I don't use any voice commands on any of my devices, I think it is silly. And the way Carplay deals with text messages via voice only is annoying. BMW idrive simply displays the text of the message on the screen, and I never reply to text messages when driving - if I read it and its important enough I'll simply call the person, if not important I'll answer it later.

 

I don't like the reading of the text messages either, but I think that likely is safer than displaying the text on the screen. I have it set to not automatically read them, but it puts up a banner at the bottom when I get one and who its from. If its from someone that I think might be time intensive then I will listen to it, otherwise I just leave them for when I get to my destination or a red light, etc. I have text chains with different teams and they chatter all the time and its usually not time sensitive and I just ignore those.

And people hate getting phone calls in response to text messages just FYI. Don't know if you care but you may be irritating customers etc.

 

Im in construction industry so most people i deal with are OGs who dont do texts. Most of my communication with clients and vendors is through emails, which i refuse to even check in the car, or phone calls. Thus I dont have sms chains, most texts I get are family, friends and my employees, and most of them are short and to the point.

Bmw idrive has a button to reply to sms, but its grayed out. Im sure i can code enable it, but I dont have the need to.

 

I interact with the system at a very minimal while driving. I find voice commands very useful in some cases... For instance, while on route and need to find a restaurant or change mind and want to stop somewhere... Just say it and the system look it up and you select to add into route. Or something as simple as "Take me home." I also find it useful when dealing with AC especially when the rear was left on and you're driving alone. Some other stuffs can also be controlled/changed at ease with commands, like.... ambient light off (for you?)

 

Yeah for me I have long drawn out conversations over texts

 

Depends on who I'm taking to if it's text or call.

What would be really cool here is eye tracking based integration with the hud so you can just look at what you want and click a button on the wheel. It's possible with PCs for games and sims for like 10 years now so it should be easy in a car

 

BMW does very good HUD/steering wheel interaction, they don't do eye tracking, but I access 90% of functions I use during daily driving through the steering wheel controls and the HUD.

 

#notshocked

 

Yeah they indeed have a good setup, I was just thinking eye tracking would be easy to just roll out across the board using the latest gen phones provided a dash mounted sensor in installed that has the same abilities as the phone unit.

 

Honestly, there are so many people that have no idea how to even connect their phones to the infotainment systems with simple bluetooth, overcomplicating things with something like that is just not practical. All the time I see people in relatively modern cars that clearly have infotainment systems talk on the phone by holding it to their ear, or worse yet with airpads in their ears to become completely oblivious to their surrounding.

 

I'm probably projecting what I can handle/use easily vs what the vast majority of people can.

 

Majority of people have a giant suction cup mount on the windshield holding their phone right in front of their face, where they should be looking on the road. Eye tracking, lol.

 

I don't know lol! It's nice on PC since you can have two points of interaction so if you need to click on something you can just look at it and then press the eye for the eye tracked cursor, I was thinking you can do the same thing in the HUD so you can have the full interface in HUD and just have a pair button on the wheel to act as the press/back so you never have to look away from the road even slightly. It's not as fast as a direct button but it's nearly as fast as sitting down with a mouse and clicking but obviously in a car the latter is not possible but with HUDs getting better and better......

 

Nothing is faster/easier/safer than good voice control IMO. Want it, say it, car does it instantly. All without taking your eyes off the road.

 

VC is slow as hell and inaccurate. The fact you have to say something is inherently slower than a direct control like a ****