I can't stand the new, gruff Kate who can't pronounce Ts on some words. Why change from the pleasant, female Kate who spoke 'proper' English? Absolutely awful and I'll be trying Google Maps from now on

Sadly, it's clear that for whatever reason Waze chose to replace Kate (UK) with a rather unpleasant alternative, and however unhappy Waze users are about it, nothing is going to happen. I'm off to try out Apple Maps.

I have been using the new "Kate" for a couple of months or more and honestly, it really is poor. Poor pronunciation (it directed me to "Luffton" the other day - Loughton is pronounced "Lau-ton") and poor diction with attendant glottal stops - "Go Strai'on". Please bring back the old, English, female Kate. For those who like glottal stops etc., keep this new voice by all means, but please give us one just speaking plain English, and with a female tone as opposed to something so very androgynous.

Fully agree. The UK Kate voice is really unpleasant and at times not clear.
If you must insist to offer this voice could you also bring back the old one as a separate option?
I would also like to understand why the voice was changed in the first place, is there some information about the reasons, please?

The new Kate UK voice sounds like she's barking orders in a prison for wayward and disobedient badgers. Pease restore the delightfully relaxing old Kate so that my drive to work is peaceful. There was nothing wrong with the previous Kate, she was very easy to understand.

The new English (UK) (Kate) voice sounds like she’s been given a pair of *********. If I wanted a male sounding voice I can choose Thomas. Why butch up a user friendly female navigation voice?
There seems to be widespread dissatisfaction with the change, so until Waze/Google decide to listen to their users, I’ll use Apple Maps. It might lack some of the functionality of Waze, but their female voice makes for a far better journey experience.

I agree. The new UK Kate voice is terrible. She does not pronounce words correctly and misses the end off of words, like she is speaking in slang. It is awful. Please re-instate the old voices. The new ones are grating and difficult to drive with. PLEASE LISTEN!!!

The most recent versions of UK Kate and Thomas are abrupt, low pitch, really hard to be heard. I am very anxious whenever I need to navigate to new places. Regrettably I will need to switch to Google maps for navigation if Waze doesn’t make any changes.

Please can you restore the old gentler Kate voice? The new voice is jarring and not natural. You can keep it as another name maybe. Also, the other other U.K. voices don’t have street names. Please add those. Thank you

Please reinstate the voice of English UK Kate. If you want to introduce a new voice then that's fine, but give it a new name so users can decide which they prefer. Simply replacing a voice with the same name is unacceptable.

Bring back the old Kate... The mispronunciations are god awful. Please fix ASAP.

New Kate voice has an irritating accent. Please can we have the old Kate (UK) back

New English Kate voice is awful - unnatural low tone, stroppy delivery and loaded with MISPRONUNCIATIONS. Bring back the previous Kate version which was perfect. Why change things that don't need fixing?

The new UK voice Kate is simply awful. Her pronunciation is bad and she seems to be unable to say “straight” instead she says “Stray”.
Please restore the old voice, it was so much easier to listen to.

Or at least sort out the poor place name pronunciation. Aldermaston was incomprehensible when I drove near by 🤬. Then dropping the “t” on straight on is a deal breaker. At least the Thomas pronounces straight correctly.

Please reinstate Kate(UK)! The replacement voice is blunt and agressive

I concur. These new voices (especially the English Kate (UK) voice) are grating. The original Kate was the only voice to begin with that didn't make my skin crawl every time it spoke, among those that spoke my language, and could pronounce street names. These new ones make me want to drive at high speed into oncoming traffic. Either roll them back or add them as legacy voices. I don't know why you changed them to begin with. Who would have complained about Kate's lovely voice anyway? At this point, I have to take a klonopin just to use the voice directions. Sadly, it really feels like Waze doesn't care. Doesn't Google own them now? I suppose this could just be a plan to drive everyone back to Google maps. I started using Waze because it was so much better than Google maps, but perhaps it is time to reevaluate that.

Please tell me that the nice Kate voice hasn’t been replaced with this new terrible one that is not pleasant to listen to, has awful pronunciation of certain directions and is a far cry from the lovely original Kate’s voice.

This one’s pronunciation of certain directions, such as “go straight on” sounds like a stroppy person who can’t really be bothered to speak and therefore barks a command that is both uncaring and unpleasant.

Please bring back the original Kate. Her voice was consistent. This one jumps all over the place; unnecessarily authoritative, belligerent, not bad sometimes but mostly simply awful to listen to as a whole.

Look forward to hearing some positive news. This current version puts your otherwise excellent app in the same pot as other car navigation systems which are rubbish by comparison.

Stand out from the crowd again like you did before. Continue down this route and you’ll lose people to “other” systems. And that would be a shame for you and us.

After complaining about the split personality of Kate (UK) I am told by Waze support that now Kate has been replaced by the young upstart this is the new voice of Kate. Is Kate short for Bob? (see Blackadder UK comedy for the joke reference), since new Kate is clearly a young posh male voice. I can tell you it’s much worse that real Kate since it does not know how to pronounce street names correctly. Please bring back the original Kate who I have been using forever, probably at least 10 years. By all means keep your new male voice but at least give it a different name so it can be avoided.

As confirmed by a customer support member, it seems like a few voices for directions and alerts have changed.
I've been having what I thought was a issue with Kate UK voice changing however this seems to be a new thing. I must say I found the old Kate a lot more easier to use and a lot more "joyful".
So maybe we could have some sort of legacy mode that brings back the old voices? As for some people this change is quite big after getting used to the original for so long.