[attack7777]

I never used it in my vehicle with iDrive 7 because of how limited it was, and it's depressing to learn that it hasn't gotten any better in iDrive 8.5. It's flawless at showing the words I say in the HUD, but I can never quite get the words in the right order so that it actually understands any question.

Because of this, I've mentally associated the voice that comes back with that of an idiot, so when today it took 5 tries to ask where a particular setting was, and she couldn't understand, I may have told her to *something* off, at which she told me to watch my language (something I think it also shouldn't do... it's my vehicle, and she's not a real person).

This led me to find out that you can't completely disable the functionality without also turning off Siri or Google Assistant, and you can't make the mic button short press use your assistant of choice (you still have to use the long press).

I really wish this feature worked well, but I think it's one of the more infuriating tech features about the car, since it's just so poorly implemented compared to a common expectation of quality in a modern voice assistant.

Just had to vent. Thank you for listening.

[LVBMW]

Originally Posted by attack7777

I never used it in my vehicle with iDrive 7 because of how limited it was, and it's depressing to learn that it hasn't gotten any better in iDrive 8.5. It's flawless at showing the words I say in the HUD, but I can never quite get the words in the right order so that it actually understands any question.

Because of this, I've mentally associated the voice that comes back with that of an idiot, so when today it took 5 tries to ask where a particular setting was, and she couldn't understand, I may have told her to *something* off, at which she told me to watch my language (something I think it also shouldn't do... it's my vehicle, and she's not a real person).

This led me to find out that you can't completely disable the functionality without also turning off Siri or Google Assistant, and you can't make the mic button short press use your assistant of choice (you still have to use the long press).

I really wish this feature worked well, but I think it's one of the more infuriating tech features about the car, since it's just so poorly implemented compared to a common expectation of quality in a modern voice assistant.

Just had to vent. Thank you for listening.

Sorry you have had these experiences. I have found the voice commands to work extremely well. Even if the voice assistant is not capable of executing the specific command, I have found it opens an appropriate menu or app to allow you to execute it.

[RichardInCA]

Originally Posted by LVBMW

Sorry you have had these experiences. I have found the voice commands to work extremely well. Even if the voice assistant is not capable of executing the specific command, I have found it opens an appropriate menu or app to allow you to execute it.

Same here to be honest - I’ve concluded that I need to spend some time to think about what else I can do with the voice assistant as I think I’m barely scratching the surface.

[attack7777]

In today’s specific case I was trying to ask it to disable navigation suggestions (since it suggested that I head over to my ex’s place, still a sore point ). I was expecting it to open a settings menu or tell me where to go to make changes, but i had to rephrase the question 5 times before it told me I could hold down the suggestion and dismiss it (good but I wanted to disable them totally, since my destinations aren’t predictable), and after another 5 tries of phrasing that question I gave up.

It is great at the basics. But they made a big deal about how this will help simplify knowing how to manage the vehicle.

I’m sure all the analytics they’re collecting over time will lead to improvements.

[Scrapula]

My son told her to shut the f up and it disabled her. I had to dig through and reactivate her.

[RichardInCA]

I’m sorry Dave, I can’t shut the f*ck up