Vlingo lets you use your smartphone safely while driving

By Chris Dougherty
Certified RV Technician


It was a huge step forward in smartphone technology and safety when Apple came out with its new iPhone with Siri, the voice activated assistant. Fortunately, if you have another smartphone by Blackberry, Nokia, Android, a Windows phone or an older iPhone, you can have an almost identical service with Vlingo. And, if you own a Blackberry, Android, iPhone or Windows phone, it's FREE!. (Nokia phones cost $9.99)

Basically, Vlingo is a downloadable app that accepts your voice commands to do an infinite number of tasks, from running your phone to web searches, and dictating and reading back emails, text messages, etc. Besides being fun, it is a working app, and when you're on the road, it lets you text and email almost totally hands-free.

The Vlingo app communicates with its server every time it is used, so if you don't have unlimited data, you could be racking up charges pretty fast. When you set the app up it tells you how much data it uses, though so you can decide if its for you.

Considering that the app has to refer to its server, it is quite quick. The voice also reads back messages and emails, and is easy to understand, and has an adjustable volume. Vlingo understands common phrases and requests, but if it doesn't for some reason, it will refer it to Google for a web search. A simple question like "What is the temperature for Springfield, Massachusetts?" will work fine, and the result appears on your screen. If you have navigation built into your phone, just ask it to navigate to a particular place, and off you go. If you don't have a navigation app, it will use the web to get maps and directions.

One thing I noticed was that when I dictated a longer message, I needed to add punctuation, which is common with voice to text applications. That does work fine though, and is much easier for this fat-fingered Irishman than poking at the minuscule little keys on the keyboard.

Vlingo is designed to work with Bluetooth headsets, so using it can be private, or you can use your device's speaker as well. To find out more, see videos, or download the app, visit www.vlingo.com.