I have upgraded everything and have NOT lost VR at all! Truth about VR

I now believe TomTom for SURE when they say that the reason they don't want VR on the North American 720's is because of space limitations. To many people this seemed like BS, but it's NOT! It's true!

When I receievd the 720 in the mail yesterday, out of the box VR was working and I had Map 710 with App 7.22

I backed everything up to my computer, then I MOVED everything to my SD card and left the internal memory COMPLETELY BLANK/EMPTY.

I then started to update the 720 in every way possible. Through every newer version of NavCore I still had VR enabled and working. Once I hit NavCore 8, VR still working.

Today I upgraded to map 810 though Latest Map Guarantee, and Voice Recognition is STILL working perfectly fine. I have NOT had to mod ANYTHING.

I was watching during the installation of map 810 and was watching closely at what files were being copied over. I noticed that even the speech files were being copied over to the 720 as well.

So those of you that have to "HACK" the device and didn't get VR with 810 is because you most likely didn't have enough space. As many people say, you end up to having delete files (free up space) to get the VR files to fit, and many of you only end up copying the speech file for your state only as they all won't fit.

Remember, I have EVERYTHING on the 4 GB SDHC card which leaves me with plenty of room. As a test I decided to DELETE EVERYTHING off of my SDHC card, AND made sure the internal memory was empty. I opened Home, selected "memory card" as my device, then TomTom Home started downloading off the navcores in series. I kept repeating the process till I was up to NavCore 8. Once it was done, I had no map at all installed, so through Home, I went to "add maps" and then proceeded to install map 810.

Once installation was done, I booted up the TomTom 720 for the first time with everything freshly installed, and guess what! VR is working and is enabled. This proves that VR is only hurt because of space limitations.

You all usually only move the map to the SD card and probably upgraded to map 810 while the original first map was residing on internal memory, where it didn't have enough space.

During this whole process I did NOT have to create ANY asr dat files or copy ANY speech files AT ALL! VR was working and enabled the entire time because Home saw that I had plenty of space for everything.

It's not that TomTom doesn't want us to have VR so we can purchase a 9 series model, it's just that the 720 never had the room for it. Because of this many people have trouble and TomTom gets flooded with calls because of VR having trouble or the device becoming instantly full. The easiest solution to these problems is to disable VR all together and leave some free space for future map upgrades.

If I am wrong, let me know. If I "am" wrong, tell me why. If you say my theory is wrong then I just must be very lucky and VR loves me.

Edit: If at first VR appears "greyed out" it's because you have to select a "state"

I too just got my 720 and upgraded to v8 maps and firmware and have VR...

The x40 models which were officially announced for release in Great Britain today and which NEVER may make it to North America promises, among other things, enhanced VR functionality starting with 'Navigate to..."

See this from the press release:

Voice command and control
With safety in mind, the TomTom GO LIVE series features voice command and control in addition to existing safety options. For the first time, users can plan a route or make a phone call just by using their voice. Around 140 tasks can be activated by voice, so drivers can keep their eyes focused on the road ahead.

Yea I read about the x40's doing that which I wish would be the same for the x20 models..

I was messng around with VR some more and where you input your house number I was trying out different combinations to see if they worked, and they did. The device asks you to say the number "digit by digit" but it doesn't have to be that way.

To enter in 10810, I can say it in these different ways

one zero eight one zero
one oh eight one oh
one oh eight ten
ten thousand eight hundred and ten

There might be other combinations that might work too. I also don't have to speak slow at all. I can just say it at my normal talking speed. Surprisingly I can even say it pretty fast and it picks it up just fine. I tried it with my Dad who has a spanish accent and it was a bit of a pain lol. I asked him to say "Tampa" and so he did, the the device keeps thinking he says "Zanga"

I'm glad it's able to understand me just fine.

I wish VR could be used to control most or all of the device which would really make the feature worthwhile. Having it control your entire device while driving is crucial. Having VR there to only enter in an address, to me, is more of a "show off" type thing to your friends since it still requires alot of touch screen interaction.

Which is why I say the novelty of having VR usually wears off fast.

Mind you, I DID use it for the city of "Niagara-on-the lake"

I had the same out-of-the-box VR experience on this 720 refurb. (Except I left the NA maps on Root & just deleted most of the computer voices for space, before upgrading everything.)

I was all ready to add the hack, but the config & VR files were already present.


For me it's useful because most of my deliveries are within the same state. It's just when I have to cross the line, that I default to finger pressing. IIRC, VR defaults to your current State, whereas the manual method presents your previous State entry.

I just finished messing around with the bluetooth hands free feature which works pretty damn good! My old sidekick 2 isn't bluetooth but my uncle's blackberry is, so I was using this through a blackberry. I didn't know you could almost litterally use the tomtom as a phone. I was like "It would be cool if you could use the tomtom to dial" and then I saw the "mobile phone" menu option where it DOES allow you dial any number you want.

I know many of you already know this but I'm like a kid with a new toy right now with this thing.

I also just finished watching "Austin Powers - Gold Member" on the 720 using TomPlayer. Absolutely no choppyness and plays smooth as heck.

I love this thing! jvnkjgjlkgfj!!!

I saw that someone released a web browser for TomToms but I wonder if its any good.

The FM transmitter works pretty good too

Any other neat tricks this device has?

I've read it works very well installed in a car and used as a GPS device




j/k....sounds like your having a blast with the new toy

LOL! I seriously forget this thing is a GPS. I have yet to use it in the car except for when I was testing out the FM transmitter, and that was in my driveway

Does this 720 have a different satellite receiver chipset than the ONE XL? There is a very clear difference between these 2 devices that I've noticed. The ONE XL was able to maintain a longer reception time but would take longer to get a fix. The 720 quickly looses connection but quickly regains it just as fast. Inside my house my ONE XL never had a problem. Do I make sense? sometimes I can't put my thoughts into words hehe It's almost as if the refresh beacon of the receiver is much faster on the 720.

AFAIK, the 720 uses the SirfStar while the XL uses the Hammerhead. Many prefer the Hammerhead over the SirfStar but neither could be considered mediocre receivers.