Waze Uses Celebrity Voices In Latest GPS Navigation Update

Bored with the same old GPS navigation voices? Wish your GPS had a little more “gravitas” or a sense of humor? Waze thought so.

The Israeli-founded social GPS service, recently acquired by Google, has partnered with Universal Pictures to create a celebrity voice navigation feature, with comedian Kevin Hart as the first celebrity “guide.”

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFCB9WUi7Zw’]

Hart’s comic directions may come as a breath of fresh air to Waze’s some 50 million users, as his GPS navigation voice pokes fun at the way Waze’s current guides narrate your way.

Hart was chosen as part of a promotional campaign for his upcoming movie Ride Along, which opens this January. “His signature voice and humor made him the perfect celebrity voice guide for Waze,” Doug Neil, executive vice president of digital marketing at Universal Pictures, said in a statement.

Much like the app itself, the new turn-by-turn navigation narrated by Hart is free of charge, and is included in the app’s latest update. To have Hart as your guide, update the app, go to Settings, Sound, and select “English – Ride Along” as your voice language.

Waze was founded in Israel in 2007 and was revolutionary using social crowdsourced information to aggregate information about traffic and road hazards. Last June, Waze was acquired by Google for a reported $966 million.

Photo: YouTube

The app is free for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.