Too lazy to lift your arm to control your sat-nav? Worried about taking your eyes off the road to input a destination? Well TomTom has you covered with the Via 130 and Via 135 — sat navs that feature advanced voice control inspired by Siri.
According to TomTom, the Via 130 and 135 can recognise over 1,000 commands and their synonyms, so drivers can talk “naturally” and input addresses with ease. The sat navs can accept such simple commands as “where is the nearest hotel?” or “take me home” before planning your route accordingly.
This should make them a damn sight less frustrating to use than previous voice-controlled sat-navs such as the TomTom Go Live 1000, which required the user to speak slowly and unnaturally — like a Brit in a foreign country.
Both the Via 130 and 135 will feature hands-free calling via Bluetooth, so drivers can make and answer phone calls safely while driving. They’ll also boast advanced lane guidance, IQ Routes that help you avoid traffic and a foldaway mount integrated into the device.
The Via 130 and 135 will benefit from a lifetime of free daily map updates. Unlike most sat navs, which hardly ever get updated and contain out of date maps before they’ve even left the shelves, Via models will accept updates from TomTom’s Map Share community of 21 million users. Every member of the community can make simple corrections to maps where needed and can share them with others via the TomTom Home bundled software.
The TomTom Via 130 features a 4.3-inch display and is priced at £129 with the UK/Republic of Ireland map set or £149 with European maps. The Via 135 boasts a larger 5-inch display and will set you back £149 and £169 for UK/ROI and European maps respectively.
Both are available to buy now.
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