https://www.cartalk.com/cars-content/most-infotainment-systems-are-terrible
Quoting from article
Me, still looking at the road: “Hey, Mercedes.” “How can I help?” “Navigate to the nearest restroom. ASAP.” “There is a fuel station with public restrooms at the next exit. Would you like me to navigate there?” “Yes!” “Take exit 391, bearing right…”
That seems pretty handy. But most voice recognition systems have always been unreliable, so you ask where to buy an burger and they think you mean “goobers”. So instead of a hamburger, you end up a bag of peanuts. This is especially a problem in cars b/c of the background noise level. So have these reliability problems with voice recognition in cars been pretty much eliminated? Is the driver required to wear a headset containing a highly-directional microphone?
I think the infotainment system can be either good or bad. It really depends what you are using it for.
For me, I like to see the stats of say a hybrid system which gives me valuable information to my driving style or whether something is broken. Some of the info is in real time which again is valuable info.
The infotainment tablet is one of the reasons I buy cars ten or more years older.
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Agree 100%. Nothing irks me more than to have a rather large screen mostly blank with perhaps a big logo of the car manufacturer displayed. I have an older (now) Odyssey with a big screen. When the TPMS detects a low tire, it illuminates a warning icon but there is no way to get the information which or how many tires are low and what the current pressure reading is for each tire. Why not? The computer obviously has that information. The designers chose not to display it.
My four year older TB has a single line DIC that can display all kinds of helpful information about the current condition of the vehicle, including current pressure of each tire.
Certainly, not every owner needs, wants or can use these details but why not have a method to access all this great information for those that do? All the infrastructure is already there. It’s just software development at that point. And I am almost certain the developers already have a version that does just that for internal use during vehicle development.
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My Tesla infotainment system works for me. I like the huge screen. The left third provides driving information like speed, charge level, and traffic info to my side and front. The right two thirds is for radio options and a GPS map when moving. I like the map for traffic information nearby and I can modify my route if traffic on my usual routes is heavy. There’s no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto but I have access to my phone through Bluetooth which I use for my Sirius/XM app. I like the huge music options with the Tesla equivalent but I’m used to the talk shows on POTUS (XM) and listen to them during the afternoon. The cost is a lot less than XM.
The controls top level screen is quite busy but at least most options are only one or two levels down. There is also a search feature if you can’t find the controls you are looking for. I though that I would miss the gauge cluster in front of me but I don’t. With electric drive I only need speed and range info and not the rest of the gauge cluster.
Ditto for the Lexus system. I’m sure that I’m not using all of the features built into the system, but I am continually amazed at how well the voice recognition system works. Simply pressing the icon for Navigation, and then stating my desired destination always seems to bring-up the correct routing info for me.
As an experiment, today I tried using the voice command function to adjust the audio system’s volume and bass/mid-range/treble settings. It worked, but–of course–you have to have the volume turned down extremely low in order for the system to hear you, so that function seems to be a bit… less useful.
Seems like that is as effective as the “Cone of Silence”:
The product designers would probably be happy to designs the systems that way, but the corporate folks would worry that providing extra information would add complications to what they want in a simple customer/corporate relationship; i.e. ideally the customer writes the check, then drives the car away never to be seen again until they need a another car. With extra info available, the customer is going to be coming back asking what it all means, and if they don’t get the answer they want to hear, they’re going to be asking why.
Did you ever see the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode about the BMW dealer who provided licorice to their customers? Doesn’t end well … lol …