Having owned my RL for 3 months now I am posting my current preferred method for operating the controls. I don't intend to show off (or bore anyone). Just thought this might be useful to others getting started and certainly welcome the input of more experienced users.

There are many ways to “skin the cat” using the controls of the RL. As much as I would love to say that using the Voice Control for everything is perfect, there is often a simpler way. Bear in mind that these are just my opinions as an everyday user but I think you will find these ideas may simplify your experience.

When you do want to use the Voice control, push the TALK button located on the left-side of the steering wheel, wait for the beep, say your command and wait for voice confirmation. If the confirmation is wrong, quickly push the BACK button to cancel. Then try again.

Climate control:
Just operate this manually for the most part. The controls are self explanatory, just set a temperature and “Auto” mode does the rest. Your passenger can select their own temperature by adjusting their own temperature control bar. When you are by yourself again, go back to full driver side control by pushing the DUAL button to turn off.

A couple things to note about Climate:
1. Defrost mode – this gets the car hot quickly so don’t leave on defrost too long. As soon as your windows are defrosted, switch back as soon as is convenient by pushing “Auto” again. The other button here (for Rear Window/Mirror Defrost) does not change your auto settings.
2. To get quicker cooling or heating when you get in the car, say “temperature max cold” or “temperature max hot”. Once you’re feeling comfy just say “temperature __ degrees” to select quickly back to your favorite temperature.

Radio:
Turn on the radio by saying “radio on”, pushing the POWER knob, or pushing the AUDIO display button. The buttons on the console control work just fine here too but the steering wheel control is so convenient, I highly recommend using it as your main input option. The MODE button selects between FM1, FM2, AM, CD, XM1, and XM2 categories and even remembers the last station or disc that you were listening too. The CHannel button selects between your presets.
To quickly pick a AM, FM, or XM station, simply use the TALK button and say, “Radio 7-80 AM”, “Radio 93 point 9 FM”, or “XM channel 23”. Remembering these exact formats seems to work best.
Push the DISC, AM/FM, or XM buttons to select between these choices. SEEK is used to find the next strong AM/FM signal. TUNE is used to tune in a specific AM/FM number. Use the preset buttons for preset stations or to select a particular CD. XM is similar but SEEK chooses between categories (Rock, Jazz, etc). Push the AUDIO display button to show your music choices on the navi screen. Once your music choice is displayed on the navi screen, you also can use the interface dial to select items by turning the wheel and pushing the knob. To put a new CD into the changer push LOAD and slip in the CD which will go in the first empty slot. To remove a CD, first select it then push the EJECT button.

Navigation:
OK, so you pushed the knob to get rid of the “lawyer screen” which says you shouldn’t operate the navigation while driving. But, if you use the voice controls properly, you should be able to operate the navi with barely a glance at the screen.

First, you need to know what information you have on-hand to decide which is the best way to go about choosing a route. If you have entered the destination in the Address Book or have had the route in your Previous Destinations you can quickly access this from the menu:

Otherwise, you can choose your destination by:
1. Address: If you know the exact address … easy! Say “Display Menu”, “Address”, pick a state if necessary, then say “City” – then say the name of the city, then say the street name, then say the number of the address (say each number individually). The navi then prompts you to “calculate the route” or you can view maps of the destination or routes if you choose.

A word of advice here; if you have trouble having the voice recognition understand you, you can always use the Interface Dial to key in the information, BUT once you change to spell mode you are stuck using the dial for the rest of the entries. So try to stay Voice if you want to move faster.

2. Intersection: If you don’t know the address, but know a nearby intersection … even easier! Say Display Menu”, “Intersection”, select a state if necessary, and then say the names of the two intersecting streets when prompted. Then “calculate the route”.

A tip here, also, for highways with numbers instead of names: Saying “Illinois 137” will usually work best and will be displayed as IL-137.

3. Places: If you know the place name or are looking for a category of place; this gets a little trickier as you need to choose between entering a phone number (works for most businesses in the Yellow Pages only), selecting a category, or spelling out the name directly.


Sorting your choice by City Vicinity or Distance to Travel may help limit the choices to sort though because what usually happens is you end up with a list of places to select from. When you see the place you want, say the number of the place item then choose calculate the route as before.

Note: If you need to say letters to enter a name, you might need to turn down the fan and radio to be heard clearly. If the navi system is having a hard time understanding your letters, you can switch to this “apple-boy-charlie” method to enter letters:


4. Map Input: This is probably a less-used navi method, but what you do is physically search the map with the use of the Interface Dial’s knob to point to a spot close to where you want to go. Then let the navi calculate the route there.

Driving to your destination:
As a final check you can View Destination to check that the map is where you intended to go. You can also select View Routes to be given a choice between the most direct, easiest, maximizing freeways, etc. I usually pick Direct Route and that works just fine 95 % of the time. Push the knob to choose between “Heading-Up” where it looks like your car is driving “up” the screen versus “North-Up” if you like to keep the screen looking like a map. The navi screen periodically shows a close view “pop up” of a maneuver you will perform (eg. making a turn or getting off a ramp). If you are close to a major city, you may even get real time traffic in the form of different colored streets depending on speed: Red for heavy traffic, yellow for moderate, and blue for freely flowing (over 52 mph). See the navi manual for help on this and adding Points-Of-Interest to your route.

Common voice commands:
There are something like 500 voice commands recognized by the RL which sounds like a daunting number especially since the words recognized are often quite specific. So I have listed the few here that I actually find useful. I recommend using the hard buttons to do much of the non-navi stuff.

Climate:
“Air Conditioner Off/On” – if you want to save on AC cooling, say, while driving with the sunroof open.
“Temperature Max hot/cold” – to tell the climate control to go to max.
“Temperature 68 degrees” - to rapidly select a specific temperature.

Radio:
“CD play disc one, track seven” - to go quickly to a certain song title.
“Radio 95 point 5 FM” or “Radio seven-eighty AM” – go directly to certain radio station.
“XM channel 23” - go directly to a particular XM station.

Navigation:
“Display Menu” - takes you to main navigation menu
“Display Map” - takes you to your current map location
“Display Current Location” – name or the street and city you are at.
“Display gas station, etc” – shows icons on the map of nearest whatever
“Hide gas station, etc.” – hides icons on the map
“Find nearest ATM, post office, hospital, parking garage, etc.” – information on these and other places will be displayed.
“Go Home” – asks you if you want to calculate a route home.
“How long (or far) to the destination?” – use when nav screen is occupied by radio data, etc. to give this famously oft-asked information

Thanks for reading!

 

Good guide. I printed this for my wife. Thanks.

 

Thanks catsailr, that is who (my spouse) I actually first wrote it for.