Text to Speech function questions

[Baltus]

Does anyone know if there is a good discription of the Text to Speech function somewhere? I would like to know how the function is activated. So I want the text to be spoken "After five kilometers fuel and coffee stop on left hand side, Total

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Baltus whatever you put in on the via points will spoken out loud. So you are in charge of the message

[Brian McG]

Hi @Baltus if you are using MRA for navigation & add text in the Note area of a route point, it should be read back to you

in the "Navigation Settings > Audio" you will also need to enable "Waypoint Notifications" for the announcements to function
how soon before or exactly how many metres prior to the point the announcement are made I am not sure

[Con Hennekens]

@Baltus. It is like this:

• VIA and SHAPING point announcements are only spoken if their respective settings are enabled in in the settings menu.
• Waypoint names are announced when they do not contain numerical numbers. When they do contain numerical numbers, an uninteresting address is assumed, and that will not be announced.
• If a waypoint contains a note (in addition to the name) the name AND the note will be pronounced, even if the the name contains numerical numbers.
• a VIA point will be announced aprox. 2000 mtrs in advance
• A SHAPING point will be announced 750 mtrs in advance
• If there is an extra waypoint within the 2000 or 750 mtrs, the announcement is delayed until you pass that waypoint.

[Brian McG]

@Con-Hennekens thanks for sharing the manual!!
Have not seen this documented anywhere, if it is can you please point me at it?

"Waypoint names are announced when they do not contain numerical numbers. When they do contain numerical numbers, an uninteresting address is assumed, and that will not be announced."

This probably explains why I sometimes get an announcement & other times don't & have been unable to figure out what the cause was.
IMO its a pretty daft idea to omit an announcement based on what it contains, even madder for this distinction to be numbers
If I name a point "Turn right motorway M3" & have announcements enabled then IMO I should hear that announcement, I should not have to add a Note to get this to function
The option in settings is Waypoint Notification > ALL, not SOME waypoint notifications based on the content & a notes!

Thanks for clearing up something that has been bamboozling me for ages

[Baltus]

Thank you very much to everyone who has responded to my question. I've been struggling for a long time because I can get text spoken, but the time is completely random for me.
I immediately included some things that came up from an earlier post, from September 2023, on this topic.
I have now written down what I have understood about this. I kindly ask you to respond if I have written any inaccuracies.

1. There is no written instruction on how to use Text to Speech.
2. It is possible to speech out text in response to SHAPING points and in response to Waypoints.
3. At both SHAPING points and Waypoints, text can be spoken that is entered in the renamed "Text" and/or text from the "Note" field. Normally, the Text field contains the address of the SHAPING point or Waypoint. Numbers and characters are used for this. Such texts are therefore never spoken. Except!!! if a "Note" has also been filled in
4. "Texts" may not contain numbers or punctuation marks if a "Note" is not also filled in!!
5. Digits / numbers must therefore be written out.
6. I also saw a comment that a number/numbers is allowed if it is in quotation marks?
7. To hear text, in the navigation app, under the heading Navigation settings > Audio > Waypoint notifications, the box "Via" or "All" must be checked.
8. The text in the "Text" box can be up to 101 characters long.
9. The text in the "Note" box can be up to 512 characters long.
10. The text of a SHAPING point is pronounced approximately 750 meters in front of the SHAPING point. With the note that there may not be any other SHAPING point or Waypoints in between. Otherwise, the text will be pronounced at the last point before it.
11. For Waypoints, the standard distance is about 2 kilometers before the Waypoint. Even with the restriction that there is no other point in between.
    If there are any inaccuracies, please comment. Then I adjust the text. And who knows, maybe it can help someone else on their way.

[Brian McG]

Hi @Baltus that is an impressive attempt at understanding when the text for a point will be spoken.
Unfortunately I cannot give you an accurate answer or correct any mistakes as even with @Con-Hennekens explanation of when the point should be spoken, I still do not understand when the text will be spoken.
I still find that for some points the WP name text never gets spoken.
At the waypoint I may get the announcement "reached WP 4" but no mention of the waypoint name even when it does not contain a number.
The only way I seem to be able to get point names to be announced is to always have a Note

[Con Hennekens]

@Brian-McG, I stand by my earlier explanation. I use this feature quite often and it never failed me. You may find it silly, but I dont think anyone wants all addresses being read aloud. Devs have chosen the way of the numerical numbers instead of introducing yet another switch to keep it backwards compatible with existing expert routes. In think it is smart. If you want numbers in the name being spoken, just write them out in non numerical characters.

[M. Schrijver]

@Con-Hennekens thanks for some clarification.
But some of the things you mentioned does not work for me.

I've set de announcement to "All". But all waypoints are announced even when there are numerical characters in the name ("you've reached your waypoint"). Very annoying.
Note are not always spoken. Even when the distances between two points are large enough. When the distances between is to small it won't announced EVER.
From time to time it stops announcing notes, viapoints and shaping points at all. Until i restart the app. Then it works again for a unkown time.
It is a nice feature and the main thing why i like MRA Next. But it is still to buggy.

I my opnion the distances are way too large. It is more logic the annoucement will be spoken close or on to the actual location of the waypoints. In this case 300- 400 meters is large enough. Maybe 200 meters will do also.
I've already made some routes were i struggled with the position of waypoints for announcement and waypoints to give the route a proper shape. Just because you need a pretty large distance between the waypoints.

[Con Hennekens]

@M-Schrijver said in Text to Speech function questions:

I my opnion the distances are way too large. It is more logic the annoucement will be spoken close or on to the actual location of the waypoints.

We have had this discussion before. The last thing you want is an announcement about something you already passed. Sometimes it may seem far ahead, but often you need some distance to look for a safe place to stop for deliberation with co-riders. "Do we want to lunch here or at the next occasion?". I am quite happy with how it works.

[Brian McG]

Hi @Con-Hennekens & thanks for your explanation about numbers/numerals in the point name being the reason for points not being announced

It is now much easier to understand the behaviour of the announcements now that I know about the secret sauce that controls when an announcement will occur.

I understand & appreciate that this works for you but I do have to disagree that this is good design or IMO (& it is only an opinion) the correct way for things to work.

The definition of "All" is "every one (of), or the complete amount(of) or the whole (of)" so for me this switch int the navigation > audio settings is very very misleading / confusing

What this is really saying is :-

@Con-Hennekens said in Text to Speech function questions:

I dont think anyone wants all addresses being read aloud.

Apologies but I strongly disagree with this, if I select "All" then what I want is notification for "ALL" the points, if I do not want "all addresses being read aloud" then I can select "Off" or "Via"

as for @Con-Hennekens said in Text to Speech function questions:

If you want numbers in the name being spoken, just write them out in non numeric characters.

To me this is a crazy idea.
In the UK when creating a point in MRA 99% of the points will automatically be named with a number included e.g. "42 Godstone Road, Lingfield, RH7 6BW, United Kingdom" or "B4494, Newbury, RG20 7, United Kingdom"

This means I have to edit every single point & remove all the numbers if I wish for a point to be announced
I don't believe having to always change road numbers like "B4494" to "B four four nine four"  every time a point is placed is a good user experience.
The same point named "B4494" in numerals would announce correctly on other devices or navigation systems so I would be editing the points solely for MRA.

Also when the points are displayed / scrolling across the MRA navigation, to me it is a lot easier to read B4494 than "B four four nine four"

I think the argument, this was the choice in the past is very weak, when a poor or confusing design choice has been made then I believe it should be fixed,

I hope it is understandable this is not a personal attack, "All"  I want is for MRA to be better

[Corjan Meijerink]

@Brian-McG What we discovered with initial testing was that reading out all waypoints was undesired. Therefore we came up with a simple, yet effective, way to filter out the adresses.

So a waypoint called "Church Lane 12, <postalcode>" is not read.
If you change it to "Church" it is read out.
When you still find the original "Church Lane 12 <postalcode>" relevant to be spoken, you probably added a not about this location. If a note is present, the waypoint will always be read to you (when the settings allows so).

[Con Hennekens]

@Brian-McG said in Text to Speech function questions:

To me this is a crazy idea.
In the UK when creating a point in MRA 99% of the points will automatically be named with a number included e.g. "42 Godstone Road, Lingfield, RH7 6BW, United Kingdom" or "B4494, Newbury, RG20 7, United Kingdom"

This is exactly why you don't want them being announced.

This means I have to edit every single point & remove all the numbers if I wish for a point to be announced

No you don't. Just put something in the note field. a "." suffices. But why on earth would you want all randomly placed addressed be announced? I only want them announced if it contains reasonable info.

I could see improvement with a toggle for each waypoint, defining if you want them announced or not. One that switches on automatically if you change the name or note, but is disabled by default. But then again, I am quite happy with how it works now.

[Brian McG]

Thanks @Con-Hennekens & @Corjan-Meijerink for your patience & polite explanations of how the waypoint announcement function actually works.
I think I now have a better understanding.

Unfortunately though my better understanding does not lead me to agree with the way the announcement function works.
I still think the "All" option in the user interface for point announcements is confusing because it does not do what it says.
A new user is not going to know the secret sauce that you have shared here & will think the function just does not work most of the time.

In the UK as I mentioned the address automatically generated for points will 99% of the time contain numbers. This means the very effective numeral filter that has been added to the announcements means that the waypoint notifications really functions more like :-

IMO the fact that a decision was made in the beta testing does not make or justify that choice as being correct, it just means the choice was made at that time, even if it was IMO a wrong / bad choice.
I believe the logic behind when an announcement is made needs to be re-looked at.

@Con-Hennekens sorry but if a user does not want to hear "All" the announcements they have the choice to select "Off" or if they prefer only a subset of points to be announced they can choose "Via"

I think the simplest least confusing solution would be to have the Waypoint Notifications function do exactly as they say,
"Off" means no waypoint announcements,
"Via" announces only the "Via" points
& "All" announces every waypoint

With the current 3 level option switch I dont believe "Notes" should be a factor for when waypoints are or are not announced, to me having notes control when a point is or is not announced just adds another level of hidden confusion / complexity.

If as @Con-Henneken says a user wants to only hear announcements for a personal subset of points then I think an additional announcement option for "Notes" is required.
You would then have
"Off" means no point announcements,
"Notes" announces only points with text in the notes field
"Via" announces the "Via" points + any point with text in the notes field
& "All" announces every waypoint + the text in the note field

My apologies for keeping going on about this issue, it is just I feel that the UI is incorrect & confusing, new users are constantly going to be asking why announcements do not work

& I really really really really do not want to be rewriting or reading road numbers like B4344 or D3 as B Four Three Four Four or D Three, to me that is just complete nonsense

[Con Hennekens]

@Brian-McG, sorry for the late reply, I have ben away for some days. To be honest, I think your suggestion would make things even more complicated. I agree however that the current method takes some knowledge about it in advance. I think there would be a more simple method possible. I'll post it in the suggestions category:

https://forum.myrouteapp.com/post/54260

[Peter Schiefer]

@Con-Hennekens And at all

Since I use MRA with verbal recognition I concern always the handling which MRA need.
Only one announcent at 2000 m for a Via is extrem early. I habe to mention again With a speed of 100 km/h in nearly all countries the maxium speed on Country roads you need 36 seconds more than a minute to reach the point. In some countries actually at most departments in France you can only drive 80 and if the course is curvy less. So for the 2000 m you have up to two minutes. This is to long for the brain which is working with the traffic without a repeat.

The 700 m is OK for shapingpoints.

But what here is mentioned Con, that with a SP for sample at 1 km before an VP you can delay the announcement of the VP is currently with Beta 335 not working.
Something is changed since 331. The anouncemts are actually very unreliable.
I don‘t no why, but is is a fact, which I consider a bit two weeks ago in France too. What was working before is in the actual version now a desaster. I did not find the rules behind, a bit amaze.

I am just looking for a new strategy using SP for important interim stops.
Anyway, the disciplines you need to follow to like what you want as verbal notification are too complicated.

An I can only repeat: Why is it not so simple like Garmin and ohter Apps handle SP and Viapoints.
SP are only for route adjustments, which you can ignore and for what you don’t need a verbal notice. Waypoints with Alarm, here at MRA Via Points with the „stop hand“ needs to be arrived, may as important adjustment for the route too or for a interim stop like the final stop with repeating verbal notice and may the info text and without restrictions regard digits in the title like you get the announcement at the final destination.

[Brian McG]

@Con-Hennekens
Hi @Con-Hennekens thanks for the reply & I hope you had a good time while away

I have seen the post in the Suggestions section & will reply to your post & ideas there

[Con Hennekens]

@Peter-Schiefer, I will leave any discussion to the suggestions thread.

[Peter Schiefer]

@Con-Hennekens
Con I have to repeat, the deliberate delay no longer works since 4.3,
The later announcement of the waypoint is completely cancelled, sometimes also the final confirmation waypoint x reached

[Con Hennekens]

@Peter-Schiefer, I am not saying you are wrong about that (at all) but you should not bring up the same thing in every unrelated topic. Just post a bug report (which I cannot imagine you didn't do that already).