When the AVIC asks me for a city, it cant recognize ANYTHING i say. It comes up with all sorts of weird cities.

My Garmin (not voice activated) asks the STATE first, then narrows things down to a city.

 

I am upset beyond words. I absolutely was willing to pay ANYTHING not to have to type in destinations for a nav system. So far I have spent almost 2k on a system that i am about to take a hammer to.

 

My "complete" used AVIC Z-1 was not such a good deal. It came missing:

1) Microphone

2) Speed pulse wire (this is just plain wire? We did not buy this, but used some 18guage wire)

3) Back up wire for camera. I bought the 2nd gen camera

4) Bundle #2 of RCA pugs. we needed this.

 

SO I had to buy all this and I did get the Pioneer blue tooth which we have not tested yet.

The steering wheel PAC swi works fine for the switches.

 

We removed the BMW mic which worked fantastic BTW. It is located on the steering wheel column.

We mounted the new pioneer mic so it was perfectly exposed to me for speech, but out of the wind.(and YES, it is the correct mic for an AVIC z1.

 

Even stopped with the windows up or down the frustrating Avic can NOT recognize hardly ANY commands.

It can do basic ones like "Point Of Interest" and "gas stations". Not much else.

 

But I specifically bought this unit to i did not have type in addresses. I HATE doing that and spent almost 2k now for something that does NOT do crap when it comes to voice recognition.

 

English is my native language . I have zero accent. A completely ordinary voice. I can speak VERY clearly. I have no problems with any other voice activated devices.

I am about to rip this thing out of there.

 

I bought Garret's updated Hard drive. Will this helps? I doubt it. I am afraid to install it. But if i do and it does not help there will be an updated AVICZ1 for sale real soon here.

 

I am upset beyond words. this was a HUGE install !! And a TON of money down the drain. It was unbelievable what you have to do to install one of these in a BMW M3. I will get into that in a separate post. To do it PROPERLY it is unreal. I was there and saw it first hand.

 

My installer is a whiz., He works for a dealership as his day job. He can take apart any BMW down to the last washer and put them back together. He even pulled a wiring diagram from the dealer to help identify wires when he bypassed the built in Harmon Kardon amp which was not designed to work in tandem.

 

I dont think there were any install mistakes. Would it help to cut out he Pioneer mic and splice in the BMW mic?

I am desperate.

 

I read that the voice recognition was supposed to be fantastic with the Avicz's. Not!

 

Which model of Pioneer is really good for voice recognition? What about other brands? I know this is an Avic forum, but i really need something that will work as advertised.

 

I have a sinking feeling i am screwed totally with this unit.

There are posts literally all over this forum about how crappy the voice recognition software in the Z series is. It got a little better in the Z3 but not by much.

 

Splicing anything into your existing mic is guaranteed to make the problem worse, not better. The problem here isn't the mic but the software running the whole show.

 

Sorry to hear you got duped into spending so much money on a three year old nav system I wouldn't pay more than about 300 bucks for a Z1 these days.

 

Try to get a feel for the voice recognition software of the F series, the software in those was written by Pioneer themselves as is the software in all of their newest line (including the newest iteration of the Z series) so if the voice recognition in those is good there is a good chance it will be fine (or even better) in the new generation.

Ok. Thanks. Do you have a specific model in mind you could have me look at that does as much or more than the Avicz? I am not sure what you mean by "get a feel for the F series".

 

If there is no firmware or software updates that can cure the terrible voice recognition, then I am cutting my losses and jerking it out. I have a LOT of mods to my car. Everyone works as good or better than i expected. But they are all driving performance mods. I am REALLY not up to speed with any audio/video systems. I have so much to learn. I am a gear head racer who is branch out my knowledge base to audio video. It is overwhelming to me. I will get a grip eventually. Thanks for anyones help too.

 

Funny, i do remember researching the Avic Z1 ... Cnet i believe said the voice recognition was excellent. They are sorely mistaken. I should have researched more. My bad. But I will not stop until i get what i want which is FIRST and foremost an excellent voice recognition system.

 

Cnet which is USED to trust said this about the Z1: "We found the voice-recognition capabilities to be flawless, despite a few initial misgivings about the basic appearance of the mic. Unlike some factory-installed units that we've reviewed, the AVIC Z-1 does not require users to push the voice-command button for each stage of the destination-entry process, opting for a more user-friendly succession of beeps."

http://reviews.cnet.com/car-gps-navigat ... 36311.html

 

Those TARDS! Or I guess I am he tard for believing them. Until now I have relied on them and have never been lead astray. I have to wonder what the tster was smoking for this bench test...

This portion of the review sealed the deal. I twas the only reason I bought the Avic Z1.

 

 

I know this is an pioneer avic forum, but which manufacturer makes one of the best systems available now?

I just have to chalk this one up to bad research and move on.

 

We upgraded to a Z3 with Garrets HD. I have not tried it out yet since the car is in the body shop for more paint work.

Two things:

1) Is it possible in Nav to have the Avic ask for your STATE first? The Garmin Nuvi does this and that makes it SO much easier then to search for a city. All the parameters are narrowed whether you are searching in speech OR text.

 

2) My installer said he thought the Avic has a speech recognition option where you can get the software to learn your personal voice to teach it commands like Dragon Easy speak which learns.

I have a sinking feeling this does not exist since you and so many say the software on the avic z'z is so crappy.

 

I am just crushed. But not defeated. If i cant get this Avic Z3 to do what i want, please lead me to some SPECIFIC models or brands that are state of the art.

 

I use Google 800 number to search free for business phone #'s and addresses. Google recognizes EVERYTHING I say.

My Blackberry is pretty crappy. I have to talk in a robot computer voice sometimes in order for it to understand me.

But it does work most of the time.

 

It just pisses me off to no end. We plunk down good money on pretty high tech stuff and the SOB tech designers pick a really crappy cheap a** speech recognition.

 

And just LOOK at all the commands it is supposed to know. OMG,,, HUNDREDS!. I am lucky for it to find a gas station for me. Crap!

I'm not sure if you can say the State name first, actually to be honest I've never had my voice control ask me for a city name, I just ask it go to to the nearest whatever and it usually routes me from there.

 

Sorry about being kind of vague concerning the F series, I meant to pop over to that forum and see what people say about the voice recognition, because if it is good on the F series it should be at least as good - if not better - as the newest generation of HUs that Pioneer just put out.

 

I believe Cnet gets paid off in a lot of their reviews, same with a lot of other online review houses. Just my opinion though.

 

I know that the Z does NOT have the ability to learn your voice... the HU was actually pretty poorly coded all around IMO... the programming was sourced out of Pioneer and that is pretty much why it's crap and this is coming from Pioneer themselves (even the "crap" part).

 

Even still, I enjoy using my Z3. I had wanted one ever since they came out until I finally got a Z2 brand new off eBay for about 800 bucks. I'm even more excited for the newest line to come out, you should check out the roadshow thread that JasonH started to see them. If you want to check out other manufacturers, I hear Kenwood makes ridiculously awesome nav units, and my buddy says the HU that came stock in his Scion tC is tits.

I did fairly extensive searching about the F and the Z series. Both are pretty bad. One owner said his kids bug him to ask the unit to do something so they can laugh at it's ridiculous response. That's bad.

 

I will never ever trust Cnet again. Those bastards.

 

Mt techn instaslled garrets z3 HD no problem. But the unit will under NO circumstances recognize Fort lauderdale.

If i could just get it to recognize the STATE first then I have a LOT better chance of it recognizing a city inside that state. Right now it is comparing my voice to 10's of thousands of cities on a nation wide basis.

That is the stupidest thing i hasve ever seen.

 

With the garmin, it asks for the state first which you must type, then the city. Ft L brings up Fort lauderdale. But then it is a real hassle to enter the complete address on a NON qwerty key board. This is the 21rst century and i feell lkike Lewis and Clark asking Native Americans for directions....

 

 

What is a HU????? A Head Unit????

 

But thanks so much for reaching out. My car is still in for some show quality paint (Glasseur, i think is what they call it. it is like glass when they get done)

 

Where is Garret? He should know. BTW, I should mention that his service is incredible. He shipped the SAME day as funds received using my favorite: Priority Mail. MY tech did the HD swap non problem and now all the REALLY BAD techno music is gone from my unit. The previous owner must have been all of 16. It came from a show civic.

 

We are both extermely unhasppy with the very expensive but really crappy pioneer camera. I even got the updated one. I might scrap it in favor of the one you mentioned. I cant make out curb dividers that are natural concrete color. They need to be yellow or have some color in them.

I had a whole camera and monitor that onlyt cost 75 bucks that was about the same or better.

I bought the Pioneer camer because i needed to unclutter my dash. All those little head units add up and the car just looks like junk after a while. I DO like the cllean instasll of the Pioneer Head Unit. What a HUGE job thazt was for an M3

My tech pulled that part off flawlessly. He is extremely good.He By passed the built in amp so I only have the Pioneer powering my speakers. I have an after market powered sub. Tweaking all the fine audio settings has the stereo side of my install pretty happy.