[jamesinaz]

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I've had this car since new. And I've been very happy with the voice recognition feature. Suddenly not so good.

I will press the button and speak clearly an address. Response is "I didn't quite catch that". I repeat and say it louder and slower. Nope no good. Maybe it repeats failure to hear or maybe it offers to call someone.

I mean once I manage to get it to take an address the GPS still works. And it will still place calls when it finally gets it right. But I mean it was easy to use for 4 years and suddenly it's like dealing with a deaf and retarded subordinate.

Any ideas or is this a feature BMW planted to nudge me to buy a new car?

[G30M]

maybe it didn't lose IQ but went deaf.

eg mic broken or needs reset

alternatively subs ended and wants more subs $$

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by G30M

maybe it didn't lose IQ but went deaf.

eg mic broken or needs reset

alternatively subs ended and wants more subs $$

Does seem to have gone deaf. Did not know a mic could be reset. How?

As to subs I think you mean subscription which must have run out long ago. It is a 2021 model and I never paid for one. But looking at my records I purchased on May 17, 2021. So it may have started on that date 4 years after purchase.

I need to check into that. Why would a voice activation feature have a use by date?

[G30M]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

Does seem to have gone deaf. Did not know a mic could be reset. How?

As to subs I think you mean subscription which must have run out long ago. It is a 2021 model and I never paid for one. But looking at my records I purchased on May 17, 2021. So it may have started on that date 4 years after purchase.

I need to check into that. Why would a voice activation feature have a use by date?

Depends on your subs.

Mine would stop texting and calling phonebook, navigating, etc after my subs expired, but continues to perform in car functions but i did buy a free lifetime connected something which obviously does not do the other connected something else.

Check your mybmw website

[jamesinaz]

OK I checked mybmw. I also (I think) did a soft reset of the iDrive system.

It seems that it hears me better now. But, it is still lobotomized. If I spell out an address it takes it and works fine. But previously I could just say "Safeway" or "Chase Bank" and it would list options to choose from. Now it just asks me to give it an address. So it truly feels like something stopped working.

On MYBMW I think that the feature if it is one would be in concierge services. Everything else is listed as included with my car or irrelevant such as iconic sounds (gas car don't need) or traffic camera which wouldn't apply. The concierge service is supposed to work until 6/29/25 per mybmw although the car was purchased on May 17. So I think this might be the issue.

I'll have to contact BMW I guess to find out. I sure hope I'm not supposed to pay for these features. Subscriptions shouldn't be part of the deal for life of the car IMO though I'm sure someone will come on and cast scorn on me for being out of date.

[G30M]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

OK I checked mybmw. I also (I think) did a soft reset of the iDrive system.

It seems that it hears me better now. But, it is still lobotomized. If I spell out an address it takes it and works fine. But previously I could just say "Safeway" or "Chase Bank" and it would list options to choose from. Now it just asks me to give it an address. So it truly feels like something stopped working.

On MYBMW I think that the feature if it is one would be in concierge services. Everything else is listed as included with my car or irrelevant such as iconic sounds (gas car don't need) or traffic camera which wouldn't apply. The concierge service is supposed to work until 6/29/25 per mybmw although the car was purchased on May 17. So I think this might be the issue.

I'll have to contact BMW I guess to find out. I sure hope I'm not supposed to pay for these features. Subscriptions shouldn't be part of the deal for life of the car IMO though I'm sure someone will come on and cast scorn on me for being out of date.

in some countries the connected drive stopped working after telcos shutdown 3G bands, in such cars that only had a 3G cellular connection. cars with 4G connections would still work.

i presume your car has 4G. 4G bands have changed over time.

it's possible your area had some cellular upgrades to a different band that your car cellular hardware is unable to connect to. (eg if you have a 6 year old iphone it won't work properly because it does not have certain bands of 4G for example. think of these bands as radio stations. except that your mobile phone doesn't have all these stations, it needs a specific hardware support for each station, or 4G band)

or i could be down the wrong hole and it's something else.

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by G30M

in some countries the connected drive stopped working after telcos shutdown 3G bands, in such cars that only had a 3G cellular connection. cars with 4G connections would still work.

i presume your car has 4G. 4G bands have changed over time.

it's possible your area had some cellular upgrades to a different band that your car cellular hardware is unable to connect to. (eg if you have a 6 year old iphone it won't work properly because it does not have certain bands of 4G for example. think of these bands as radio stations. except that your mobile phone doesn't have all these stations, it needs a specific hardware support for each station, or 4G band)

or i could be down the wrong hole and it's something else.

Don't know. Don't think there has been a recent change. The car THINKS it is online as far as I can tell and mybmw thinks it is still covered for concierge service features until the end of June. Might be that MYBMW is wrong and the actual purchase date of May 17 it shut off. But 4 years seems an odd period. I'd have thought the 3 years would have been it.

Going to call BMW next week and see if they can respond.

[jamesinaz]

Well I contacted BMW. It is in fact a service called "Connected Drive". At the 4 year mark they discontinued my service but for $150 I can renew it for one year. That is $12.50 a month for features I thought were built into my car. Not happy about this.

[Littlecoupe]

Have you tried the voice recognition in Android Auto / Carplay? I think that uses Google (in your phone) for voice recognition and data processing via your phone data connection. I only assume you're using the built in BMW voice assistant? This may be a stop-gap to avoid paying and giving back some voice features? I don't know if iDrive 7 is the same as iDrive 8, but if I press and hold the mic button, it uses Google Assistant rather than BMW's.

In my F22 (iDrive 6) I used BMW's voice to text for my phone and it worked for a long while, then same as you, couldn't make out anything I said. I often would scream at it the third time, then tell it to f*ck off, and it would turn off LOL. After a while it worked again, then it didn't. I was still within the connection period of whatever version of Connected Drive it had, so no idea, maybe a mic issue as others mentioned.

[jamesinaz]

Yeah I tried Apple Carplay and wasnt a fan of their system. But maybe it's time to give it a longer test. Problem with that is the learning curve. No, not mine. We are a single car household and the significant other wife unit is not a guru techno geek. OK I put that nicely.

She also likes using Sirius Radio and maybe I need to drop that too and sign on for an apple music account. Need to check and see if they have "channels" that will make the wife unit happy. Mmmmm

Might be the answer.

[G30M]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

Well I contacted BMW. It is in fact a service called "Connected Drive". At the 4 year mark they discontinued my service but for $150 I can renew it for one year. That is $12.50 a month for features I thought were built into my car. Not happy about this.

that is very disturbing. nowhere did they say it would stop responding to voice commands after a few years.

PS i also checked the "lifetime" thing i bought - it wasn't connected drive it was "remote services".

i guess both our cars are now dumb cars.

i now use google android auto or apple car play to call people and send messages and also navigate. previously i could do all these with BMW itself.

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by G30M

that is very disturbing. nowhere did they say it would stop responding to voice commands after a few years.

PS i also checked the "lifetime" thing i bought - it wasn't connected drive it was "remote services".

i guess both our cars are now dumb cars.

i now use google android auto or apple car play to call people and send messages and also navigate. previously i could do all these with BMW itself.

Voice commands still work it is the intelligence behind them that is dumbed down. Prior to disabling I could just speak the word Safeway and a list of Safeway markets would pop up displaying distance. Now I must enter an address.

So the actual FEATURE of voice control works but it got a lot dumber. BTW also the deaf part I think happens when they switch off the Connected Drive and you have to reset the system so it hears properly again.

Looking at Hyundais and Audis now. hate to sell a car with 32K that I like over $12.50 a month but I am aggravated.

[G30M]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

Looking at Hyundais and Audis now. hate to sell a car with 32K that I like over $12.50 a month but I am aggravated.

it got worse with newer BMWs even more subs.

this is my last BMW, it's a V8 (couldn't afford the last M5), I'll live with it until it dies but my wife's next car is going to be the '26 Hyundai Pallisade

[jamesinaz]

I think the answer for me is to use apple carplay. I think it offers similar features I had before and removes the requirement to pay subscription. I am not a cheap man but some things irk me. Like subscriptions from BMW for a car that was not cheap.