The rise of infotainment from high-end gadget to everyday necessity means automakers are fitting more stuff into cars than we ever thought possible, and here’s something that feels targeted at a specific type of person. Mercedes-Benz has announced that, with the right subscription plan, you’ll soon be able to take camera-on Microsoft Teams meetings in select models. You’re pulling that face at that statement, aren’t you? I don’t blame you.
While using a Mercedes-Benz to hop on a Teams call while driving isn’t entirely new, how the app works in select new Mercedes-Benz models is changing. As the brand states:
With this update, drivers can use the in-car camera while driving, allowing other participants to see them during a meeting. Given the brand’s focus on safety, the use of the camera abides by the laws of each country and has been approved for use on the move. To minimise distraction and maximise safety while driving, the meeting video stream turns off automatically as soon as the camera is activated. As a result, the driver will never see any shared screens or slides – and the camera can be turned off at any time.
Ah, so that’s what the selfie camera in models like the new CLA is really for. It makes sense that drivers won’t be able to see anyone screen-sharing while they’re on the go because doing so sounds incredibly distracting, but camera functionality only seems helpful for those working at organizations with a camera-on policy, and even then, won’t they know you’re driving?
Of course, being available on-camera around the clock doesn’t come for free. This twist on Microsoft Teams access requires a subscription to what Mercedes-Benz calls the Entertainment Package Plus, pricing for which hasn’t been announced yet for the American market. Given that the non-plus bundle of optional data-dependent services for cars with MBUX infotainment will run you around $150 a year, it wouldn’t be surprising if the full suite of digital services for cars with the new MB.OS system may run at or above that pricing once the free trial period runs out.
I must admit, demand seems questionable, at least in this application. The only people I could really see wanting to pay for camera-on Microsoft Teams integration in their cars are C-suiters, and most high-flying all-business executives probably won’t be daily driving CLAs. Beyond that, a car is kind of like a third space for a lot of people. A place to laugh and cry and jam out and make exasperated hand gestures at the poor driving of other motorists, not a place for work to rapidly encroach on. At 70 MPH, no one can hear how badly you’re butchering that Sarah McLaughlin track. Your housemates and/or partner and/or family won’t judge you for eating Long John Silver’s if you don’t bring it home and just eat it in the car in the parking lot instead.
Don’t get me wrong, the rise of technology and the advent of flex days or even working from home offer some amazing upsides. I wouldn’t be writing this here if it weren’t for that. However, we’re rapidly losing spaces where we’re free to be unavailable, where there’s no real expectation of filing that report or sending that email right now. Should we keep the car as one of those spaces? I reckon it’s not a bad idea.
Top graphic images: Mercedes-Benz
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Work meeting in the car w/ cameras?
NO…NO ONE NEEDS OR WANTS THIS BULLSHIT! Whoever uses this while driving has no life at all and is a distracted jerkoff. Any company that makes this can…fuck off!
Get the fuck outa here w/ this BS…
and just…drive, and enjoy it!
Ah, yes… The luxury of never being able to get a moment’s peace.
Nobody particularly wants this feature. but I guess it makes sense for their customer base of corporate drones.
Last thing I’d want is to be the person on the other end of the meeting while someone is driving around, not seeing the screen and chiming in half assed. I could see it if this was for when the car is parked, so you can use it as a mobile office and actually join in.
I’d pay for a force-field that blocks all Teams transmissions as long as I’m near the vehicle. Now, this, you’d have to pay me time-and-a-half to participate in.
This reminds me of just how brutal American work culture seems to me – someone living in another country. I went on exchange to the States back in 2015 and was chatting with this girl about what she was planning to do after uni. She wanted to get into one of the big three accounting firms and somehow the topic of annual leave came up. She said that graduates at these firms were expected to not take their leave at all during the grad program (which was a couple of years or something like that) – if they did it was viewed as lazy and essentially a career-limiting move. I could never get over that. If you work for a better life, but you work all your life, what’s the point?
Anyway long story short I hate this, thanks MB.
I don’t even want Teams on my computer, but some of my clients use it so I am stuck. Gross.
Also one more reason I have no interest in ever buying another new car.
Absolutely not.
Also, don’t buy a C class. They shouldn’t exist IMO. You can get much more car from a different brand for that money, and MB seems to save all the tacky crap for the C class.
If you want a MB, and you should, get a used non-C class.
If you want a Mercedes, get an old(er) one. My ’14 E-class wagon is about the last of them that don’t completely suck, and it still kinda sucks compared to what came before. It’s “fine”, but is nowhere near as good a car for it’s day as my ’88 E-class wagon was. The w212 is a very good car, but the w124 was about the best car you could buy at the time.
My next MB will be a w126. I’ll need to sell another one first.
The w126 is a delightful car, but the w124 was more advanced. And there were no (production anyway) w126 wagons, so not suitable for my use case.
I really loved the ’88 300TE I had, would love to have another one, and that is really what I should have bought when I got my S212, in hindsight. Or gone classic and found a w123 280TE (my personal holy grail).
Hmm now I want a wagon.
This isn’t even a C-Class. Its a CLA, so a swoopy A class.
There are (or were) decent C classes but you either need to spec them out as plain and classic as possible or get one with an AMG badge to be worth buying.
Oh dear, somehow the kitten filter got turned on and I’m driving so I can’t turn it off.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s-frHneo95k
Oh goodie. Now we get to see even more people driving pantsless.
Ugh – You guys do know that it’s already available on the E Class w the $1500 MBUX Superscreen Package?
You can use Zoom, Webex, etc – plus take selfies, etc.
Its far more likely to be used for web calls in the E Class, and selfies in the CLA.
That said – it’s the dead last option I would ever choose for any car.
Even after the Night Package. (Why would anyone pay more for cheaper black exterior trim?)
With CarPlay Teams messages still pop up, but I never check them. Driving is me time (I drive a fair bit for work). Why on earth would I want to join a video call while I’m driving. I’m also assuming that it would probably go against every single Health & Safety policy
I’d sooner pay NOT to use Teams in my car or anywhere else, for that matter.
Some of my colleagues do join Teams meetings from their cars, but they just use a phone on speaker or existing Bluetooth connection. Nobody where I work is buying a Mercedes any time soon, but I should ask the guy with the Tesla if he can use the screen for Teams.
Maybe through the browser. It does Zoom just fine, but that’s a native app.
Given that much of Teams’ back end uses SharePoint as a pseudo database, this seems like a monumental CF.
I wonder how many of the car’s own systems can be hacked through the SharePoint server. Should we ask those hacker guys?
If MB has designed it sensibly Teams et al are sandboxed and can’t touch the automotive components. OTOH SharePoint has a huge vulnerability right now that allows hacking document libraries.
And MS’s “fix” for it nuked my company’s SharePoint site for a full day while IT struggled to revert it. Good times!
I am generally a Microsoft fan, but both Teams and Sharepoint suck donkey balls as a rule.
And the ONLY time I use a camera in a meeting is the rare occasion that I don’t do my annual review in person, and virtual Dr visits. We did conference calls without cameras for decades, I don’t need to see you, you don’t need to see me, we IT types tend to have faces for radio anyway.
No ‘camera on’ policy at my employer, but with a 2 hour commute I’ve listened to plenty of meetings while on the road, and presented for a few while parked at a gas station. Android phone hotspot for internet, aux jack stereo input for speakers. Worked just fine without an in vehicle data connection or smart dash tablet infotainment system.
Of all the things I wouldn’t pay to use in a car I’ve already paid for, Teams is the most. I hate using it for free.
Does the MS Teams access in Apple CarPlay get turned off in this Merc? Because I’m certainly not going to pay just to have a camera I don’t need.
Teams is punitive no matter where you are but I guess it’s the same as having it a paid upgrade in your car: An answer to a question only a very few people were asking. In the Merc’s case it was someone at MB who desperately wants someone to pay extra for services in their car. For MS Teams in general it was corporate IT monkeys that needed a solution to everyone independently using Slack that they could control when we all went to work from home. It is a very poor copy of Slack with heavy corporate IT controls just like the other MS tools.
But yeah, sure let’s charge extra for that to be used in the car with your selfie camera just so they can get a picture of you almost hitting that pedestrian while trying to answer why your team isn’t filling out your TPS reports.
Did you get the memo about the new cover sheets for the TPS reports? I’ll get you the memo.
Just don’t come for my red Swingline stapler…
Stapler app is extra.
The business development people at Microsoft are a breed apart. They’re always coming up with the wildest tie-ins.
And yet I’ve just switched from the Classic Outlook to the New Outlook and they removed all kinds of features and UI looks like I’m using gmail on the web vs a professional program.
Weird. Teams has a CarPlay app (presumably Android Auto as well), and I use it to dial into the occasional work meeting while sitting in a parking lot, but I’ve never once thought “Man, it sure would be great if my coworkers could see me sitting in a car looking straight ahead!”
I’ve never worked for a company that required camera-on Teams calls. Can anyone share what’s that’s like? I assume awful.
It is.
There are a few directors that require it where I am. It’s fine. I work globally at my company and the US is one of the few regions that camera use isn’t the norm. I don’t mind it really.
If we’re going to work remotely (as I do) then I prefer it since you do pick up on non-verbal queues when communicating. It’s not the same as being in-person but it’s not bad.
However, I would never use my camera in the car and I have taken Teams meetings in my car before.
I am also wondering about the CarPlay/AA apps. Are they going to pull a GM move and stop supporting those? Or do they really think people will pay to have Teams access with their stupid camera? This is either monumentally stupid or there is more to the feature set than we’re hearing about. Though both of these things can be true.
I work globally in a fully remote role as well. I don’t mind cameras if I’m sitting at my desk, but I’m not turning it on when I’m anywhere else, and find it off-putting when anyone else does (like video on when you’re walking in an airport is just weird).
Yeah, it would be great if we could do something about attending meetings at all cost. Hey, people, we can reschedule instead of listening to you pick up the kids from school. None of this is that important.
People joining (or worse, leading) meetings from the airport are infuriating. You can’t hear them, they can’t hear you, and everybody can hear the 6th final boarding call for Air Nauru flight N404 to Woollagong.
And the people having to unfortunately sit next to you also have to listen to you participate whether you’re on speaker on not.
Yeah, I think most of the folks in my org have generally figured out Teams/Zoom etiquette.
We’re all mostly rational people and the expectation is that cameras are on when you’re in your office or a private area. Cameras off when in public places, and just don’t take the call when you’re in a noisy or distracted environment.
The real move is to integrate Teams in a way that automatically links to your workplace and make you pay to disable it. That’s how they could make some money.
Exactly, this seems less like a “feature” and more like a torture.
Huh, Torch was looking for new ways to incorporate cars into workplace scandals just yesterday. In-car Teams integration (with camera, no less!) seems like a good starting point!
People have phones and tablets, they can use them for whatever app they need on the road, provide a charger, that’s it.
But i guess car makers have no one inside the company willing to say a firm no to adding features, and no one is brave enough to embrace simplicity or even provide it as an option, their idea of simplicity is removing buttons and cram everything into a touch screen, you don’t want that? your options are very limited for new cars.
this is giving me a chuckle because this is a GERMAN car so imagine lady driving 160+mph on the autobahn on teams meeting and acting as normally as any American would be driving on a 55mph state highway.
You mean like Sabine doing the Nuremberg in a Ring Taxi chatting with you like you’re just toddling down to the corner market?
Nuremberg?
Really mess that one up…Nurburgring
“Well, boss, you knew I was in the car, but you really had to talk right then, so it shouldn’t surprise you that there was cursing.”