Let your own voice tell you where to go with the Garmin GPS voice studio

Do you often get bored of the voice in your GPS unit? I'll usually switch between the British male and female voices once a week, just to keep things interesting. If none of the standard voices interest you, how about recording your own? The new Garmin Voice Studio was announced at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, and is now available to download.

It'll work on almost any recent Garmin unit, including most nüvi series devices. Recording your own commands is pretty simple - you download and install the program, then record the 68 voice commands using a microphone. I tried it with the built in microphone in my laptop, and the results were not too bad. Once recorded, you connect your GPS device and click the "send to GPS" button. Then, you simply change the voice setting to your newly recorded version.

Of course, nothing is stopping you from asking someone with a sexier voice to do the recording for you, or you could even recruit your kids to make your GPS unit a little more human.

The program is free of charge, and is available directly from Garmin.com. It is currently Windows only, and any device with text-to-speech will still use a Garmin voice to speak the street names.

Filed under: Gadling Gear Review