The voice recently changed from the classic Google Assistant voice to one I presume is associated with the Gemini crap I’ve been doing my utmost to avoid. If I’m right, and this voice is associated with Gemini, then Google is doing themselves no favors with this switch because the voice sounds like a snotty bitch & I can’t stand it. I’ve switched to another English-speaking voice (I alternate between UK & Australian), but - here in America, at least - the American voice is the only one that gives detailed instructions like what lane to be in.
Is there any way to change this crappy voice back? Preferably without changing the voice for every fracking device in my household, which is the only instruction I can find on Google?
TIA.
EDIT: just so happened that someone asked for a “Revanced” version of Maps over on lemmy.ml (unfortunately, since I try to avoid tankies raising my BP). I know what Revanced is, but not sure what they were looking for.
Anyway, one commenter mentioned the project Vela Maps, which grabs the useful stuff from Google while minimizing your data exposure (unless you choose to use the live traffic updates, which can’t avoid telling Google where you are - but that’s it. I figure Google knows that anyway, and since most of my traveling is for work it just serves to polute their data on me anyway). It’s got some minor issues, but a lot of good features as well - including extensive voice options. Yay!
I look at the icon for the next instruction to determine if it’s an actual turn and mute it if not, glancing over occasionally to check for a change to something that matters. When that happens, I unmute it because I’m afraid of getting into whatever I’m listening to just long enough to miss an important instruction. The lane guidance is extremely helpful when traffic is too heavy to be taking my eyes off the road to parse the screen.
I do wish they’d let you control which types of messages actually get spoken. The crap reports for Internet points about “construction ahead” when you’ve already been driving through it for a couple miles are really annoying. I also *ahem* object to the “object on road ahead” reports that don’t give you any clue where or which lane they’re in. And let’s not even start on how useless it is to report police ahead when they’ve got their lights on announcing their presence already - do people think the cops are going to drop dealing with the person they pulled over already to chase someone else?