Driver to Device: Hi, Take Me Home
Drivers will be able to give voice commands to their navigation devices, as the satellite navigation player Garmin has introduced nüvi 860, which is claimed to be the first portable navigation device with full menu speech recognition. It also comes with safety camera alerts and emergency location assistance to hands-free calling and photo navigation with Google Panoramio.

The nüvi 860's users would mount a push-to-talk wireless remote to their steering wheel, which is used to activate voice commands - no additional setup or "training" is required, the company says. Once activated, the user can manipulate controls by speaking the words that correspond to buttons on the touch screen display.

Clive Taylor, Garmin's director of Product said, "Garmin's nüvi 860 uses full menu speech control to make driving safer and easier. It's now possible to keep both hands on the wheel and tell the nüvi 860 what to do and where to go. Simple shortcut phrases like 'go home' will automatically take you straight to the map screen and route you to your home in a matter of seconds."

Also, with the speech control and a Bluetooth link to your phone the nüvi 860 promises to make calling safer, as it allows you to interact with your phone totally hands free.

A driver can even ask, "where am I?" and their device will display its exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations, fuel, and contact details of the breakdown recovery services. Speech recognition can also be used to search for addresses as well - all hands-free, from start to finish. Speech recognition is available for English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Dutch languages.

The nüvi 860's traffic receiver can display up to the minute traffic information to help with journey times and traffic avoidance and a new custom application allows a user to select areas and individual sections of roads to avoid, even to the point of storing avoidance routes such school runs during term times and temporary roadworks on minor roads. Along with the traffic avoidance, the nüvi 860 includes Cyclops safety camera alerts covering mobile and fixed camera locations with on a 30-day trial period.

The nüvi 860 has Bluetooth wireless technology for hands-free calling when paired with compatible phones. Using the unit's speech recognition capabilities, users can find and dial phone numbers (specifically supported phones can even access their history log of received, missed and dialled calls) or nüvi's points of interest database (hotels, restaurants, department stores and more). This new PND also has a built-in FM transmitter, allowing users to wirelessly transmit turn-by-turn directions and street names, MP3s, and audio books through their vehicle's stereo. The nüvi 860 also boasts front-firing stereo speakers and a removable lithium-ion battery.

To help drivers find their car in an unfamiliar spot or crowded parking lot, the unit automatically marks where it was last removed from the windshield mount. Users can save 10 routes, specify via points and preview simulated turns, and the unit automatically sorts multiple destinations to provide an efficient route for errands, deliveries or sales calls. It also displays speed limits for motorways and autobahns, and a trip log provides an electronic bread crumb trail of up to 10,000 points, which can be downloaded and viewed on Google Earth.

The nüvi 860 also includes entertainment and travel tools including a music player (MP3) with free 40 downloadable tracks from emusic.com, audio book player (subscription to Audible.com required), alarm clock, picture viewer, currency converters, among other tools. It has games pre-loaded to pass the time while waiting around in airports or just relaxing. The units also are installed with Garmin Lock, a theft-prevention system that disables the unit from performing any functions until the user types in a specific 4-digit PIN or takes the unit to a predetermined secure location.

It’s priced at £449.99.

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