I recently noticed that voice messages produced by Google Maps driving directions changed from “turn left onto Foobar street”, and “in 2 miles take exit 27 towards Sleepytown” to simply “turn left” and “in 2 miles take interchange on the right”. This first happened when I was traveling abroad, and I attributed it to the limited information about that particular place (Iceland). However, when I returned home, the reduced messages continued, and this was definitely not normal.
The solution was to go to the settings of my Samsung Galaxy S5, then Accessibility->Vision(!)->Text-to-speech options, and change “Preferred TTS engine” from Samsung to Google.
I am not sure what and when changed this setting, and frankly “Vision” is the last thing that comes to my mind when troubleshooting the speech synthesizer, but all is well that ends well. I switched to Google speech engine and now Google Maps is back to its normal self.
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Why is it important to hear exact exit number?
Is it because sometimes two exits are pretty close to each other (e.g. “123A” and “123B”)?
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Yep. It was not that important in Iceland, since there are very few interchanges, and you can’t read most of the street names anyway, because they look like “þorljökullfjörðurvegurgata”. But US has some quite complex interchanges and exact exit number becomes very important.
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Now, (early 2018) on my Samsung Galaxy S8, the following steps restored the street names/exit numbers to my Google Maps application.
Within the Maps application, in the ‘Search here’ bar, tap the menu button (3 horizontal lines).
Select Settings > Navigation Settings > Voice Selection > Suggested Voices
‘Default (English) Speaks street names’ is my right choice. It is different from English (US), which doesn’t speak street names.
The street names and exit numbers are crucial for the very high density of roads and complex intersections in my Silicon Valley location
(San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States). Here I (and most local persons) speak United States English.
Not long ago, after an app update, my phone switched to a British English voice. Fixing that was similar to the current fix at hand.
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Thanks this has been driving crazy for months. Finally fixed it. I seat that it would speak the street names in the British voice before. I wish maps would use the voice that I use for Google Assistant.
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Thanks now I will hear street names and highway numbers instead of turn left in 2 feet.
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You are welcome!
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I love you! I’ve been trying to fix this for ages. I don’t know why it changed in the first place!
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Two thumbs up! !!
THANK YOU! ! !
Streets names restored!
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Well, in my neck of the woods (Montreal, Canada), the street names are mostly French, and the English voice does a lousy job of pronouncing French street names (in some cases total gibberish), and the French voice does not say street names. So when I hear (in French), “in 300 metres turn right”, and there are two (or more) streets close to each other, well, it’s a problem. Will have to look for another App… Anyone know of one that says street names in all languages?
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Hi there, I recently noticed that my google maps is not showing accurate location in terms of each turn or exit i have to make, specially on highways it is not showing the exits, instead it is showing the turn that comes after the highway exit. Please tell me what should i do
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Hi there,i am using galaxy s7 edge I recently noticed that my google maps is not showing accurate location in terms of each turn or exit i have to make, specially on highways it is not showing the exits, instead it is showing the turn that comes after the highway exit. Please tell me what should i do.
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I don’t understand these “smart” idiots that keep fixing stuff that isn’t broken. My old Google maps worked fine, now I stay lost. Wish someone would tell me a great directions app to use on my phone.
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Thank you. This was a big help. Avi
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In Galaxy s10 I do not have the choices as you describe them. It was working fine until 2 weeks ago and now it’s not.