. And in Salt Lake he liked to say “3-3-0-0- So!”

You can get “celebrity” voices. But wouldn’t it be great if they had the “old lady back seat driver” voice? Instead of saying “recalculating” she’d say, “Well now we’re lost!” in a real exasperated voice. And as you approach a turn she’d say something like, “It’s a left turn ahead. You need to be turning left up here. Can you hear me? Turn left. Left! Left! Left!” Not that I’d leave it on that voice for a while, but it would certainly be good entertainment for at least one trip.