The future of intelligent driver-car connectivity is one of the key topics the BMW Group is addressing at the Mobile World Congress 2017 event in Barcelona. The next few years will see the advent of digital services that provide total connectivity between users’ worlds – at home or out and about.
The vehicle itself is transformed into a smart device: intelligently connected, seamlessly integrated and perfectly in tune with every user’s personal requirements. Dieter May, Senior Vice President Digital Services and Business Models at the BMW Group, will expand on this further during a podium discussion on 28 February 2017.
The BMW Group is also using Mobile World Congress 2017 (taking place on 27 February – 2 March) to highlight the shape of things to come for autonomous parking. An active driving demonstration will feature a BMW i3 parking itself using gesture control.
BMW Connected: maximum personalisation
The BMW Connected service keeps BMW customers on time, in touch and in control via multiple touchpoints, such as smartphone, smartwatch and voice assistant. The features of the service, such as trip planning and remote control functions, are focused on the user and delivered in an intelligent, personalised form adapted to the user’s context.
The foundation of the service is the Open Mobility Cloud, built on Microsoft Azure, which processes data from multiple sources and presents the user with just the right information at just the right time. Having been rolled out in Europe, the USA, China and other key markets, the BMW Connected personal mobility assistant is now available in 29 countries
The devices that can be linked to the vehicle using BMW Connected currently include smartphones (iOS or Android), smart devices like the Apple Watch and Samsung Gear (S2 and S3), as well as the Amazon Echo.
Thanks to Amazon’s Alexa service, users can, for example, find out their BMW’s fuel level, lock their vehicle or activate the ventilation from the comfort of their home simply by using spoken commands. Alexa also allows users to check upcoming appointments based on the BMW Connected mobility agenda and to enquire about optimal departure times in order to arrive at an appointment on time.
User personalisation and convenience are set to be further enhanced by the arrival of a new service being tested for the first time in the UK from the middle of this year. In the future, this will enable BMW Connected to alert the user when their BMW is due for service and offer a choice of appointments at their local dealer.
Appointments can be booked via BMW Connected, and will automatically be added to the user’s mobility agenda. In this way, BMW Connected keeps users informed of their vehicle’s service needs and makes bookings quick and easy.
The car as an integral part of our future digital lifestyles
BMW Connected offers a wealth of digital services geared towards customers’ personal mobility requirements, and is designed to integrate seamlessly into their digital lives. At the Consumer Electronic Show 2017 (CES), BMW presented its vision of the additional services that could, in the future, help customers to make optimum use of the time spent in their vehicle while it is driving autonomously.
Speech-based entertainment and productivity services could be employed in tomorrow’s cars to make a dinner reservation, for example, as demonstrated at the CES using a Microsoft Cortana prototype.
Another vision unveiled by BMW at CES 2017 is an en route delivery service developed in collaboration with Amazon Prime. BMW drivers place their order while out on the road and can have it delivered to a location along their current route. The ideal delivery point is computed by Prime Now and the Open Mobility Cloud.
Gesture-controlled parking with the BMW i3: a wave of the hand is all it takes
The BMW Group is presenting gesture-controlled parking, a technical evolution of the remote control parking system, at Mobile World Congress 2017. A demonstration shows a BMW i3 manoeuvring itself into and out of a parking space, with the whole process initiated by the driver from outside the vehicle with a simple wave of the hand.
The BMW Group can be found at Outdoor Area Stand OA3B.36 in front of Hall 5 at Mobile World Congress.
The panel discussion “Cars as a service” with Dieter May, Senior Vice President Digital Services and Business Models at the BMW Group, takes place from 2.00 – 3.00 p.m. on 28 February in Hall 4, Auditorium 2.
