New Voice - Elfred

It sounds like an elf

Doesn't work on my 660.

This come off the Garmin website.

Let Elfred the Elf put you in the holiday spirit with his good humor and great directions. Download Elfred today and make your travels cheery and bright!

* Not compatible with the nüvi 300 series or nüvi 600 series.

I didn't find the Halloween voice until after Halloween so I'm glad I found this one before Christmas.

But, no text to speech

None of the freebie voices from Garmin have had text to speech.

Thanks, I haven't checked the Garmin site in a while.

Thanks for the information. Is it hard for Garmin to add TTS to the free voices?

The TTS voices included on Garmin GPS units use licensed TTS technology that the unit price pays for. If additional TTS voices were created and distributed, Garmin would likely have to charge for their use.

The quality would be nowhere near that of the non-TTS voices since those voices are actual recorded/sampled voices.

If your unit isn't able to use this voice, I wouldn't be too concerned. The novelty wore off for me quickly. I find the voice difficult to understand at times and it frankly became an irritant to me. I switched back to Jill.

I agree, i reied both voices, and I no longer Use them, or plan to use them, it was funny to surprise unsuspecting people, but just not practical at all. if they had normal voices, or celebrity, it might be worth while.

And to me its not worth giviing up TTS capabilities, if that was the case, i wasted money, and bought the wrong unit.

Without TTS capabilities..... It might as well not be a Garmin

creepy

Oh come on!! It's funny the first couple times you use it.

"Thinking Thinking"...."Snowball!!"...."They only let the smart elves make the Nuvis"...."It's nice to get away from the reindeer"...."You could fit a lot of presents in this car".....

No?

Yes, the first couple times it was funny but it got old fast and I changed back quickly. Oh well, I hope it didn't take too long to create that voice file.

Would be nice if they made one with Santa's voice. It wouldn't be as annoying as the elf's!

I'm going to remain faithful to Karen.

Someone up a Garmin has a thought for the grandchildren and for their customers in general.

When was the last time you spent so little on an article and kept getting features, such as the new vehicles and seasonal voices, added for free.

What a way to built up customer loyalty.

My grandaughters are divided between the candy cane sleigh and the reindeer leading the way for me....

I also agree that it is too much to hear all day and only set up ALF and the sleigh or reindeer to run when I have the girls in the car.

Great work Garmin...

ARE there TTS voices for sale somewhere? If they had a preview clip, I might be inclined to purchase a few new TTS voices!

I'm still looking for that redneck voice

...celebrity voices would be nice.

Karen is an Aussie celebrity living in the States:

http://www.thegpsgirl.com/Site/Welcome.html

http://www.karenjacobsen.com/karenjacobsen.html

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/5960

Who was looking for Redneck? Here is a site that you might want to go to to find many voices to amuse those in your vehicle.

http://pigtones.com/

You have to pay for them but some have said they didn't mind to do so.

I got the "Bubba"(clean version) & "Santa" and will report on these soon.

Oh yea! These are TTS by the way.

I like Jill, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jill

How cool... I didn't even know that there was anywhere you could buy additional voices.

Elfred frightens my children.

Update:

Testing Santa and it appears to not be TTS. But only tested it in simulated mode. More later!

Maybe that's why Santa is $4.97 compared to the others at $12.97!

None of the voices on Pigtones are TTS according to their site.