Two decades after its debut in the 2001 Series 7, BMW’s iDrive infotainment system is among the best on the market. It’s about to get even better – think, natural language processing, gesture control and cloud-based machine learning – with the launch of its latest iteration, iDrive 8, on board the next BMW iX and i4.
BMW
The AI on board the system, BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant, will be the driver’s primary point of contact when interacting with the new iDrive 8. The driver will be able to give the IPA a personalized name and then suggest various functions in the vehicle and flows of information using verbal or non-verbal commands. The new iDrive 8 also received a kind of face, “spheres of light in different sizes and brightness levels, giving the assistant more space and new ways to express himself,” according to a press release from BMW.
Drivers will also find that iDrive 8 offers more contextual functionality than its predecessors. The new system will take into account external conditions, such as traffic and roads, before attempting to interact with the vehicle’s passengers. It will also “control functions such as temperature control, ambient lighting, audio playback, opening and closing side windows, shading the panoramic roof, switching between My modes and driver assistance systems” so that the driver does not have to take off the eyes of the road in heavy traffic conditions to find the front defrost controls on a touchscreen menu. In addition, IPA can also provide information on vehicle status and details on local points of interest.
“The future will be with fewer switches, said BMW CTO Frank Weber during an online roundtable on Monday. “But it won’t be without switches.”
BMW
My Modes is another new feature in iDrive 8, replacing older driving experience controls. It allows the driver to customize and activate up to ten vehicle parameters under a single grouping of commands. Predefined modes include Efficient, which prioritizes energy efficiency and a quiet cabin interior; Sport, which increases acceleration and handling; and Personal, which is what you want. Additional modes will eventually be made available to the BMW community through future OTA updates using on-vehicle 5G connectivity.
The various monitors and gauges on the iDrive will appear on BMW’s new curved display, which combines a 200 ppi 12.3-inch information display in place of the traditional control cluster and a 14.9-inch control display (reading, entertainment informative). The fully electric iX will also include a HUD, whose projector is integrated in the steering column itself, showing the driver information relevant to the vehicle directly on the windshield in front of him. To ensure that the driver is not distracted by extraneous information, BMW has adopted an “Act, locate and report” principle, in which “pre-filtering ensures that only information relevant to the driving situation is presented to the driver and always shown where they can absorb it as quickly and easily as possible ”.
IDrive graphics are similarly designed for minimal driver distraction. Like previous iterations, iDrive 8 will allow drivers to personalize their various graphical screens and quickly switch between three predefined menu layouts and a series of media widgets using tactile buttons mounted on the steering wheel. These presets include Drive, which offers “an area that dynamically changes in the center of the information display to show individually selectable information;” Focus, which keeps the steering gauges in front and in the center; and Gallery, which seems like a really bad idea, as it minimizes the cluster of instruments in favor of media widgets. There is also a Calm mode that shows the speed of the vehicle and nothing else.
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Drivers will also be able to take their personal settings with them with the new BMW ID feature, which is linked to a PIN or to the driver’s MyBMW app. Simply enter your PIN or tangle your app with any vehicle with an iDrive 7 or 8 to immediately transfer all your preferred settings to the new car – very useful if you just received a loan from the dealership.
BMW is also relying heavily on cloud-based machine learning to improve the responsiveness of the IPA, as well as the iX’s navigation system. Instead of simply ingesting and regurgitating traffic data on the driver, the new iDrive 8 has learned to calculate probabilities. For example, it will leverage traffic patterns around local points of interest to return more accurate ETAs. It can help drivers find parking spaces near their destination. The same applies to the vehicle’s air conditioning. BMW taught the iDrive 8 to better anticipate its drivers’ climate control needs based on 440 million training trips worldwide. This allows the iDrive to automatically set the optimum cabin temperature based not only on external environmental conditions, but also on the driver’s personal habits.