Infotainment Review: Land Rover InControl connected features

In-car connectivity is always a tough sell in the Australian market, because supporting connected services for a relatively small number of vehicles across a wide landscape with telecommunications challenges can be a financial and technical hurdle to overcome.

But now new Land Rover owners may be happy to know that – for a price – Jaguar Land Rover is forging ahead with a range of connected services locally despite the significant barriers. We had a chance to get some time with the latest connected features rolling out of the JLR stables.

Remain in control
InControl is an umbrella term that covers infotainment, driver assistance and connectivity features and arrives in two flavours -- the basic InControl Touch system and the more feature-rich and connected InControl Touch Pro.

InControl Touch Pro features a 10-inch screen as opposed to the standard 8.0-inch screen on the Touch system. Pro is also a screen more suited to expectations of a modern day user with multi-touch, pinch and zoom style functionality compared to swipe-only on the smaller Touch screen.

Much of the features of this system were covered in our review of the Jaguar F-PACE infotainment set up.

However, at the time of the review JLR was only just poised to introduce connected features Down Under, but now the options have arrived.

The first option is the InControl Protect ($850) system featuring a SOS and road-side assistance button sitting either side of the front interior light cluster, nestled behind flip covers to avoid accidental pressing.

If you push the road-side assistance button that creates a voice and data link to a service provider, which in Australia is the existing JLR road-side assistance centre.

The road-side assistance centre has been through a furious update to its computer systems in order to accommodate the data feed. The most obvious initial benefit of this is that locational data is immediately available to the service representative.

It ends the conversational aspect of trying to locate the vehicle, increasing accuracy by pinpointing the position.

Other data transferred is rather light-on at the moment. The call-centre will receive only basic diagnostics beyond the vehicle’s location.

The intention, however, is to flesh out the diagnostical data dump in the future, which may mean enough is known of the issue that will allow the call-centre staff to help the driver get on their way quickly.

In control of an emergency
There are two emergency modes: manual and automatic. The system is in automatic mode by default. If you happen to be in an accident, perhaps where the airbag is deployed or a roll-over is detected, then the InControl Protect automatic emergency system will connect to a separate call-centre service specialising in critical situations.

This service will triage the situation, and if need be ring the emergency services. For example, the operator will attempt to speak to the occupants, however they may be incapacitated, in which case the emergency services will be contacted.

On manual mode, if the InControl Protect emergency button is pushed, say if somebody in the car is having a medical emergency, then the great thing is that the location of the vehicle, the colour, the number plate and the vehicle’s make/model are all available to the operator and subsequently to the emergency services.

All of the data and connected services essentially come from a factory-fitted (it cannot be added later) ‘black-box’ holding a SIM card. This box is deep within the vehicle, making it pretty much impossible to get to and be tampered with.

Data is transmitted across the 3G network currently, but will move to the 4G mobile network soon. Being on 3G is not a large issue as we are not talking about large data packets being transmitted. The SIM card itself is a global-roaming system not tied into a particular Australian telco.

This has proven to be a good move during the JLR coverage testing, as we are all aware of the issues of connectivity when tied into a single carrier’s network. This probably means that if you did break down in a remote location, the car will have a better chance of connecting to a network signal than your phones may.

Speaking about phones
On the smart-device app front there are two types: basic and premium. The basic version allows you to view car information only: location, fuel levels and whether or not the vehicle is locked for example.

However, when you option the premium version of the remote app you will get access to a wider functionality set.

Slightly controversially, one of the options is to remote start the engine in order to activate the climate-control functionality. JLR’s legal team was engaged when this feature was proposed, and the company feels the system installed is a safe to implement.

The idea is to allow the remote activation and pre-conditioning of the car, perhaps on an extreme day of weather. With the premium version, the car can be remotely locked and unlocked if need be too.

The car can also be located -- with unlimited range -- in case you completely forgot where you left your Range Rover Sport.

Your journeys can be recorded and stored if you opt into the service. This will be particularly useful for those needing to maintain a log-book.

However, it is this feature, along with the ability to track a car and to remote start the vehicle that raises the question of security. Just how many people can download and use this app for a particular car?

Well the answer at the moment is anybody. If the owner gives out the credentials linked to a particular vehicle, then the full suite of features will be available from that person’s smart device.

Actual journey data itself, however, will be stored on a server that only the owner can access.

At the moment, this application is not aimed at fleet managers, but the potential is there and JLR developers are aware and working on features for fleet control in a future iteration of the app.

For added security
Another optional feature is called InControl Secure ($1300). This does not require any additional hardware in the vehicle but instead awakens AI in the ‘black-box’ that can sense the car has been stolen.

For example, if the car is in motion, but it is not switched on, perhaps it’s being loaded onto a flat-bed truck. Or the system can detect a forced break-in or a more sophisticated jamming of connected signals in order to disable other security systems.

If these kinds of scenarios occur, the car will contact a tracking service. Again, this ability to track a vehicle could raise some eyebrows of the security minded. JLR are being quite conservative on the data that is accumulated as part of this process.

JLR itself will not have access to a car’s position; instead this information will be kept by a trusted third-party organisation, and they only track the car if the InControl Secure system suspects a situation and solicits the help of the tracking centre.

The tracking centre will then attempt to contact the owner, and will then work with the police to recover that vehicle.

JLR acknowledges that demand for the InControl Secure feature is quite low in Australia, where theft rates of premium vehicles is lower than places like Europe.

For example, a stolen luxury vehicle can be put in a shipping container quite quickly, but in the UK the average recovery time for vehicles fitted with the system has been 20 minutes.

InConnect Pro Services uses a separate customer provided SIM card, perhaps a data-only card from a telecommunications provider as part of an associated mobile phone plan.

The JLR navigational system utilises the dedicated automotive maps system HERE Maps, and with the data connection this will provide near-real-time updates on traffic issues. HERE attempts to break this traffic congestion data down to individual lanes on a multi-lane freeway.

HERE maps also does predictive analysis of a traffic route based on past experience. So, it is possible to pre-load your destination from an external HERE enabled device or computer, before it is sent to the car via the data SIM and the system selects the best route for the time you actually get into the vehicle and begin the trip.

A very low interference WIFI hotspot can also be set for up to eight devices in the car.

Right now, a limited range of JLR approved apps can be presented on the infotainment screen (similar to Apple CarPlay or Android Auto).

This is still largely a work in progress, but popular apps such as flight information, Spotify and breaking news are available today. One feature that should be mentioned is that the system will read out the news items rather than present the text on a screen.

Generally speaking, JLR is taking an appropriate softly-softly approach to these connected vehicle systems in Australia. Some of the features being introduced have been available from other brands for a while, in some cases for a number of years.

JLR is being careful in the face of legal, technical and infrastructure concerns to work through. There are big costs involved and there’s feature-set popularity to test before an absolutely clear way forward presents itself.

The good news is that if a Jaguar or Land Rover owner is an early adopter, they won’t be left too far behind by any future advances as the hardware will be able to support upgrades to services and their configuration in future.