When I was at this Toyota R&D center tour (more will come on that soon), I had a bit of an epiphany. I’m pretty certain it’s not the epiphany Toyota was hoping I’d have, but I’m not here to provide epiphanies for major multinational corporations. They don’t own epiphanies, at least not just yet. Anyway, this epiphany happened in the middle of a tech demonstration in a new Toyota showing off some of their new infotainment software. Specifically, the voice commands.
Now, I want to be clear that the epiphany I had covers all cars that use voice commands and not just Toyota. In fact, the updated software Toyota was demonstrating worked quite well and incorporated some thoughtful features, like how their AI assistant now runs on the hardware inside the car, instead of sending all requests into the cloud, for improved speed and, even more importantly, privacy.
The demonstration was given to me by a member of the voice team, and she did a fantastic job of showing the software. My epiphany had nothing to do with her, I want to make that clear. She just happened to be there at the moment it happened.
This was my epiphany: voice controls in a car are, for the most part, useless. They’re a tech gimmick, something that we thought we wanted for so long that once we got it, we can’t admit to ourselves that, really, we don’t care. Here’s my question: does anyone actually use the voice commands in their car?
Actually, I maybe should qualify this a bit. I think voice commands sometimes make sense when it comes to using the nav system, and asking it to take you somewhere, because in most in-car nav systems, it’s a pain to do otherwise, and it commands a lot of your focus and attention. So, I’ll admit that voice controls for that one particular thing makes sense. But for almost everything else? I don’t understand the appeal.
Take changing temperature, for example. You can say something like “Hey Toyota, I’m hot,” and then the car will lower the HVAC temperature. If you meant that you’re hot in the context of how sexy you are, that information will be lost on your car, so sorry about that. It’s not you.
When the basic “I’m hot/lower temperature” exchange is written out, it seems almost reasonable, but in practice? It’s awkward and stupid. It’s not exactly quick, and it’s definitely not any easier than just reaching over to the climate knob or buttons and turning the temperature down a few degrees. You can usually even do it while talking about something else to another person in your car or while listening to music or whatever. You just kind of do it, almost without thinking.
But when you have to tell your car to do something like that, you have to address the car, pause as it recognizes the attention word (or you hit a button to make it start listening) and then tell it you’re hot or cold or reduce/raise the temperature or whatever, then wait for it to acknowledge that, repeat what it did back to you, and then change the temperature.
Or you could just turn a little knob a few clicks.
Don’t believe me? Here’s that situation in action:
It actually works fairly well, considering, but it’s still a slow ass-pain compared to just moving the big temperature-control knob that is right there. The same thing goes for voice commands for almost any physical control in the car, like adjusting the volume. Using the knob is always quicker and easier and less obtrusive than talking to your car and asking it to do it.
Here’s another example, in a Kia, for turning on heated seats:
Here you have to remember to say “seat warmer” instead of “heated seats,” which it doesn’t understand. And, again, while this technically works, there’s a button right there that you don’t have to ask to do anything. You just poke it and make it do your bidding, which, in this case, is gently warming your ass.
I can’t fathom the point of any of these voice commands. They make nothing easier. They take tasks that you can do while listening to music or talking or thinking about something – all while focusing on driving – and turn them into a an irritating little conversation with your car that forces you to pay attention in ways that just instinctively pushing a button or turning a knob don’t. Sure, you may not be doing anything physically, but mentally getting your car’s attention verbally and asking it to do things is far more distracting than letting muscle memory guide your hand to a knob.
If you really want to hate voice commands, and perhaps even the very concept of speech itself, and maybe even all of humanity, you can watch this Volkswagen voice command instructional video, which combines an inane script and cloying acting direction to make an experience about as annoying as walking around with your underpants filled with cat litter and marbles:
I’m so sorry. That was terrible. And confusing. And stupid. And it sure as hell didn’t make me think I really need or want to tell my car any commands.
Again, for navigation, okay, I can see how voice commands have some use. Fine. If you’re connecting a phone with CarPlay or Android Auto, then you likely have that feature already. But I think if every automaker announced that all of their unique voice commands would be gone tomorrow, hardly anyone would really care.
Maybe I’m wrong here; maybe there are people out there who really love using voice commands to adjust volume or temperature or to open tailgates. Maybe they have valid reasons, like, say, they’re legally blind drivers or something like that. It’s certainly possible. But I’m really skeptical.
I think voice commands are the sorts of things that, if used, get used during the first few months of ownership of the car, and then are promptly and happily forgotten about, because they don’t actually make life any better. Maybe we can call this experiment in voice controls a success, quietly mothball it, and move on to more important and interesting things.
How’s that sound to everyone? If it’s cool by you, just focus on your computer, say “Hey Autopian, to hell with voice commands,” and that should do it!
Top graphic images: DepositPhotos.com; Toyota
The entire point is to normalize non-button based controls, so automakers can save money. Yes a button is the easiest and most efficient for the customer to interact with, but those cost money. Another digital button on a screen is effectively free (one time dev cost, not per vehicle), but customers don’t like poking through 57 menus to do any little thing.
Voice recognition is useful for long strings of text like addresses, or calling a contact on your phone. So if it’s already there, why not enable it to control functions instead of the touch screen or physical buttons?
My wife’s 2011 Mazda has voice controls for certain functions. The only one that we use is to pair a phone/music device to bluetooth. That model year might have been the first with a screen for the backup camera in a CX7, so there are no on-screen controls for that function. The only way you can do it (that I know of) is via voice commands.
On our 2013 Mazda 3 it was actually much easier to use voice to pair BT.
There was a way to do it through the tiny screen (if in park) but that’s just a failing of the settings UI
Agreed. My new Tacoma has this, tried it once or twice for giggles then forgot about it. It’s way more work to try and remember the correct commands than it is to just reach over and do whatever it is I want done. Voice commands for a few things with Siri work great though, but the built-in commands are worthless.
It’s a slippery slope, eventually they will mix some AI into the voice control, and well, all I can say is that it is good thing that my father isn’t with us anymore, because his commentary that was mix of animal husbandry, circus performance, and theology would certainly confuse the hell out of the car.
Replace “may just be” with “are” in the headline and it’s perfect.
The only voice commands I ever use in my car are Android Auto. And it’s only ever “text Spouse. Traffic horrible. Will be very late” then it asks me if I want to send and I say yes. That’s it. That’s the use case.
All three of my in car voice commands start, “Hey Siri”.
Although if automakers keep burying things like seat warmers under 3 clicks of haptic screen buttons, I might start to see the appeal of voice commands. (No, I won’t. I’ll just buy a car with buttons. Some automaker will figure out the BUTTON CONUNDRUM eventually.)
Every one of them know the button conundrum, and what the customer says they want. What they don’t want to do is pay for dedicated buttons that cost them shareholder profit margin (and their year end bonus). So every avenue will be tried to convince you tablet/voice/contextual controls are far superior to dedicated, single function, switches/buttons.
Only real hope is if Global regs expand on Europe’s requirement for critical vehicle functions have dedicated controls.
If I had known that automotive journalism would involve so much sitting in new cars with pretty Asian women (two assumptions on my part) I’d have considered it as a career. 😉
Bertel, what’s up?
I googled, but am still lost. Or is it a Woody Allen reference ’cause of Soon-Yi?
I have never actually used a car’s voice commands beyond playing with them to see how well they function. I agree that it’s never better than actually hitting the button. I do use Siri via CarPlay quite often.
It’s just more unnecessary tech to load into a car, adding weight and cost. Most of use are now walking around with a voice assistant in our pockets anyhow (“Hey Siri, find a dispensary near me”), so why add the additional tech to our cars?
Oh, yeah. Subscription fees. That’s why.
*most of us, rather.
Correct. The only thing it does in our Pacifica is to be annoying when I accidentally hit the button in the steering wheel. And of course “cancel” or “stop” or “nevermind” don’t work so I have to wait for it to tell me it didn’t understand and then ask if I want to hear the menu of commands.
I do sometimes use my Google assistant when I’m driving. Like “hey Google, what’s the forecast in Boston.” Or “hey google, navigate to the Hampton inn Boston seaport.” Which I think is yet another argument that car makers should focus on robust integrations with android auto and car play, because anything native to the car either won’t be executed well or will be quickly obsolete. –cough– GM –cough–
That’s shareholder-centric tech, designed for preventing harm to stock prices and nothing else.
It is meant to address the clunky touch menus without actually fixing them the way God intended, with physical buttons.
I feel like half the interior and driveability innovations of the last 10 years of automotive design (save FSD/Supercruise) are just layers and layers of tech gimmicks. At least your car has physical knobs. In my car the voice gimmick to change temperature is actually something I reluctantly use because the gimmicky touchscreen requires two swipes and three taps just to get to the HVAC settings!
Gimmicky gimmick
I was driving a borrowed AMG A45, and it was only when I was nearly taken out by a badly driven Mercedes Sprinter van that I found out it had voice commands.
I’d said “f**king Mercedes” followed by a string of expletives.
Then the car started talking to me and offering to call people I didn’t know, which was not what I needed having just completed an emergency swerve-and-brake at 70mph.
But I’m old and fear change. Maybe having to watch your mouth during emergencies is fun and zeitgeisty.
It probably thought that you said that you wanted to fuck in the Mercedes you were driving. I wonder who these people that it was offering to call were exactly.
I was too panicked to take notes.