kckevin Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 I have read that people have trained their system to improve voice recognition (I know you aren't supposed to have to train it, but apparently my Midwestern accent is too much for it). How do you go about training the system? I I don't have the nav system so I only have the two line display which might make the instructions different. My success rate is pretty bad right now. I love the concept and once I'm on the phone talking its great, but getting it to dial the right number is pretty bad right now. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryQW Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 I have read that people have trained their system to improve voice recognition (I know you aren't supposed to have to train it, but apparently my Midwestern accent is too much for it). How do you go about training the system? I I don't have the nav system so I only have the two line display which might make the instructions different. My success rate is pretty bad right now. I love the concept and once I'm on the phone talking its great, but getting it to dial the right number is pretty bad right now. Thanks in advance. Accuracy improved greatly when I trained my system and created a "Profile" for recognizing my voice. I have the Navigation LCD, but nevertheless did the entire training using voice commands. So it should be the same for you. But at each menu, listen for the options for commands that may be different from what I describe. You can also say Help at any time. At the Main Menu, say Voice Settings. Once you get into this mode you can say: * Interaction Mode [standard or Advanced] Advanced mode gives less prompts. * Profile [Create or Delete (Profile Name) or Profile Select (Profile Name) or Profile Select None] EXAMPLES: So you can get detailed voice help by saying "Voice Settings", pause for bing, "Interaction Mode Standard". You can create a voice profile by saying "Voice Settings", pause for bing, "Create Profile". When you create a voice recognition profile, you give it a name in your own voice, so it can easily find the profile later should your wife or another driver switch the profile away. You select that profile again by saying "Voice Settings", pause for bing, "Select Profile myname". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisad Posted March 19, 2008 Report Share Posted March 19, 2008 I have read that people have trained their system to improve voice recognition (I know you aren't supposed to have to train it, but apparently my Midwestern accent is too much for it). How do you go about training the system? I I don't have the nav system so I only have the two line display which might make the instructions different. My success rate is pretty bad right now. I love the concept and once I'm on the phone talking its great, but getting it to dial the right number is pretty bad right now. Thanks in advance. I guess I'm lucky - I've had no problems with my Canadian accent... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kckevin Posted March 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2008 Larry, What version of Sync are you using? My Fusion is running on 5.5.7226_sp0. Tried all sorts of combinations of profile under the voice settings and it will not recognize that command. I even asked the system for help and it never gave me any sort of option. Even using the buttons on the head unit I can't find it. I've looked at syncmyride.com and there are no updates for my car. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryQW Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 Larry,What version of Sync are you using? My Fusion is running on 5.5.7226_sp0. Tried all sorts of combinations of profile under the voice settings and it will not recognize that command. I even asked the system for help and it never gave me any sort of option. Even using the buttons on the head unit I can't find it. I've looked at syncmyride.com and there are no updates for my car. Thanks. I am also running SYNC version 5.5.7226_sp0. I even did the software check thing using my USB flash drive as requested by syncmyride.com's owner site. Do you have the Navigation system? It's been slowly dawning on me that the poor voice recognition I was getting was mostly in the main menu and Navigation. If you have the Nav system, the main menu is created by Ford, not Microsoft. You have to do one more level of commands to get into each mode. Namely, at the Main Menu, I have to say one of PHONE, NAVIGATION, AUDIO SYSTEM, USER DEVICE, DISPLAY, VOICE SETTINGS, HELP, and so on. Although some of the lower menus (like audio) are SYNC, I've heard this top menu is driven by Ford's Navigation system. Once I get into the USER DEVICE or AUDIO SYSTEM, the voice recognition accuracy goes way up. The main menu has difficulty in telling the difference between "PHONE" and just a few other very different commands like "USER DEVICE". It's always wasting my time requesting confirmation, with a success rate around 50% or less. However, once in the lower USER DEVICE/USB menu, the SYNC audio system can pretty much always get the right song out of thousands, like a 98% success rate. In any case, I'm realizing that the poor voice recognition is with Ford's new 'STYNC' voice system which they've made to wrap around Microsoft's much better SYNC system. You may not have the navigation system and thus not need to deal with Ford's software. And due to the excellent voice accuracy of SYNC, you may not need to train either, which is why Microsoft doesn't include it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mutnat Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 I guess I'm lucky - I've had no problems with my Canadian accent... What are you talking aboot, eh? That's just cuz Canadians rule. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingRanchMan Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 My Sable has version 5.5.7267_SP1. My wife is saying that the voice button isn't working on the car. It worked for me last night. Have to check it out when I get home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrkit Posted March 29, 2008 Report Share Posted March 29, 2008 Accuracy improved greatly when I trained my system and created a "Profile" for recognizing my voice. I have the Navigation LCD, but nevertheless did the entire training using voice commands. So it should be the same for you. But at each menu, listen for the options for commands that may be different from what I describe. You can also say Help at any time. At the Main Menu, say Voice Settings. Once you get into this mode you can say: * Interaction Mode [standard or Advanced] Advanced mode gives less prompts. * Profile [Create or Delete (Profile Name) or Profile Select (Profile Name) or Profile Select None] EXAMPLES: So you can get detailed voice help by saying "Voice Settings", pause for bing, "Interaction Mode Standard". You can create a voice profile by saying "Voice Settings", pause for bing, "Create Profile". When you create a voice recognition profile, you give it a name in your own voice, so it can easily find the profile later should your wife or another driver switch the profile away. You select that profile again by saying "Voice Settings", pause for bing, "Select Profile myname". So, if you do not have the NAV unit how does this work? I tried using the above instructions and there is no Profile option. In fact, the sync system does not even respond to that command under Voice Settings??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryQW Posted March 29, 2008 Report Share Posted March 29, 2008 So, if you do not have the NAV unit how does this work? I tried using the above instructions and there is no Profile option. In fact, the sync system does not even respond to that command under Voice Settings??? It appears systems without the NAV unit do not have the Voice Training. The Voice Training looks to be needed more for Ford's part of the voice recognition - which includes the main menu and navigation commands on NAV systems. And Ford's voice recognition is so bad that they very much need training on these main menus. Once I've navigated down to the Phone or SYNC part of the menu, the voice recognition quality gets extremely good. I suspect these are Microsoft voice recognition systems (the responding voice changes in these modes too). My feeling is that Microsoft doesn't include training like Ford simply because they don't really need it. I'm finding the success rate once I'm in phone or SYNC mode to be well over 95%, versus maybe 50% success with Ford's main menu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amnman Posted March 30, 2008 Report Share Posted March 30, 2008 I think the non-NAV units have dynamic voice training as it couldn't understand some of the commands I gave when I first got my car (08 Focus), but now I have no problem. Reason I say this is because my wife and I could make a command that it understood, but now Sync has a hard time understanding my wife. Wife doesn't use the car, but she likes to use Sync. Now she uses the buttons. Wish Sync could control the Audio system on non-NAV systems since it uses the same CAN bus for control. This Sync system is sure in the dark when it comes to technical info. I'm still studying the wiring and it looks like Sync could control the audio system (IE: Play Satellite Radio command). Maybe it will come with an update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryQW Posted March 30, 2008 Report Share Posted March 30, 2008 I think the non-NAV units have dynamic voice training as it couldn't understand some of the commands I gave when I first got my car (08 Focus), but now I have no problem. Reason I say this is because my wife and I could make a command that it understood, but now Sync has a hard time understanding my wife. Wife doesn't use the car, but she likes to use Sync. Now she uses the buttons. Wish Sync could control the Audio system on non-NAV systems since it uses the same CAN bus for control. This Sync system is sure in the dark when it comes to technical info. I'm still studying the wiring and it looks like Sync could control the audio system (IE: Play Satellite Radio command). Maybe it will come with an update. I didn't realize the non-Nav systems couldn't control the Satellite Radio or Audio System. On my Taurus X with Nav, after saying "Audio System" or "User Device" on the main menu, commands I can select with voice are AM/FM/SR/CD/USB/Bluetooth/rear DVD (as well as Phone, Navigation, Tutorial, Help, Display,... on the main menu). And once in each of these audio menus, I can also select bands such as "SR1" or actual channels such as "Tune 105" for Satellite Radio. SYNC understands all these commands with high accuracy once I'm off the main menu. If you can't tune the other AM/FM/SR audio channels other than USB or Bluetooth, it somewhat reduces the value of SYNC. I'm surprised to hear you can't do that on non-Nav systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enormus Posted March 30, 2008 Report Share Posted March 30, 2008 I didn't realize the non-Nav systems couldn't control the Satellite Radio or Audio System. On my Taurus X with Nav, after saying "Audio System" or "User Device" on the main menu, commands I can select with voice are AM/FM/SR/CD/USB/Bluetooth/rear DVD (as well as Phone, Navigation, Tutorial, Help, Display,... on the main menu). And once in each of these audio menus, I can also select bands such as "SR1" or actual channels such as "Tune 105" for Satellite Radio. SYNC understands all these commands with high accuracy once I'm off the main menu. If you can't tune the other AM/FM/SR audio channels other than USB or Bluetooth, it somewhat reduces the value of SYNC. I'm surprised to hear you can't do that on non-Nav systems. This is actually a little known fact that makes buying the Navigation system in many cars more compelling. This worked the same way in my TL. With NAV, you even had voice control of the HVAC system. Without it, only bluetooth. The brains are in the NAV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kardalene Posted June 19, 2008 Report Share Posted June 19, 2008 There are two voice activation systems on Navigation equipped vehicles. One with the Nav system and the other with Sync. The Sync VR software is much more advanced than the Nav system. Sync VR cannot be trained but the Nav system VR can be trained as it is not as capable as the Sync VR at recognizing various accents. The Nav system is voice activated but what Ford doesn't do a good job at is telling people that it actually controls the AM/FM, CD player and Sirius Satellite radio. You can tune stations and do all kinds of things. One thing you can't do though is try and call up a song on a CD. You can tell it to play a CD but you can't get it to play a particular song. Guess they'll have to tighten that one up at some point in the future. On another note, the new Flex looks awesome! It even comes with a 10 gig hard drive (it's actually 30 gig but 20 of it is filled up with the Navigation data). Of course, to get the 10 gig hard drive you need the Nav system. Still a pretty awesome looking crossover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fadeddream Posted June 9, 2009 Report Share Posted June 9, 2009 I just bought a 2010 Fusion SEL no Nav and SYNC controls my ipod/sirius/CD set great. If i want to play something on the iPod I'd press the voice button and say "USB", bing, "Play Artist [artist name]" or song name etc. As long as the files are tagged properly in iTunes I can use that information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCondor Posted June 9, 2009 Report Share Posted June 9, 2009 There is a lot of confusion in this thread about the Nav system vs. Sync. It is true that the two systems have two different voice recognition engines and that the Sync one is better. It is not true that the Nav is running "Ford software". That comes from another supplier. Sync does not have a separate menu option for training the VR engine, but the Nav system does. Sync is primarily a voice operated USB and Bluetooth system. It does not control the radio or the HVAC system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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