Hello everyone, this is Mr.Yu from GeekCar Intelligence Cockpit Intelligence Agency, Season 3, Episode 8.
In the last episode, we reviewed the intelligent cockpit of the BAIC BJEV Arcfox Alpha S. The visually appealing design, stable intelligent voice experience, and unique split central control screen left us with a deep impression.
As part of our comparative testing, we’re looking forward to getting into the Huawei HI version of the Arcfox Alpha S as soon as possible and sharing the HarmonyOS cockpit experience with you all.
Now, in this episode of our Intelligence Cockpit Intelligence Agency column, we will continue to focus on presenting you with various experiences, details, and analyses of intelligent cockpits. At the end of the review, we will also chat with you about the insights and inspirations the cockpit brings us.
Mr.Yu has always believed that talking about it is better than reading a thousand books. So we welcome everyone to join us and talk.
In this eighth episode of our Intelligence Cockpit Intelligence Agency, the protagonist once again is a new friend, the third pure electric SUV from WM Motor, the WM W6.
Half of the 2021 Intelligence Cockpit Intelligence Agency season has passed, and we’ve seen many intelligent cockpits with different styles together.
On the night when we started preparing for this review, an internal dinner for the GeekCar editorial department sparked a discussion about the memorable points of car brands:
“Some have brought impressive intelligent experiences through radical and open product strategies;”
“Some attracted a large number of high-end car owners as loyal fans through prudent product strategies and clever user operation;”
“Others have won user recognition by deeply understanding the concept of ‘home’ and continuously refining their products.”
At that time, Mr.Yu was thinking:
“What is WM Motor’s unique style?”
“Other than its active promotion of autonomous driving technology and its close cooperation with Baidu Apollo, what is your impression of WM Motor?”
This review of the WM W6’s intelligent cockpit will also be a process of seeking answers.
- This review is based on the Living Mate V3.2 of the WM W6.
Interactive HardwareThe smart cabin of Wey W6 consists of three screens: a 12.3-inch full LCD digital dashboard, a dual-screen composed of a 12.3-inch floating central control screen, and an i-Touch touch panel located between the air conditioning outlet and the central island.
Apart from the convenient keys in the steering wheel area, it is rare to see physical buttons related to cabin control in Wey W6’s cabin. On the other hand, the i-Touch touch panel, as the car control screen, supports blind operation gestures:
Swipe up/down anywhere to adjust the air conditioning temperature
Swipe left/right anywhere to adjust the air conditioning airflow
The wireless charging panel is located below the i-Touch touch panel and adopts a half-recessed design, indicating the confidence that “our cabin is user-friendly and we don’t want you to grab your phone frequently.”
A DMS camera is installed on the A pillar above the left air outlet, endowing Wey W6’s cabin with functions including face recognition login and driving fatigue monitoring.
The top pull-down operation of the home screen invokes a quick operation interface, which includes volume and brightness adjustment, switch for wireless charging, Bluetooth, and cleaning mode, seat adjustment, and even message center. This set of quick operation interface and logic is especially similar to that of Android-based Chinese smartphones. Most users can easily get started.
Visual Elements
The system interface of Wey W6 is mainly black and white, with light green as a supplement. The gradient light green is used to indicate virtual buttons, and the color style of the system is highly unified at different levels.
The color style of the car tends to be cool-toned, and the overall visual effect is delicate and soft, with high visual comfort.### Smoothness
As a car equipped with Qualcomm SA8155P chip, the system smoothness of WmAuto W6 is relatively good, including page sliding, application opening and closing, switching between different level menus, and other daily operations, all have a relatively good response and feedback speed.
On the other hand, the response speed and operating smoothness of WmAuto W6’s integration of Huawei’s Smart Assistant and Quick App system have certain requirements for network connection speed. Unfortunately, the W6-ACE Extreme Intelligence Edition that participated in the evaluation does not support 5G network, so we were unable to experience the smooth experience brought by Qualcomm SA8155P+5G network.
In WmAuto W6’s Huawei Quick App, overall operation response speed and smoothness are acceptable, but still not as good as native apps installed on the device.
Map Function
The main map resource of WmAuto W6 is Baidu Maps, which, apart from always being in the dark color scheme, has an interface and functions that are very “Baidu Maps”.
In addition to the system Dock bar that resides on the left side of the central control screen, frequently used locations can also be accessed quickly in the lower-left corner, and the screen utilization efficiency of the navigation interface is relatively high. The navigation setting of WmAuto W6’s car-mounted Baidu Maps is also relatively simple but sufficient to meet the needs of daily driving.
WmAuto W6’s Baidu Maps also supports LBS (Location Based Services), which recommends consumption, travel, life, and other needs scenarios based on the current location.The search bar also provides one-click access for common needs such as charging, parking, car washing, and toilets. If you want to achieve multiple destinations at once, you can also quickly add waypoints in the route overview card, which is very convenient.
Unfortunately, the navigation performance of the WEY W6 in dynamic scenes is not impressive.
In our intelligent cockpit evaluation system, the ability of the vehicle to navigate inertially under weak GPS signals is considered. After testing in scenarios such as overpasses, the combination of the WEY W6 and Baidu Map did not perform well in terms of inertial navigation.
When we drove the WEY W6 into the frequently tested section of the overpass, the frequency of the vehicle position updates in navigation would drop significantly, accompanied by a certain degree of vehicle position lag, subjectively observed in the range of 10-20 meters. This situation disappears when we drive out of the overpass section and there is no artificial building obstruction above the head.
In addition, when we drove into the representative extremely complex section of the Beijing West Fourth Ring Expressway Interchange, the navigation of the WEY W6 did not provide a higher level of guidance and automatically exited once, which was an incredible and unexpected situation. This incident shocked the GeekCar Wang Tupu and made Mr. Yu sitting in the front passenger seat remember the name of a Japanese drama starring Aragaki Yui – “It is shameful to run away, but it is useful.”
But that’s not all.
Perhaps in order to help us better grasp the overall road conditions, except for a few turning points, the map scale of the WEY W6 remained relatively large during the first day of the road test. This is different from the logic of most car navigation systems we are familiar with, which switch the display scale according to the actual situation at any time.
During this period, we tried several times to manually zoom in on the navigation map, but the scale of the navigation would automatically return to its original state after a few seconds.The other issue is the imbalance between the grasp of road conditions and time. On our way back, the constantly refreshing estimated time of arrival on the navigation overview differed from the actual arrival time, which cannot serve as a valuable reference. This includes the fortunate encounter with a temporary traffic control, and the navigation route on the central control screen was covered by blue color, before being blocked by the temporary roadblock. Except for the narrow road condition overview on the overview card, we could not effectively judge the road conditions ahead through the commonly used red, yellow, and green colors.
The performance of Baidu Maps on the mobile phone and the Weima W6 car version of the navigation system is not unified. Through our tests, we found a difference of 7 to 8 minutes in time prediction, with a maximum difference of 27 minutes.
If the application ecology of JiHu Alpha S in the previous issue is not considered rich, the same can be said for Weima W6.
In terms of video applications, Weima W6 is equipped with Huawei video as the main video application and also aggregates Mango TV in the system.
In terms of music applications, Weima W6 did not introduce the most common Kuwo Music, QQ Music, or Netease Cloud Music, but chose Huawei Music, which is also in the Huawei camp.
Regarding audio content, in addition to the Litchi Podcast perfectly suited to Mr.Yu’s listening habits, Weima W6 also aggregates popular content from Ximalaya and Qingting FM in the listening function.
Here, let’s give a shout-out to the Lizhi Podcast in the WM W6 system. Although the interface is not completely unified with the visual of the system application, it retains the design style of the company to a certain extent while adapting to the visual style as much as possible. After logging in to your own account, all purchased content, including those paid on a periodic basis, will be fully synchronized. Considering this, the user experience is already very close to that of the mobile app.
In addition, the WM W6 intelligent cockpit introduced two applications, Lei Shi KTV and WE Bo, in the OTA update in 2021 for the first time. The latter can use the in-car recorder’s camera and in-car microphone for live broadcasting during the trip, while the former is a karaoke application that is often seen in the car.
Of course, it is not just about the applications; the dedicated wireless microphone with a cute color scheme can be paired with the WM W6’s excellent surround sound system in the cabin, and the atmosphere can be instantly enhanced by turning on the cabin ambient lights…
This is also the second time we have seen the combination of Lei Shi KTV and wireless microphone in the intelligent cockpit after the Ideal ONE this season. If we add the all-people sing karaoke introduced after the update of NIO OS 3.0, it is not difficult to see that more and more new force product teams are actively developing the karaoke entertainment as a new scene in the cockpit.
Multi-scenario voice interaction performance
Based on the new evaluation system, we tested the wake-up rate and recognition accuracy of the cockpit’s intelligent voice assistant in static and dynamic scenes through three main listening environments: completely closed car windows, high wind noise, and maximum air conditioning wind volume in the car.The intelligent voice assistant “Xiao Wei (WIMI)” in the WmAuto W6 intelligent cockpit has a very high accuracy rate in response to voice wake-up, reaching 100% in the three main listening environments in static scenes.
In the dynamic scene of high-speed driving on the loop, when we open the window to a specific angle, the success rate of voice wake-up in high wind noise and high road noise reaches 90% while opening the window, and the wake-up success rate when the window is closed and the air conditioning fan in the car is at maximum is both 100%.
Moreover, when playing music, broadcasting, cross talk and other audio content in the car, the accuracy rate of Xiao Wei’s response is 100%; in the noisy environment of chatting in the car, this number also reaches 100%.
Such voice performance enables the WmAuto W6 to occupy an upstream position among the models participating in the evaluation of the intelligent cockpit intelligence bureau of this season.
Do we need SOA?
The answer is definitely yes.
Here, we will not discuss whether the cockpit should become a space other than driving and riding, which is a common topic.
Let’s imagine replacing the location and see what kind of experience can be brought by the automated settings of intelligent home, which will make it easier and more intuitive to understand WmAuto W6’s SOA custom scenario programming.
Mr. Yu himself is a user of household IoT, which is the general meaning of smart home. In fact, even without remote control through the mobile phone, a series of automated settings based on scenario programming can achieve good results.
Let’s imagine:
When you come home from work, the humidifier and air purifier in the house have been running automatically for almost an hour, and the air conditioner has also been turned on automatically 20 minutes before entering the door. The temperature and humidity in the room are very comfortable. The ground has been cleaned by a sweeping robot that integrates sweeping and mopping. The electric kettle contains water at the predefined temperature, so you can drink 50℃ hot water directly when you come in even in winter. At that moment, fatigue can be put down…
We cannot define happiness, but some happiness in life can indeed be “stacked” by these small automations.
Let’s go back to the car.
In the past two years, the new car models have been rushing to “get on board” the rest mode. In the WmAuto W6, it represents only one preset scenario. After starting, the door will automatically lock, and the window will be ventilated. The seat slowly reclines- in order to avoid being overslept, the alarm clock will sound after 30 minutes by default. Of course, all these settings can be set in WmAuto’s APP by yourself.What is SOA here?
On the WM W6, the body and intelligent functions are broken down into hundreds of functional modules. Users can freely combine the desired functions according to their needs, set trigger conditions, and package them into extremely convenient automated scenarios.
Typical scenarios include:
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If you like the feeling of free air flow, set the vehicle to be within a certain speed range, and automatically open both sides of the windows to enjoy the “cross breeze”.
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In summer, it’s too hot to sit in a 40-50 degree car; in winter, thick winter clothes cannot prevent the icy seat and buttocks from coming into close contact. However, adjusting the temperature to a comfortable state by simply turning on the air conditioning and seat heating/ventilation after getting in the car also takes some time.
After the OTA update of Living Mate V3.3 in early December, WM added scene remote control operation to the SOA of its W6. With a little effort, the familiar scenarios mentioned above for drivers may not be a problem for them anymore.
According to WM, it has mature SOA technology research and development capabilities, and has already taken the lead in achieving mass production application of this technology on the W6. This technology corresponds to more than 200 functions of the entire W6, which can be freely arranged and combined by users according to their needs to customize their desired function scenarios.
We believe that a reasonable SOA design will be one of the most “usable” functions in the car. If designed properly, the final experience will be much better than accessing first-party or third-party applications in the ecosystem to achieve similar effects.In terms of application ecology, there are not many on-board applications in the WmAuto W6 intelligent cockpit, but it can ensure the functional experience of common needs and has been finely polished.
At the same time, the smart voice assistant “Xiao Wei” has a good performance in wake-up success rate and execution of common instructions, and can be trusted.
The loading of SOA customized scenario programming, the introduction of Huawei smart assistant and fast application all score points for the availability of the WmAuto W6 cockpit.
We believe that the overall performance of the WmAuto W6’s intelligent cockpit in terms of application availability and voice-related experiences is relatively excellent.
If the team could consider further enriching the types of cockpit applications while improving the usability of vehicle navigation, we believe that it will receive higher ratings in the future.
Here, we will discuss some controversial points encountered in each review.
The purpose of setting this is not to dictate to the product or to deny the work of the team. We hope that these words can stimulate independent thinking.
Interaction aspect
Not very clever Xiao Wei
To be honest, when writing this review, Mr.Yu forgot the wake-up method of the smart voice assistant when evaluating the WmAuto W6.
Perhaps because of the fear that users cannot use it, the system even writes the words and corresponding functions in a easily accessible interface.
On the one hand, compared with the familiar and outstanding car AI such as Ideal Butler and NOMI, Xiao Wei’s existence is relatively weak.
On the other hand, dealing with Xiao Wei sometimes leads to some funny moments, including but not limited to:
When we asked Xiao Wei who Jay Chou was, it started playing the content found through a Wikipedia search. When we asked Xiao Wei to play one of his songs, the sound that came out of the cockpit was not Jay Chou’s voice, but “I want to live a life of being true to myself, like flying in the vast sky” by Wang Feng.
When we asked Xiao Wei to search for Tengger’s songs, it played the golden songs of Brother Li Zhongshe instead.
Once we asked Xiao Wei to exit the current song playing, but it was recognized as playing the song continuously.
In the process of frequent interactions, Xiao Wei suddenly appeared and opened the video playback page to play recommended videos.The following is a minor embarrassment that occurred in our evaluation work. Fortunately, such situations are not frequent, but also not uncommon.
As a smart vehicle, we still hope that “Xiaowei” can accurately meet those not-so-strict demands in every interaction, fulfill its responsibilities, and respond promptly.
Let’s go back to the original question: what is the style of WM Motor?
WM Motor’s enthusiasm for autonomous driving technology is just like its important partner Baidu. The WM W6 is the first mass-produced vehicle in China that comes with Baidu’s AVP autonomous parking technology. Especially before the WM W6 was updated to Living Mate V3.3, it had already incorporated “360-degree panoramic parking”, “APA automatic parking”, “RPA remote parking”, “HAVP autonomous learning parking”, and other technological products.
After the update to Living Mate V3.3 in December 2021, the further polishing and refinement of these functions have become important selling points.
In a podcast, Mr. Yu heard the hosts talking about WM’s “complete set of parking functions” which were well-received by users, especially young female users.
So, we have our own answer.
On the one hand, WM has made parking scenarios one of its focus areas and is rapidly advancing the landing and evolution of related technological products. On the other hand, the deployment of SOA custom scene programming, Huawei Smart Assistant / Huawei Quick App, and other technological products have not only brought innovation and playfulness to the intelligent cockpit but have also directly raised the upper limit of the practicality and convenience of the intelligent cockpit for users.
We believe that the style of WM is to continuously communicate with users through humanistic technological products.
It is somewhat regrettable that WM has not found a suitable approach to strengthen its brand presence. Compared to its impressive product strength, there is still much room for improvement in terms of brand strength.
WM’s problem is also a problem faced by many brands. We hope that those colleagues who have not found answers in the industry can learn from WM’s breakthrough attempts to find their own solutions.
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This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.