Can traditional luxury brands still be turned over?
Author: Xiong Ruifeng
Nowadays, when it comes to smart cockpits, the first thing we think of is a number of new domestic forces, on the contrary, for the products of traditional car companies, it seems that they can only talk about performance control. However, traditional luxury brands do not seem to want to "lose", and the endless increase in intelligent configuration is enough to prove their years of technology accumulation.
In order to verify the power of the traditional luxury brand smart cockpit, our intelligent cockpit evaluation center will conduct a smart cockpit test on the current mainstream luxury models one by one, of which the contestants in this period are now in full swing - the new BMW X3.
Old rules, this time the test we will continue to use the "digital intelligence + ICBT-100 intelligent cockpit evaluation standard" version 1.0 rules, focusing on intelligent hardware, interaction capabilities, application ecology three categories, while for each category is divided into data + experience two dimensions, and subdivided into more than 30 projects for scoring, to see how the smart car machine we use every day is doing.
Vehicle hardware:
In the intelligent hardware project, we will focus on the screen, basic hardware, and expand the interface of the three major sections for refined scoring, which is also the most intuitive with our daily use.
Compared with the previous old model, the new BMW X3 has finally replaced the 12.3-inch central control touch screen + 12.3-inch full LCD instrument + HD HUD combination of the same big brother X5, and also retains the current few physical central knobs (supporting handwritten touchpad), while also adding "black technology" - air gesture function, it can be said that the type of interaction method of BMW X3 is very high in the current test ranking.
In terms of screen parameters, the 12.3-inch central control screen of the new BMW X3 adopts the TFT-LCD screen from the Tagntron Optoelectronics code name DJ123IC-02A in Taiwan Province, with a resolution of 1920 * 720 and a response time of 30ms, while the measured PPI is 167 (RGB standard arrangement), NTCS color gamut of 72.3% (official standard 72%), but the peak brightness may be BMW in strict control of the screen temperature, the maximum brightness that can be set is only 325.32nit.
In fact, thanks to the excellent screen material of bmw X3, the entire viewing angle reached 85/85/85/85° (up and down, left and right, full viewing angle), which was very good; at the same time, the screen oil trap was smooth enough, and the ability to control fingerprints was very good in the tested models.
On the basic hardware parameters, the new BMW X3 did not disappoint me, which is equipped with the flagship SOC (processor) Atom A3960 from Intel, released in 2016, made of 14nm chips, built based on the Apollo Lake platform, with a total of 4 cores and 4 threads, the highest frequency of 2.4GHz, CPU computing power of about 42KDMIPS; and synchronous integration of a GPU codenamed HD505, a total of 18 EU units, the main frequency of 750MHz, The combined hash rate is about 216 GFLOPS.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that BMW, as the first wireless Carplay car company, has also added wireless Baidu Carlife this time, and can project the navigation information of "Apple Maps" to the dashboard and HUD in the self-contained Carplay mode.
Interactive Capabilities:
There is a saying in the IT world: "No matter how good the hardware, without system optimization, it is futile", which reflects the importance of the system. At the same time, the interactive interface is not only the most direct contact between the owner and the car, but also the excellent logic can directly improve the user experience of the entire cockpit, so in this intelligent cockpit test, the interaction ability of the car and the machine occupies a large part, and in this column we are divided into three dimensions: system, voice, and other three dimensions.
Special instructions: In order to show the system logic more directly, we set up a logic challenge competition, that is, within the specified time, let the first-time experience users open each function in turn according to the process: match the mobile phone Bluetooth open Bluetooth music (start playing) Dial 10086 phone (connected) Adjust the brightness of the car screen (adjust to the brightest) navigation destination, see who lasts the shortest time.
The new BMW X3 main screen single page provides four information areas, users can operate the mobile phone like flexible customization of the information displayed on the main screen; at the same time, the interactive logic also makes full use of the left, right, upper sidebar, through the knob to dial or directly slide the screen to enter more shortcut windows, the entire UI is concise and rich.
Specifically, the left column is divided into 5 fixed options: Multimedia, Communication, Navigation System, My Car (Settings) and Applications; the top right shows notifications, audio, accounts, time and other information, which is similar to the operation logic of smart devices such as mobile phones and tablets, and supports drop-down menus.
For gesture control, I would like to say that I have not experienced a model with a higher accuracy rate than BMW, which supports custom functions such as finger rotation to adjust the volume, thumb swinging left and right to cut songs, and shaking fists open to play tentatively.
But to be honest, the logic of the new BMW X3 system is indeed very rich, but from another point of view, the variety of interactions also brings an operation learning process, especially for slightly older users, even a little complicated; at the same time, the multi-level setting of the menu also makes the search for functions slightly troublesome, which there is still a lot of room for improvement.
In terms of voice system performance, although the new BMW X3 has a big gap with the new forces players tested in the previous issue, it is still a good hand in the BBA, first of all, the basic voice navigation, adjusting the air conditioning temperature, opening and closing the window, adjusting the volume, and asking the weather can be achieved, while the advanced support I am hungry / I am cold Semantic recognition, custom wake words, dialect recognition (support Cantonese) and other functions.
The disadvantage is that the BMW X3 full car only provides the identification of the main driver's single tone area, that is to say, you adjust the temperature in the co-driver, but in fact, only the temperature of the main driver's air conditioner has changed, unless the temperature of the "adjust the co-driver" or open the window is deliberately added; at the same time, a series of functions such as continuous dialogue, dialogue association, and emotional voice cannot be realized.
In other projects, the BMW X3 remote control only supports the regular in-car ventilation, unlocking, car search and other functions, which is not too innovative.
Application Ecology:
But through the phenomenon to see the essence, we will find that to achieve a truly intelligent cockpit, it is not only dependent on the car system itself, but to join a richer application ecology, after all, there is not enough application ecology, the system itself does not have much value, which is connected with the current hot IT industry.
Therefore, in this part, we combine the existing highest standards of intelligence and the judgment of future industry trends to carry out more demanding redundant projects, which mainly include: 1. OTA upgrades, 2. Audio and Video Resources, 3. Entertainment game experience, 4. Expanding functions (HUD, personalized mode, etc.), the scoring criteria are based on the average level of the current intelligent car, which belongs to the advanced needs of intelligent subdivision.
In terms of APP expansion, it can be seen that BMW is trying to cater to the market, but perhaps out of confidence in luxury brands, it has strictly controlled the number of expansion applications, so BMW X3 has only three applications built into Tencent News, Watermelon Video, and Tmall Genie, and entertainment is almost non-existent.
In addition, BMW X3 also supports HUD head-up display system, which can project navigation, driving assistance, driving information, and multimedia on the glass in front of the main driver, which is very practical.
Write at the end
As we all know, with the improvement of the level of intelligence of the car, the significant change of the intelligent cockpit is from passive interaction (initiated by people) to active interaction (both people or machines can initiate), and the way to obtain content and services has increased, so the car-machine system needs a more active, natural and emotional experience to further meet the needs of occupants for cockpit infotainment and work activities.
At the same time, the definition brought about by the rich cockpit data is also more complex, and our "Digital Intelligence + ICBT-100 Intelligent Cockpit Evaluation Standard" is to explore a meaningful and practical intelligent experience for consumers, so that the intelligent cockpit has been carefully split, so as to more clearly understand the advantages and disadvantages of each model of smart cockpit.