Just an observation - Voice Commands on the x910bt are crap

[Geoff]

I had an f700bt previously, and voice commands were understood 80-90% of the time. With the x910bt, voice commands are understood, MAYBE 5% of the time...it's overall just more frustrating. Is this a hardware problem? The F700's feature was handy...the x910bt's is just about useless. I've seen this mentioned before, but I figured I'd chime in.

[talkin73]

So far I agree with you. It's a bummer, but I'm following the directions very carefully and have the microphone positioned properly and find it virtually never understands what I'm saying. So far, essentially useless for me as well. I try to remember that "operator error" is not an uncommon cause of my technology frustrations and will continue seeking out feedback in the hopes that the hardware/software is fine, but the user is what needs the adjustment

[mhurley131]

Its worthless for me to....ive tried it multiple times and it was right maybe 1 out of 20. The worse thing is when you want it to "change source" and it decides to calls someone you havent talked to in months instead. You can never hang up quite quick enough to stop it before it rings once or twice...

 

Hopefully the voice reconition is a software issue and will be fixed in future releases. As of right now, its usless so I have completely given up on it. The only thing I use the microphone for is handfree speaking after I initiate the call on my phone.

[talkin73]

Is anyone having luck with using voice commands and, if so, any tips for those of us that are having problems? Mic location? Pronunciation or enunciation? Poem, haiku, anything?!?!?

[Newman]

There is a slight difference between the F-series (2.0) and the X-series (3.0) VR software and it is important to know this difference otherwise you will not have very good success with VR after switching to 3.0

 

I had an F700 in my car for about 8 months and my VR worked perfectly on everything but when i switched to an X910 with 3.0 i was having a terrible time getting the VR to work properly. I was doing everything i did with my F700 so i could not figure out what the problem could be but i finally figured it out....

 

On the F700 i would simply press the VR button, wait for the chime, and then give the VR command and it worked great.

 

but if you have 3.0 it is important that you WAIT AN EXTRA SECOND after you hear the chime before you start talking. you have to wait until the purple dashes around the little face icon begin to light up. this one second pause was not necessary with 2.0 but if you do not pause with 3.0 the unit will not hear every word you say and will almost certainly misunderstand you.

 

give this a try and hopefully it will help most of you with your problems.

[Geoff]

Nope, it just takes one more second for it to incorrectly interpret what I've said now.

[Newman]

if you are having problems with making phone calls with your voice you need to make sure your phonebook does not have any contacts with symbols in them including dashes (-), slashes (/), apostrophes ('), ampersands (&)...etc...

 

i have heard from a lot of people with iPhones having problems with the voice recognition. make sure your phonebook is sorted by First Name Last Name, make sure each contact has its own entry. for example, do not have a folder called "Smith Family" and then have "Bob Smith" and "Susie Smith" and "John Smith" listed under that. each person needs to have their own entry.

 

if you are having problems controling your iPod with voice commands make sure the AVIC does a VR Catalogue Update on your iPod before trying to use the voice commands. every time you add or remove a song from your ipod this needs to be done otherwise it will play the wrong song. it is essentially like a table of contents, if you add a page between 38 and 39 you need to adjust the table of contents and page 39 now becomes page 40.

 

from my experience with dozens and dozens of customers it almost always ends up being user error or a phonebook problem when the voice commands do not work. also, if you have a thick accent of some kind you will probably have issues.

[70runner]

Perhaps not relevant, but I use the mic for GM onstar and it works perfectly.

[Geoff]

Same mic that I used with an F700BT, and EVERY command is not properly understood. Same mic worked as flawlessly as can be expected with the F700BT. My accent didn't change, and I'm not trying to call anyone, because I haven't synced my phone up yet.

[Newman]

Same mic that I used with an F700BT, and EVERY command is not properly understood. Same mic worked as flawlessly as can be expected with the F700BT. My accent didn't change, and I'm not trying to call anyone, because I haven't synced my phone up yet.

 

What are you trying to use VR for? iPod? only thing left I can think of is to make sure you VR Catalogue your iPod.

 

there is always the possibility that there is a problem with the unit but USUALLY that isnt the case. however, its not out of the question.

[Newman]

also make sure that you have remove apostophes from peoples' names. if you have John O'Neil make sure you change it to John ONeil

[Geoff]

I'm just trying to use it for iPod voice control. That's all. It fails in every way conceivable vs my old F700BT. Friends with the same unit have noted identical problems with the x910bt's voice recognition being crap.

[Newman]

Well i can tell you that the VR in the F series and the VR in the X series are basically identical. the only difference as far as I know is that you have to wait an extra second or so on the X series after you here the chime before you start talking.

 

i had an F series and then switched to an X. for the first few weeks I had my X I hated the VR because it never understood what I said. thankfully I found out that it was just that i started talking too early and it was only hearing part of what I said. after I discovered this it has been working perfectly for me for the last 4 months.

 

dont be offended but I still think its user error. and its not necessarily your fault because it is my opinion that Pioneer messed up and made it difficult to use. i know many people are having the same issues but with my personal experience with my car and my experience with dozens of other cars i believe your issue lies in how/when you are giving the voice command.

[kdj916]

I have seen the user "Newman" suggest that our units would perfectly fine if we waited some nominal amount of time for the Avic to recognize voice commands. I'm here to say that NO amount of waiting or any degree of the purple circle countdown allows the Avic (I have a x910BT) to recognize even simple voice commands. I have a mid-western accent which I have tried modifying, speeding up, slowing down, pausing before I start speaking - I still get a 10%-25% success rate for simple commands and a 0% with more complicated commands (usually by changing my ipod to some random artist). If you have the same experience, you are not alone. It appears that the vast majority of these units have VR issues. I constantly ask people how my voice sounds over the Mic to see if there is any distortion that would cause the VR problems - most people say that my voice is clear and understandable. So I doubt this has anything to do with installation or hardware. VR remains the single glaring weakness in Avic-X units and I have seen no response from Pioneer on this issue.

[osubeaver]

Perhaps not relevant, but I use the mic for GM onstar and it works perfectly.

 

Where did you find the mic wire? Did you need to re-wire the end to mate up with the AVIC head unit? I would like to try that on my Silverado, so any help would be appreciated.