Easy driving with voice commands

Your Nokia Lumia smartphone has the ability to listen to, understand and respond to your voice. The perfect way to make use of your voice is when driving, when your hands are otherwise busy dealing with the steering wheel and gearstick. Check out our five ways to use voice commands in your car.  

To activate the voice commands on your phone, there are two ways to do it. One is to press and hold the start button on the phone itself, which isn’t a good idea when you’re actually driving, so maybe wait until you’ve pulled over for that one. Alternatively, if you’re using a hands-free kit, press and hold the answer button for a couple of seconds until you hear the beep – then say one of the following commands:

“Open HERE Drive”

HERE Drive and your car are the perfect couple. When you’re on the road trying to figure out where you are, or wondering whether it’s a good idea to take the next exit off the motorway to avoid that queue of red tail lights you spot up ahead, HERE Drive might just see you in home time for tea.

The voice command will only launch the app, and you’ll need to plot any directions on the phone. However, being able to see the roads all planned out on your Nokia Lumia might allow you to make a judgment call before you get stuck.

“Open Nokia Music”

Long car journeys can be boring, just staring at the road for hours. Why not entertain yourself with some music?

Using this command will open Nokia Music and take you straight to the Mix Radio page where you’re just one tap away from listening to some fresh, new and undiscovered music.

You can use the controls on your headset to flick through the tracks, but the free version of Mix Radio only allows for five track changes. If you want unlimited track changes (plus more benefits) you can subscribe to Nokia Music+ for just €3.99/$3.99/£3.99 a month.

“Text/Call someone’s name”

Whether you’re constantly on the road for work, commuting, or simply driving around to pick up your mates, you’ll often find yourself needing to take, or make a call.

To send a text to someone, it’s quite simple. Press and hold the start button and say “Text Adam” or whoever’s name you want to text. You’ll then be asked to dictate the words and the phone will write it down, you then decide if you want to send it, or try again, or add more.

To call, you just say “Call Adam”. If the person has more than one number, you can specify the number. For example, “Call Adam, work.” – it’ll then call that number.

“Weather Flow, current location”

If you’ve been on the road all day and you finally reach your destination, you may like to know what the weather has in store for you and if you need to take the umbrella out the boot.

While most apps can be loaded through using just your voice, the Weather Flow app supports voice commands that are a little deeper.

By saying the command above, you’ll be telling Weather Flow that you want to know the weather for your exact location; and it will show it to you. With the current temperature, weather conditions, and also a daily or hourly forecast, you’ll know exactly what to expect.

“Open RAC”

We’ve all been there. Out in the middle of nowhere and our car breaks down. The RAC Traffic not only provides you with traffic information, but can also store your RAC membership details, as well as two buttons to dial if you need assistance.

One button is for members of the RAC, and the other is for non-members. Just hit the appropriate button and you’ll be put through to an operator.

For more apps that take advantage of the voice commands on your Nokia Lumia, head over to the Voice Command Apps collection on Windows Phone Store.

And, if you’re a developer interested in knowing how to incorporate voice into your apps, there’s a whole raft of information over at theNokia Developer website.

Are you using your voice to control your Nokia Lumia? Have you created any voice-controlled apps? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.