- Waze announced a new conversational reporting feature last year
- Now it is reaching many more users, although not everyone likes it
- The feature allows you to report incidents on the road using just your voice.
A year ago, Waze announced a new conversational reporting feature powered by Gemini that would allow you to report events and incidents with your voice, and it appears to be rolling out to most users now, although not everyone is happy with it.
The idea is that you can share details about road closures, accidents and other information with your fellow drivers simply by talking to your car’s dashboard. It’s easier than trying to touch buttons on a screen
“All you need to do is tap the report button and speak naturally, as if you were chatting with a friend,” explains the Waze team. “Waze will understand what you’re saying and quickly add a real-time report to the map.”
The AI and Gemini part of the process is to recognize the hazard you are describing, even if you are not using a pre-established set of words or exactly the right language, and assign it to the relevant event category without you having to do anything else.
thanks but no thanks
waze from r/waze/comments/1nti4gr/so_is_it_just_going_to_ask_me_this_every_5_seconds
The feature has been beta-tested with a limited number of users over the past 12 months, but as 9to5Google and Android Headlines have spotted, it appears to be reaching many more users now (although there have been no new announcements from Waze).
Early reactions have been mixed, to say the least, according to the Waze subreddit. There are several complaints about an annoying pop-up asking to activate the feature and users are unhappy with interruptions to their music or podcasts.
Even when enabled, it appears that Conversational Reporting does not always work as advertised and does not always correctly identify the incident being reported. Some users suggest that it might be necessary to restart the app for everything to work properly.
As it’s early days for the feature (despite the year of beta testing), hopefully these initial bugs and issues will be fixed in the coming days. In theory, it should mean a more secure and convenient user experience, once it’s fully up and running.
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