Your Garmin or TomTom navigation device will help you get on your way with an efficient and professional tone in your language of choice. However, you don’t have to settle for the ordinary. Why not have a little fun and spruce up your browser with a more interesting voice? Perhaps instead of the very proper voices that come standard with your device, you’d prefer a silly squirrel, or maybe you’d like Han Solo or Darth Vader to guide you.
It’s easy to download a new personality for Garmin or TomTom from their respective websites. Imagine a Yeti giving directions, or perhaps the mysterious Dr. Nightmare gathering his magic book to find the best route! Garmin offers several free voices like these. For a nominal fee, you can also download SpongeBob SquarePants or Dora the Explorer. (What a surprise for the kids!)
Before you begin, you can download the Garmin Communicator plug-in. This is a free program that allows your computer to communicate with your Garmin GPS. If you don’t want to use this program, you can download the voice to your computer, then open and extract it. Find the voice on your Garmin unit. Either way, your Garmin GPS device must be connected to your computer through a USB port.
Once the download is complete and you have disconnected your GPS navigator from your computer, you can change the voice on your unit. Just go to tools, then voice settings. With the list of voices on the Garmin screen, scroll down to find the one you want, and then click OK. It is easy!
If you want to put in a bit of your own personality, you can also download Garmin Voice Studio. This is a free program that guides you through recording your own voice for truly customizable satellite navigation instructions. You could even have a record of a friend or loved one for yourself!
If you have a TomTom GPS, you will need to visit the official TomTom site and install the TomTom Home software on your computer. With your TomTom sat nav connected via USB, you can start downloading directly to your gps sat nav.
On this site, TomTom had quite a few voices to choose from, including many celebrity voices. (There is a small charge for those selected, however.) Your trip will never be boring with Billy Connolly, John Cleese, or Snoop Dogg directing you!
