Steering into the future with ConnectedDrive

BMW is out to regain its number one status in the field of driver assistance technology. The company's ConnectedDrive suite of ergonomic functions has been overhauled to leap-frog similar features being offered in competitors' cars — and these new features will begin to pop up in BMWs from July production, according to BMW's local Product Communications Manager, Scott Croaker.

"It will trickle through," Mr Croaker told motoring.com.au last week. "Essentially, some of the [new equipment] is going to be premiered in the 7 Series life-cycle impulse, which would be cars that will be arriving October.

"Some will also be filtering through with some of the other cars; for instance, 3 Series Touring will be featuring some of the new technologies, when it comes to the iDrive Navigation — highlight bars and different graphics — and also on the 1 Series."

The new systems introduced under the ConnectedDrive umbrella include an upgrade for the Navigation Professional system, dictation for sending emails and SMS texts, iDrive Touch for hand-scribed character recognition, LTE Car Hot Spot facility and smartphone apps.

Navigation System Professional features higher-resolution 3D graphics and faster response time, thanks to a 1.3 gHz processor. In the company's video presentation, such catch-phrases as "atmospheric light mood" and "dynamic transitions" are bandied about, but the upshot is this: the new screen offers a cleaner look, faster scrolling and — so the company claims — improved ease of use.

Mobile Office now incorporates a dictation function to write an email or SMS text on the fly. In the development of this new feature, BMW partnered up with Nuance Communications, a global expert in speech recognition software. The dictation function, also useful for memo transcription BMW claims, transmits speech data to a remote server, where it is transcribed and re-transmitted back to the car as written text, which is displayed on screen. BMW says that the delay between the dictation and the display of the transcribed text is a matter of seconds only, and the remote processing frees up memory and processing in the car. So far, the system is available with up to six different languages.

While these new features place BMW at the cutting edge of this kind of HMI (Human Machine Interface) technology, how much of it we'll see in Australia is a question remaining unanswered. Take the LTE hot spot system, for example.

LTE (Long Term Evolution, a 4G network standard for wireless communication) turns the BMW into a mobile hot spot for access to the Internet. Slip a compatible SIM card into the adapter and the BMW becomes a portal to the internet for Bluetooth users in the car. The system can be removed from the car (for portable hot spot functionality) and has its own battery pack and antenna. It can operate without the battery pack if connected — by USB port — to another device providing power. Otherwise the hot spot hardware sits in the centre console of the car and can be retrofitted to older BMW models. According to the manufacturer, it reduces the amount of radiation in the cabin and improves reception through the 'galvanic' link to the car's aerial. There's one problem with it though, Australia doesn't have a 4G network to support it.

"With the 4G [function] we don't have network support for 4G at this stage," said Scott Croaker, "and there will be other things, such as real-time traffic information — the usual things that we don't get because of our platforms in Australia and the infrastructure hasn't been set up — and speed limit information, because it's not as accurate as we'd like it to be, so we won't release it until such time as it is accurate in Australia."

At least, in the case of the LTE hot spot feature, there is some prospect of 4G being introduced here eventually. According to Mr Croaker, there's no determination yet as to whether we'll see the hot spot system here before then.

"The specification hasn't been finalised for the Australian market yet, in relation to the 7 Series. I'm not sure whether [LTE hot spot] is going to be a standard feature or an optional feature — or if it's something they won't tick the box on until such time as it is applicable to the Australian market.

"It depends on how integrated it is into the rest of the car setup, and I use the speed limit info as an example: the hardware is there, but the system isn't switched on through the programming because...  the system's not reliable enough [in Australia]."

BMW had previously offered customers speed limit information, but it quickly became apparent that the system didn't cope as well with Australia's parlous road signage as the company would have liked. And as we also noted in our earlier report, Smartphone apps are not available in Australia — and that's something unlikely to change.

"Again, with our driver distraction laws... that's another one, which minimises the applicability in Australia for any manufacturer," Mr Croaker confirmed.

Even where the new technology can meet the requirements of ADRs — or at least not be in conflict with them — occasionally a feature runs up against other stumbling blocks. Such is iDrive Touch, introduced with the new suite of ConnectedDrive features. A similar system in concept to Audi's MMI Touch, the iDrive version is a touch-sensitive pad in the top of the iDrive control knob, providing drivers the facility to write by hand as an input for the destination. In addition, the system enables freehand navigational input on the displayed map, as well as adjusting the scale of the map for easier viewing.

As with the Audi system, it's an interface placed in the centre of the car — which is right-hand drive in Australia. The majority of drivers are right-handed, so the iDrive touchpad will offer limited application in this country. Where it's bound to be welcomed is China — where it will be introduced first — or other Asian countries where drivers sit on the left side of the car and enter pictographs rather than letters. The pictographs represent whole words, rather than individual letters, so entering a street address is very much faster than is the case using a western alphabet. And the handwriting recognition deals easier with the Asian characters than with alphabetical letters, because of the fixed stroke order for writing the Chinese words.

So it makes a lot of sense in the Chinese market, but less so here. Scott Croaker points out that the new satnav system will still allow street addresses to be entered by selecting letters on screen. So the iDrive touchpad is arguably redundant here.

"It's an additional way of entering data into the system, in terms of a text search," said Mr Croaker, "but it's not a system that replaces anything else — so you can still use the [iDrive] controller to rotate and select letters and input addresses or you can use the character recognition [facility] on the iDrive touchpad.

"It seems to be, given that most people are right-handed, it's easier to use in left-hand drive markets than right-hand drive markets."