What kind of intelligent voice system would you like to use?

There are two types of attitudes towards smart voice in cars. One is very rejecting, "I can just click it myself", and the other is more accepting, and even considering buying a car because the smart voice is well made and has the ability to continuously OTA. The former have probably never used this thing. My personal experience is that a bad smart voice is worse than not having it. As long as I try it 1-2 times and it's embarrassing, I won't use it again. But if it's a good voice, I will still be willing to use it repeatedly after using it. I can be lazy if I can. Sometimes it's not convenient to look for the functions of the car computer while driving.

So, what kind of intelligent voice is it that we are willing to use repeatedly? Although people are different, I believe that the standards are relatively unified in this matter. First of all, I must not feel like a fool, and then I must find the function I want to use faster and more conveniently through voice, and I don’t need to remember the entry specifically, I can solve the problem by speaking directly.

Smart voice can be said to be a very important part of intelligence, and car manufacturers that focus on intelligence are focusing on it. Xiaopeng has launched OTA several times this year, among which smart voice is one of the focuses. Now it can achieve natural semantics, continuous instructions, contextual coherence, and more appropriate intonation, tone and context, which is a bit like talking to a natural person. Using OTA, new forces can make small steps and fast progress, and constantly refresh the smart experience after the vehicle is put into use. This is indeed still irresistible.

On the other hand, Ideal has been talking about seven-seater cars with no range anxiety, good family men, and comfort for the whole family. This year, it also started talking about intelligence. In addition to taking advantage of the launch of the 2021  Ideal ONE  (  parameters  |  inquiry  ) a while ago, it refreshed the capabilities of the AD assisted driving system. Recently, Ideal released the "Ideal Classmate 2.2 version" and will push it to car owners in the near future. Both new and old models can be upgraded.

After the upgrade, the car owner will be able to mention a more "humanized" ideal classmate, and can have a continuous conversation, can "see and speak" according to the central control screen, and can also partially lock the original four sound zones to reduce the teasing and harassment of the ideal classmate by the children in the back row, and also support cross-sound zone contextual conversation in some specific scenarios. I will explain them one by one later, and first talk about my experience results. Although it has improved a lot, as the Ideal Intelligent Voice Development Team said, there are still some needs that have not been developed, and there will be some small bugs. There is a long way to go.

There are a few more points to share about this voice:

1. Only the driver can adjust the driving mode by voice, including the comfort or sport of the throttle and steering;

2. When multiple people are riding, the intelligent voice system can distinguish whether we are talking to it or to others. In most cases, it will not interfere with the conversation and can accurately capture the instructions given to it.

3. When the voice is activated, Ideal classmates are always listening, which may cause information leakage risk;

4. This time we only conducted a static experience, but we consulted the on-site staff and found that when the vehicle is moving, road noise and wind noise will still interfere with the voice recognition sensitivity to varying degrees, which is the same as GAC Aion's ADiGo intelligent voice system.

In addition, I found that Ideal ONE can send WeChat voice messages directly to the phone without loss when connected to Bluetooth. This is something that cannot be done in all the cars I have tried personally, and it can be regarded as solving a pain point I encounter in my daily life. Ideal ONE provides a total of 4 screens. In addition to the co-pilot screen for chasing dramas, the display screen on the sub-center console is also very easy to use. It provides shortcut keys such as air conditioning and seat memory, which can be customized. In addition, there are preset nap mode and do not disturb mode. The former is a quick alarm clock, which can be set with two finger movements, which is more convenient than mobile phones. The latter reflects the ultimate "family concept" of Ideal ONE. After turning on this mode, if a call comes in, the sound in the back row will be very small. If family members are resting in the back row, this setting is very considerate.

According to the information shared by the on-site staff, Ideal will have a major OTA every six months and a minor OTA every quarter. Each time a new version is developed, it will be tested with about 600 internal car owners. The problems they find will be identified and improved by Ideal, and repeated 3-4 times to ensure that there are no major problems with the new version before it is pushed to all car owners. At present, bugs in the car system occasionally occur. If the problems found occur frequently and have a significant impact on use, a version of OTA will be pushed to solve them first. If the problem occurs less frequently, the car owner will be given a temporary solution, such as restarting, and the problem will be solved when a new version is available.

Next, Ideal's smart car machine will become more diverse in the functions of the co-pilot screen and the rear seats. According to the guy at the scene, Ideal ONE supports hardware upgrades, such as chip upgrades, but he is not sure about the specific implementation time and operation methods. He believes that based on the concept of Ideal Auto, it is unlikely that users will buy a car and then lock in the hardware. It is still necessary to upgrade the hardware during the car use cycle of several years or more than ten years.