In honor of Cookie Monster’s birthday, Waze, the navigation program, is bringing back his voice. Now Cookie Monster can you tell you how to get, how to get to Sesame Street. Or wherever your destination may be. Be warned though, this is a limited-time feature. Earlier this year, in honor of Sesame Street, Waze had several voices from the iconic children’s show but Cookie was an overwhelming favorite. When he disappeared in August the backlash on social media was immediate.
Right now the voice option is only available in the United States, to the consternation of millions of worldwide Cookie Monster fans. Here is how to make Cookie your co-pilot:
To change the voice in your app first launch Waze and then tap the magnifying glass icon at the bottom left side of the page. From there, tap the Settings button at the top left and then select Voice and Sound from the menu. That will bring you to the Voice menu. Tap Waze Voice to see all your options. Select Cookie Monster and your commute or trip just got a lot better.
Waze has a history of temporarily adding interesting companions to get you from Point A to Point B. In the last few years the service has had limited-time featured voices such as Morgan Freeman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elvis Presley, Ed Helms, Jay Leno, and Neil Patrick Harris. Currently, along with Cookie Monster there is an option for a “Boy Band” voice pack as well.
Among Waze’s previously featured voice packs, some of the most popular that people are asking for a return of are Star Wars C3PO and Grand Tour hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May. The Waze Suggestion Box forum is chock full of suggestions from all over the world from people who want to hear other Muppets such as Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and Rowlf The Dog.
Waze is a GPS navigation software owned by Google that works with smartphones and tablets. Waze was originally developed by Israeli-owned Waze Mobile, Google acquired Waze in June of 2013 for $966 million. At the present time, Waze has 130 million subscribers.
