Heads in the cloud with BMW’s latest innovations

BMW is leading the in-car-tech charge with its ConnectedDrive system.

BMW’s ConnectedDrive technology provides drivers with a wide variety of useful functions, including route planning, access to millions of music tracks, a concierge service and email. Courtesy BMW GrouShow more

It’s pretty much a fact of motoring life that if you want the latest innovations or technology in your car, you have to buy something premium.

And in the premium sector, it’s fair to say that BMW is often ahead of the (select and exclusive) pack. Its EfficientDynamics cars led the way in introducing more efficient models and its two “i” cars, the i3 and i8, have really amped up the electric-car revolution.

But it’s not just in the field of greener technology that the Bavarian carmaker has managed to get the jump on its rivals: its ConnectedDrive system offers customers of new BMW models the chance to sample the connected car, an innovation that we’ll all be a lot more familiar with in the next few years.

We suggested in a feature in these very pages a few months ago that the future of connected cars was closer than many of us previously thought and alluded to the fact that BMW had started to join the dots ahead of its rivals. The premium market is definitely where the connected car wars will initially be fought, with the battle gradually being taken to the mass market (although Ford has arguably already stolen a march with its Sync system). Also emerging on the market are myAudi and Mercedes Connect Me, but BMW has been embedding Sim cards in the telematics system of almost all the new cars it has built since April this year and making available to customers the wide range of services that ConnectedDrive offers.

The embedded Sims have enabled BMW to roll out its ConnectedDrive system to almost all the cars in its range and give BMW customers the opportunity to option it on their new car.

ConnectedDrive – available now in markets such as the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, and coming soon to the UAE – is a suite of in-car services that motorists can use to give them updated traffic information, internet-based searches, productivity functions, information to help improve the car’s efficiency, emergency-call services, the ability to control some of the car’s functions remotely, using connected mobile devices and a wide range of apps that can offer the likes of streaming music and social media.

When you take delivery of your new (or, in the future, second-hand) BMW, you have to first register on the ConnectedDrive portal (www.bmw-connecteddrive.co.uk). Once you’ve logged in, you’ll see a personal dashboard displaying details of your car and two menu headings – My Services and Settings.

My Services has a number of sub-menus that allow the owner to enable access to information from different sources. So, for example, BMW Routes not only allows the driver to plan trips of their own, but also access some that BMW has programmed itself, based around particular themes (for example, there are 55 European tours taking in food, architecture or just especially picturesque drives).

It’s also possible to choose up to 20 news sources that can be sent to the car. The stories will either be displayed or read out by the car’s own voice, which is slightly robotic, but generally ­understandable.

Your contacts are also accessible in the car, by importing a Microsoft Outlook address book. This can be used in conjunction with the car’s dictation function, which allows you to record messages or texts to send to contacts. You can, for example, inform someone that you’re stuck in traffic and will be late for a meeting, without having to illegally use your mobile phone. Talking to your car might initially make you feel like you’re one step away from wearing a foil-lined helmet, but pretty quickly you get into the whole sci-fi nature of it.

As a BMW owner, you can also establish an individual driver profile, where you can specify your seat position, preferred temperature in the car, the information shown in the head-up display, how long the lights of the car remain on when you reach your destination and get out of the car, whether information is displayed in metric or imperial units and door-lock settings. This profile can then be saved and exported to your car(s) using the BMW Online service or a USB stick. Even better, if you’re away from home and hire a BMW as a rental car, you can also export these settings to that vehicle. Essentially, any BMW with ConnectedDrive can become your own car.

Meanwhile, back on the portal, the Settings menu can, among other functions, allow you to link an email account or activate Remote Services, a smartphone app available from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store that can, as the name suggests, allow you to operate some of the car’s functions from your phone. So if you’re having trouble finding your car in a massive anonymous mall car park or on an unfamiliar street, you can use your phone to flash the headlights. Alternatively, you can also lock or unlock the doors remotely and pre-cool (or heat) the car, either immediately or with a timer. Google Local Search on your phone can also find an address and send it to the car’s navigation system.

Once you’ve set up all the personalised functions of ConnectedDrive, it’s time to get acquainted with it in the car itself. The in-car interface is BMW’s iDrive system, which first debuted in the company’s cars in 2001. It has subsequently been refined and updated, now incorporating shortcut buttons around the rotary controller at the bottom of the centre console, voice control and a touchpad that uses writing recognition software to recognise the characters and convert them into letters when inputting a destination in the navigation system.

The main menu has eight sub-menus (Multimedia, Radio, Telephone, Navigation, Office, ConnectedDrive, Vehicle Information and Settings), which can be accessed via the iDrive ­controller.

The ConnectedDrive menu contains sub-menus, including information about servicing, any messages that you have sent to the car, smartphone apps, web radio, plus BMW Online, which features news, weather, email and personalised apps. These on-board apps will become increasingly important, not just within ConnectedDrive, but also to connected-car services fitted to other brands’ vehicles. BMW has a ConnectedDrive Store – in effect, its own App Store – that owners will be able to have an account for and download apps from at any time during their ownership of the car.

Also available is Info Plus, a 24/7 concierge service that connects you by phone to a personal assistant at a dedicated call centre. They can help you to find a nearby restaurant, information about flights or film screenings or even book a room at a local hotel. Any suggested locations can also be sent directly to the car’s navigation system.

If spending time in the car is part of your job, the Office option can help by accessing your calendar and sending emails, which you can dictate. The biggest drawback, however, is that it currently doesn’t work with Apple iOS, so ConnectedDrive doesn’t support iCal or Mail. Other Office functions include staying in touch with social media, so you can listen to Facebook status updates and your Twitter stream read out by the car’s voice.

Navigation is a core component, especially as real-time traffic information (RTTI) is available, thanks to the car’s embedded Sim, which enables the car to transmit GPS and speed information to a cloud server and, in return, receive data from other cars on the road. If you choose a dynamic-guidance option, you can enter a destination and the car will automatically route you along the most free-flowing route, saving a great deal of stress.

Multimedia options include Online Entertainment, which currently includes two streaming music services: Napster and Rara. BMW offers a package with Rara’s premium service that gives ConnectedDrive users an unlimited on-demand access to more than 28 million tracks (Napster works via a mobile ­device).

Looking at the complete package, it’s fair to say that ConnectedDrive offers a great deal to potential BMW buyers. And quite apart from having a wide range of additional features in the car, you’ll also be an early adopter of a technological advancement that is going to radically change our experience of being in a car over the next few years.

However, the big question is whether car buyers will be sufficiently attracted to the idea of the connected car to pay for it. The cost of the different media packages that contain ConnectedDrive services varies in price, according to the model, but the full package costs £1,890 (Dh11,175) in the UK, which is a guide to an equivalent price when it comes to the Middle East.

So is it worth making such a large investment for these services? If you look at it from a strictly financial perspective, having ConnectedDrive will add to the value of your car when you come to sell it (although you won’t recoup the whole amount) and make it easier to sell.

You will, however, have to ask if you will get the full use of the suite of available services. If you rack up a lot of miles, then RTTI alone will be invaluable, minimising the time you’re stuck in jams. If you use your car for work, the connectivity services will enable you to catch up with emails while travelling and save valuable time when you get back to your office. And if you’re a music fan and want access to a huge library of songs in your car, it also ticks that box.

Arguably the most persuasive argument in favour of optioning ConnectedDrive is that it allows you to do things in cars that were considered futuristic only a few years ago – useful, practical things that will improve your quality of life and help you make the most of the time spent in the car; time that many of us have often felt was wasted.

That has to be the kind of revolution many drivers have been waiting for.

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