I’ve twigged this a bit late, but in September last year Garmin added voice commands for their GTN 6XX/7XX boxes:
http://static.garmin.com/pumac/190-01007-50_A.pdf
So, potentially, a typical Maule driver won’t have to set down his can of beer to load the tower frequency on an ILS approach.
Does it work? Do we have to talk to it in US English?
This thread on a previous US voice control product may be relevant. I believe it was limited to the GNS boxes and only before a certain software version, because Garmin blocked the method of injecting flight plans via the crossfill interface (by encrypting it). The company never really supported Europe (for bizzare reasons they needed the full Jeppview sub to work over here).
It has taken Garmin a long time to do this… would be interesting what the real costs are because the reason the other firm mandated a Jepp sub was only to get the waypoint names (to match against the voice entry, for similar matches) out of the Jeppview database!
It seems they don’t have a “squawk XXXX” command yet, but that would be nice for VFR in Britain. Just press the PTT and PTC switches together while reading back each new transponder code.
Edit: I don’t think there’s any cost involved, apart from wiring the Press To Command switch.
It looks like a great feature but I think that you need a GMA 350 audio panel or a GMA 35 audio box to use the feature plus of course a new button fitted to activate. Quite a clever bit of marketing by Garmin since many will want the feature if they have a 650 or 750 but may have to upgrade from the GMA 340 audio box first.
Is this really useful in your opinion ?
I try to avoid talking to machines as far as it is possible in life. I sure wouldn’t pay for it.
Ditto.
I think these voice control products are useful for e.g. setting the transponder when you read back a squawk. You would hold down the button which activates the voice entry when doing the readback and it should pick it out of that.
Similarly with radio frequencies, although you then don’t get the option of which radio to load.
Otherwise, what’s the point in using voice instead of fingers?
Voice entry of a flight plan is something else though! That could be made quite slick. However that may become obsolete as people start with the route on a phone or a tablet and transfer it to the panel mounted box via bluetooth – very quickly and with no errors.
I don’t see the point of this. It will be slower for flight plan entry and everything else is easier on the unit. I am all for technology helping us but this seems like a gimmick.
It is a gimmick I agree but don’t we all like those really! Seriously though I can see some benefit in turbulence when it can be difficult to select what you want. It saves getting distracted trying to select the right page or frequency when you are getting bounced around a bit. The rest of the time it is a gimmick but quite a cool one.
