The new Sync 4 infotainment platform can operate mirrored smartphone applications and the native … [+]
Fair or not, smartphones are the bar by which all native automotive infotainment systems are measured. With long product development cycles and historical lack of 24/7 connectivity, it’s been hard for automotive manufacturers to keep up with customer expectations. But that’s starting to change. Ford is trying to close the usability gap with the launch of Sync 4 in the 2021 Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle.
Central to the Sync 4 electronics platform is a new NXP chip that has double the processing power compared to the previous generation. Like with Sync 3, the driver can use voice commands to perform tasks, but Sync 4’s computing capabilities enables it process and interpret natural language commands quickly on-board and online. With an embedded modem in the vehicle that’s always on, it’s able to leverage the “wisdom of the cloud” to deliver results with a higher degree of confidence and accuracy, and ask for clarification from the user when additional information is needed. That said, the system will still work in internet ‘dead zones,’ although it may take a few follow-up questions to find the answer the driver is looking for.
Being able to talk to the infotainment system like you would with Google Assistant or Siri is just one of the ways that Sync 4 will be easier to use. It also uses artificial intelligence to learn driver habits to improve the operability by customizing the 8- or 15.5-inch touch-screen with shortcuts based on the driver’s usage patterns. This means that if the user generally listens to certain radio stations in the morning, the system will automatically make those buttons available on the top-level, and then reconfigure the display based on differing needs for return commutes.
Automating these customizations should help make the system more intuitive, says Gary Jablonski, chief engineer for Sync.
“Previously, drivers would have had some learning to do with Sync 3 to figure out how its commands are structured or taken multiple taps to find the correct function,” he said in a phone interview with Forbes.
For the consumer, perhaps the biggest achievement of Sync 4 and other advanced infotainment systems is the ability to use their smartphone and native system at the same time on the larger 15-inch touchscreen.
“In the Mach E electric vehicle, we think our charging station database is going to be one of the best in class, so the customer may want to spend time with our navigation system, but they also may want to play a podcast on CarPlay.
And that’s an option that will be a lot easier for occupants to use now that mirroring apps can connect wirelessly over Bluetooth to the head unit. However, Ford will still be at a disadvantage when it comes to finding a very specific places of interest (POI), acknowledges Jablonski.
Google, Apple, and even Microsoft have the advantage of deep and wide databases of businesses and addresses that are constantly updated. The automotive manufacturer has partnered with several leading data providers to deliver comparable results, but without the information gleaned by crawling websites and mining user searches in proprietary browsers, it’s not an easy task.
On the other hand, smartphones also have limitations. With dead zones and often painfully slow connections, the promise of ubiquitous broadband access is still on the horizon for many drivers. In many cases, an embedded navigation system is a good and often necessary insurance policy.
“Our engineers had to figure out how to be better than a cell phone,” says Jablonski. “Sync 4 includes a map embedded in the vehicle, so even if you lose connectivity in a national park you will still have a map and will still be able to get you out of a park and back home using our navigation.”
Like mobile phones, a data connection using the embedded modem is required to maximize the cloud-based functionality. In the Mustang Mach-E, this access will be included for an unspecified period of time, and after the complimentary trial offer ends, the owner must subscribe to or add the vehicle to their existing data plan.
To be clear, Sync 4 will work in a disconnected state, says Jablonski, but many of the advanced capabilities—better natural language understanding, music streaming services, being able to find a specific POI not in the navigation database—will require use of the embedded modem. And no, you won’t be able to use your smartphone as a hotspot to get that internet connectivity.
This could be a tough sell. With Google Assistant, Siri, and Amazon Alexa already available on smartphones, buyers may have a hard time justifying paying extra for something that they more or less already have. Sync 4 also doesn’t offer payment capabilities that Alexa does, such as placing a Starbucks order on your way to work, although Jablonski says that cloud-enabled commerce interactions are technically possible if they decide that it resonates with its customers.
How compelling these initial features are remain to be seen. Ford experienced technical difficulties demonstrating Sync 4 at the launch of the Mustang Mach-E at the 2019 Los Angeles International Auto Show, leaving attendees unable to test the functionality in the car.
But even if buyers decide not to enable full capabilities in the future, Ford says they still should have a better, more smartphone-like experience than with Sync 3.
The larger available 15-inch touch screen that.
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