"The recent traditional car companies, who make themselves more like new forces, whose development prospects are brighter."
--Wozki Hodd
Although it is a joke, I believe that everyone can see that our independent traditional car companies have been catching up with new car manufacturers at an alarming speed in the past two years - whether it is electrification, assisted driving or intelligent car systems, among which the on-board intelligent systems are the closest to follow. Gaga, of course, too. They even incubated the electric sub-brand, GAC Aeon.
The flagship product of this sub-brand is Aion S Plus, which is currently the only Aion sedan you can buy. Because this kind of pure electric car is very popular in the B-end market, everyone may feel that this type of car can equip the driver with enough space to install the mobile phone bracket, and the degree of intelligence of the on-board system is not important.
Honestly, I thought the same thing before the experience, so my expectations for this in-vehicle system were actually not high. Is the Aion S Plus as I expected, or?
GAC Aion S Plus Smart Cockpit Archive
- Number of screens: 2
- Screen size: 10.25 (dashboard) + 14.6 (central control)
- Cockpit sensing elements: in-car camera, driver monitoring camera
- Microphone sound zone: 2
- Bottom layer: QNX / Android Automotive OS
- Mobile Internet capabilities: 5G
- Iterative ability: SOTA
The hardware is not so "hard", but...
After years of edification of new power products, we have seen a lot of experience in the matter of "how rich the smart cockpit hardware can be". Aion S Plus designed for home is limited by the bom cost of the whole vehicle, and the hardware of the smart cockpit will not be so cool, but a smart car should have none of it.
Aion S Plus is produced by traditional car companies, so it won't completely abandon the physical buttons - look! The central control also retains the automatic air conditioning switch and the front windshield heating! It's just that these two buttons are basically mascot-like existence, anyway, if I want to start these functions, the first reaction must be to point the central control screen.
The specific resolution of this screen is not official, it does not matter, it is not the kind of crotch-pulling fruit screen, although you can see the pixels when you look closely. The feel of clicking and touching is close to that of a smartphone with a film, which is more natural in body feeling. The system provides acoustic feedback every time you tap, haptic feedback? Sorry, can't provide it.
In the market where Aion S Plus is located, how advanced the cockpit chip is not a matter of great concern to buyers, but the overall fluency of the system does not need to be worried. Except for the map that AutoNavi is responsible for is somewhat sluggish, the rest of the functions will not exceed the processor limit, except for dragging the 3D modeling body, there will be no obvious frame drop, stuttering.
In the list of partners of this ADiGO 4.0 in-vehicle system, iFLYTEK's name is prominently listed, indicating the voice interaction capabilities of Aion S Plus. Although iFLYTEK also provides voice control solutions to other brands, voice interaction for ADiGO 4.0 still has a prominent side. Based on vehicle positioning and usage scenarios, Aion S Plus has dual-tone zone recognition in the front row, and the co-pilot pitch can also be activated if the rear passenger's voice is louder.
Of course, the interaction between the smart cockpit and the occupants will not rely only on sound, and the system must also be able to "see" the user, which is the main function of the camera in the car. The camera is already capable of interpreting expressions and analyzing emotions, as well as perceiving movements and automatically adjusting vehicle hardware (such as automatic window opening for smoking).
At least from the hardware layout, as a traditional car company, GAC Aeon has been catching up with the new forces of car companies at this level of products, but the hardware is only a small half of the cockpit intelligence, how its interaction is done, the function is not more or less, whether it is good or not, determines the final use experience of this on-board system.
This interaction design is a bit interesting!
GAC is one of the earliest car companies in China to do intelligent car machines, and has considerable design experience in system interaction with large screen and touch as the core. In the interaction design of ADiGO 4.0 in-vehicle systems, there are many kinds of human-computer interaction concepts - reducing the functional level, shortening the user path, reducing the cost of learning...
The basic operational items of the ADiGO 4.0 system are much less than some of the new power products:
- At the top of the screen, the small icon on the left activates the voice control system (the steering wheel physical buttons can also be controlled); the top of the right side has a car system account, networking, messaging and other functional entrances.
- The top slides down to screen brightness, system volume settings, full car power-down, cockpit scenes and other functions
- No back key, return to the main interface by tapping the home button in the lower left corner of the screen
- The function bar at the bottom of the screen contains three core buttons, air conditioning control and automatic parking. Frequently used function keys are always displayed.
"Zero level" is the guiding principle for many enterprises to design interactive pages, that is, to synthesize a variety of factors, predict the functions that users may use, and display them on the main interface. The main interface of ADiGO 4.0 is divided into two parts, with card sets set up on the driver's side, including common modules such as navigation, audio and video entertainment, telephone, energy consumption (charging), and independent buttons for high-frequency functions. The most commonly used functional levels are only 1 or even 0; the deepest level of vehicle settings is 5.
In the lower left corner of the screen, the closest position to the driver's right hand is the home page, the main function menu and the driver assistance menu.
ADiGO 4.0 UI design also has some intentions, each button size is moderate, but the distance is far, not easy to touch by mistake; the system selects icons and fonts are also relatively plump, and the readability is good. The system is also designed with a two-finger swipe to directly adjust the temperature, but the touch range of this gesture control is not very clear, and the success rate of the main driver side adjustment is average.
The first contact is easy to think that the vehicle driving function (panoramic image, automatic parking and settings these) is placed in the driver assistance menu, but in fact it is in the main function menu, which is a bit illogical. Fortunately, the latter is only two pages, and the number of levels is not much. To be honest, I thought it strange at first, until I found that the * number button on the steering wheel can be set to a common function such as panoramic imagery and automatic parking. With the reduction of physical buttons, the steering wheel multi-purpose switch is a good complement to common vehicle functions.
Moving driving information to the center control screen is a bold thing to do, and few cars have done so far, and so has the Aion S Plus. Information directly related to driving is displayed on the 10.25-inch gauge. The dashboard has two display modes, switched by the keys on the steering wheel.
Let's take a look at the Aion S Plus's in-vehicle system interactions. One of the advantages of traditional car companies over the new forces is that they have a deeper understanding of ergonomics, and interaction design is aimed at driving behavior. The ADiGO 4.0 system equipped with Aion S Plus, from the menu logic to the number of levels, and even the details of the distance you need to raise when you click the "HOME button" right hand, are closer to everyone's usage habits than some second-tier new power brands.
Voice interaction was unexpected
Aion S Plus's voice interaction system comes from iFLYTEK, a well-known supplier, and supports dual-tone zone positioning and continuous dialogue for up to 90s. The voice assistant wake word can be customized, but the anti-interference ability of the wake word and the command is ordinary, it is recommended to choose a word that is easy to penetrate the interference.
When cooperating with iFLYTEK, Aeon opened up a lot of underlying functional interfaces to the voice control system, so the voice control coverage is very wide: driving aspects such as adjusting driving mode, energy recovery, hardware aspects such as adjusting the window can be done, but after all, it is a supplier program, you say "reduce the window by 50%" It can not understand. The same happens when testing multiple instructions, but in different scenarios: if multiple instructions are functionally linked, such as adding passing points in navigation, the system can recognize and execute them; if it is an unrelated function, the voice control system randomly executes one of the instructions.
Referring to these features, I think that the voice interaction of Aion S Plus is at the same level as that of other iFLYTEK solutions. The voice assistant was still online, and I casually said "30 seconds."
Then, I discovered its "visible and speakable" feature. As of the fourth quarter of last year at the latest, ADiGO 4.0 does not yet support visible, that is, there may be OTA upgrades later. At present, the visible Irisy of the ADiGO 4.0 system is still relatively rudimentary, covering only the settings, navigation and other functions that come with the system, and has not yet been integrated into third-party apps. And I tried many times without finding keywords for manipulating page turning (hopefully I just used the wrong instructions instead of none), or hoping to upgrade.
The high frequency function is easy to use
In this year, all the on-board intelligent systems that allow users to abandon their mobile phones have made the highest frequency navigation and music functions of the car machine into a smartphone experience. Does ADiGO 4.0 do well with the navigation, climate regulation, and audio entertainment we might use every time we get in the car?
First let's take a look at the navigation, ADiGO 4.0's map is provided by AutoNavi Maps, and the interface design and operation means are not specially customized. However, with the help of the voice control system, it is convenient to enter the navigation destination and add the waypoints; the home card set also has shortcut options for common destinations and charging stations.
Also under the blessing of voice control, air conditioning air volume, temperature, wind direction control, and some vague climate regulation instructions can be solved in 1 to 2 sentences. In addition to conventional air conditioning and fragrance systems, Aion S Plus also has a multi-hardware linkage climate regulation function such as smoke ventilation.
The third-party applications of ADiGO 4.0 are not particularly rich, mainly the audio and video content platforms commonly used by domestic consumers plus in-vehicle KTV applications, and it is not a problem to meet the basic in-car entertainment needs. The app you're currently using can also appear in the homepage deck, and you don't have to look for the relevant functions in the menu layer by layer.
How can Aion S Plus connect your life?
The latest version or "full blood version" ADiGO 4.0 supports linkage with smart homes, but Aion S Plus does not have a corresponding entrance, and there are no smart home-related apps in the application market. At present, its connection to the user's daily life is only mobile app. The app integrates user community, charging facility query, and vehicle remote control capabilities.
Most car companies agree that building an ecological closed loop of people-cars-other living spaces is the next development direction of smart cockpits. However, building an ecology is a big project, and most car companies have just taken steps. Perhaps with OTA, Aion S Plus can be more deeply integrated into everyone's lives.
Non-new forces, family cars, cockpit intelligence is still important
"Hardware routine level, software has ideas", this is what I said about the Aion S Plus and its ADiGO 4.0 smart cockpit. Under the obviously limited hardware cost control, designers have finally achieved a more natural interactive experience that conforms to our "usage inertia" through deeper ergonomic accumulation.
Coupled with the icing on the cake with functional details such as "visible and speakable", this system deserves a better evaluation than "good". With the rollout of ADiGO 4.0 and the OTA upgrade of the new features soon, we can look forward to updates on both voice control and ecology, which will be better than it is now.