[Jason]

BIMMERPOST NEWS

Next generation BMW voice assistant to be based on Amazon Alexa technology

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Press Release:

Next generation BMW voice assistant to be based on Amazon Alexa technology

Great enhancement for natural dialogue between driver and vehicle

Munich, Germany - September 28, 2022... The next-generation BMW voice assistant will be built on Alexa technology. This was announced today by Stephan Durach, Senior Vice-President Connected Company and Development Technical Operations BMW Group, and Dave Limp, Senior Vice President of Devices and Services, Amazon, at Amazon’s annual Devices and Services launch event.

“The Alexa technology will enable an even more natural dialogue between driver and vehicle, so drivers can stay focused on the road. This will bring the digital experience to an entirely new level,” said Stephan Durach.

Dave Limp, Amazon, added: “This cooperation with BMW is a great example of what Alexa Custom Assistant was designed for — to make it faster and easier for companies to develop custom intelligent assistants for virtually any device, without the cost and complexity of building from the ground up.”

Since the introduction of the first BMW voice assistant (BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant) in 2018, voice interaction has become an increasingly important part of BMW iDrive. The new BMW voice assistant will work in cooperation with Alexa, providing customers the benefits of an intelligent assistant that is the vehicle and services expert, while Alexa provides the familiar experience many customers are already using today—such as the ability to control music, remotely manage their smart home, add items to a shopping list, or check the weather for the day. Customers can still choose to use either the BMW voice assistant and Alexa individually, or have both assistants work alongside each other.

The first vehicles with the new generation of BMW’s voice assistant will launch within the next two years.

Data protection is a top priority for the BMW Group.
The BMW Group ensures that customer data is protected and processed in accordance with data privacy requirements by means of established processes – across all the markets in which the company operates. The BMW Group and Amazon share the strong commitment to maintaining customers’ trust and protecting their privacy, including giving them control over their data.

[stein_325i]

Does anyone use their voice assistants in the car ever? In all my BMW's and MB's I don't think I've used them once.

[DocWeatherington]

Stop Guidance is my limit lol

[kjx]

Originally Posted by stein_325i

Does anyone use their voice assistants in the car ever? In all my BMW's and MB's I don't think I've used them once.

In situations where it is the fastest way to accomplish something: hey BMW:

"Navigate home"
"Navigate to <general location>"
"I'm hot/cold"
"What's the tire pressure like" - if something feels off and I want to be able to handle a sudden deflation if that occurs.

In CarPlay:
"Play playlist <blah> in apple music"

When my wife is not answering her phone and I'm driving (BMW to Alexa integration):
"Hey Alexa": "Announce <wife> answer your phone please" - goes out to all 12-14 Alexa devices at home.

Other stuff like turn off lights at home, etc via Alexa. Or to set the home temperature some time before I arrive. Whatever I can do with Alexa.

[Kromans1]

Will this then become an over-the-air update in the future for currenly existing vehicles?

[NightWriter]

I hope Bimmercode will allow unlocking Silver mode

[MachinesWithSouls]

Originally Posted by stein_325i

Does anyone use their voice assistants in the car ever? In all my BMW's and MB's I don't think I've used them once.

I never knew just how many times I said the word "BMW" until I started driving a modern one..

[Mr.blue]

Originally Posted by kjx

In situations where it is the fastest way to accomplish something: hey BMW:

"Navigate home"
"Navigate to <general location>"
"I'm hot/cold"
"What's the tire pressure like" - if something feels off and I want to be able to handle a sudden deflation if that occurs.

In CarPlay:
"Play playlist <blah> in apple music"

When my wife is not answering her phone and I'm driving (BMW to Alexa integration):
"Hey Alexa": "Announce <wife> answer your phone please" - goes out to all 12-14 Alexa devices at home.

Other stuff like turn off lights at home, etc via Alexa. Or to set the home temperature some time before I arrive. Whatever I can do with Alexa.

Wow! You are actually putting the BMW tech to good use! I didn't even know all that was possible, I never even set up the card key or the phone key in my car. Good for you!

[_E90S65_]

Can't we all just… drive?

[TheStanman]

Originally Posted by stein_325i

Does anyone use their voice assistants in the car ever? In all my BMW's and MB's I don't think I've used them once.

Nope never. And it doesn't matter how good it is - I have no interest, especially if I have anybody in the car with me.

It must be one of the areas with the greatest mismatch between how much OEMs focus on it and how much consumers care about it.

[bholler]

Siri within CarPlay is fantastic as far as I'm concerned.

Can pretty much do anything you can on the phone, scores of games, play anything, quickly get directions to anywhere, turn on lights in the house, "did I leave the garage door open", how do you say "purple in Mandarin Chinese" and most importantly near perfect text transcription, etc etc. I love it and use it every time I'm in the car.

Can also just say hey siri and it just all works.

Best decision ever was to wait 2 extra months for it to be added to the car when they first started rolling out to F80s. Also having it coded to full screen was a must.

[chrisk03]

Have tried a couple times in the wife's BMW for Nav, but inevitably end up saying cancel after about 5 seconds of it not understanding...quite maddening. I'm sure her iPhone/Siri works much better, but have never tried. Pretty useless feature, IMO.

[Nahlem]

So far i have been finding my self using the BMW assistant more and more, its kinda nice.

Asking the car to set the temp to a certain degree, asking about the traffic situation on certain roads, asking it so switch to radio or the spotify app. Asking it to set the playlist to shuffle. And so on and so forth, been finding it more and more useful.

Though it needs a lot more work in my opinion to feel more "Natural" and to understand more of what you say sometimes having to repeat my self several times then it kinda defeats the purpose of it being faster then doing a certain move your self.

But its getting there and it improves over time with new OTA updates. So its nice.

The other day i was in sport boost mode, and asked the car to tell me a joke and it answered me "Well i can't imagine anything more fun then you have now in sport mode" or something in the lines of that it answered, kinda made me chuckle a little bit. Those small things are fun from time to time.

[Game]

Since iD7 the voice commands have been pretty great.

In an iD8 car this will be an awesome upgrade and look forward to using it. It's going to make that complex system much easier to use.

[spaceage]

Originally Posted by Jason

[bpnews="Next generation BMW voice assistant to be based on Amazon Alexa technology"]

Attention BMW: I will never buy a car that has Amazon tech spying on me. Please reconsider this decision.

[paquet]

This is my white whale - having native Alexa support in the car to check things in the home, turn off, turn on, etc - without relying on geo-fencing or scheduled automation, but voice activated.
Unfortunately, my car manuf date was 2 months prior to their adding support for Alexa (not sure if that was ID7 lite...)

I enjoy the convenience that the Echo units offer (after turning off some of the intrusive spying like features)

Siri is kinda shit compared to the other assistants (it's getting better, but it's still poop) - however, as a best of both worlds scenario, currently for me on ID6, short tap of the microphone button gives me BMW's assistant (which is limited in ID6), and a long press gives me Siri for calls etc through CarPlay.

My biggest pet peeve is my alarm company not having CarPlay support. And I don't think I can order ahead using the Dunkin app.

[JMD]

Originally Posted by NightWriter

I hope Bimmercode will allow unlocking Silver mode

..."Angela,...Play Black Jazz"! LOL! Too funny...

[thurston]

I'd like to see some data privacy details on this. I don't trust Amazon at all.