Make voice prompts more audible / louder during navigation

[GuentherGredy]

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Voice prompts during navigation

Dear Osmand developers, I've now done a few bike rides and used Osmand for the navigation; to do this, I mounted the cell phone on the handlebars of the bicycle. There is the possibility of configuring voice announcements during maneuvers (e.g. turning). However, if you drive faster than 10-15 km/h, this announcement is difficult to understand even with the volume set high because of the airflow; one only understands fragments of a sentence, hardly the whole sentence. I configured Osmand using the widgets to show all relevant data; one look at the device and I know where it is going.

A short acoustic signal would therefore be sufficient to signal the user that he should look at the device. What do you think of offering a high-frequency signal, such as a beep-beep, in addition to the voice announcement? So you could alternatively choose between a voice announcement and this beep-beep. A great feature in my opinion. As a side effect it would also save battery power. Thank you very much for your attention. Best regards Guenther

Describe alternatives you've considered

[mikehgentry]

If you look in Navigation -> Settings -> Voice prompts (settings) -> Language -> Recorded

You'll find exactly that!

We hammered it out in #10501 so if you have feedback probably post it there.

Cheers!

[GuentherGredy]

Good morning, thank you for this hint!
Let me give you a constructive feedback. The headline "Language" is a bit misleading with respect to what one is looking for. The following selection "TTS" and "Recorded" does not improve this. Getting "Beeps" is something completely different to a voice prompt. Perhaps another entry on menu level "Voice prompts", e.g. "Signal prompts", would improve intuition.
But anyway there is already an implementation which solves my problem, and now I know how to deal with.
Thanks again and best regards Guenther

[mikehgentry]

I think you raise a valid point. Maybe "Voice prompts" could be changed to "Audio prompts", and "Language" could arguably also be changed to "Type / Language" (since that better reflects the choice between TTS and recorded voice anyway).

It also wouldn't do any harm in my opinion mentioning the beep options in the documentation...

https://osmand.net/docs/user/navigation/guidance/voice-navigation/

I suppose I'll try to write a PR for the documentation if I can figure out how to do that

[GuentherGredy]

If you change "Voice prompts" to "Audio prompts" then you could add and entry "Beeps" or something like that above "Type / Language". Both then get a switch control to enable / disable it (mutually excluded).
What is actually set could be shown in smaller letters beneath the entry. This kind of UI would ideally fit to many of that kind in the application.
Please, as an idea, refer to attached picture quickly drawn in MS Visio.
Thanks for you attention.
BR Guenther

[sonora]

I tend to agree that the user experience could likely benefit from restructuring the menu hierarchy.

Today the user finds Navigation settings > Voice prompts > TTS/Recorded > Language

The beeps are not easiliy found. And also I have a feeling too many users still select "Recorded" over the preferable TTS, perhaps because TTS simply sounds unfamiliar. So if restructuring plus recording somehow mitigates these two issues, it may be worth it. Having said that, I believe that the vast majority of users should simply get (perhaps preconfigured) their device's system language as arTTS, so that option should not be buried deep in the hierarchy.

Perhaps something like Navigation settings > Audio guidance > languages (which would mean TTS), and there we would offer Beeps and (fallback) Recorded voices under "further options"?

[GuentherGredy]

Thank you for your message. Yes, I also stumbled across the abbreviation TTS and had to google it first :=); maybe this comes from the IT industry and is not familiar to everyone. Otherwise, I like your suggestion not to make the menu too deep and to restructure it the way you suggested. I look forward to the update here. Many thanks and best regards Guenther