Introduction
The era of “software-defined cars” has arrived, where “software” refers not only to the software for assisted driving, but also includes the “software” for intelligent in-car cabins and car media. Therefore, we have launched the “Car Media Micro Experience” column, where we will select a car media product with distinctive features for in-depth experience in each issue.
Recently, we tested the ideal ONE car media with version number V2.1.26, and you can read the details in this article: Car Media Micro Experience | How good is the four-screen interaction of ideal ONE?
At that time, the voice system of ideal ONE car media did not support continuous conversation, nor did it support the convenient “visible and speakable” function. However, with great optimization, the overall fluency of this system was excellent, and it still provided a very good user experience.
After this round of OTA upgrades, the system version has been upgraded to V3.0.15. So what are the new features that have been upgraded?
As the hardware of the 2021 model ideal ONE has not changed much, this article will only talk about the experience of new features.
Added Visual Automatic Parking Function
The newly added automatic parking function is based on visual recognition. Press the P key on the left side of the steering wheel or click the “Start searching for parking spaces” button on the central control screen, and the system will automatically start searching for parking spaces.
Parking spaces recognized by the system as parkable will be highlighted on the screen. If the system determines that a parking space does not meet the parking conditions, the parking space will be displayed in gray and cannot be selected. Currently, only automatic parking in horizontal and vertical parking spaces is supported.
After selecting the parking space, releasing the brake will automatically start parking, and the visual foundation feature is to maximize the accuracy of parking and keep the distance from the side lines basically the same. However, the steering wheel of the ideal ONE will make a relatively loud noise when relying on the internal motor to turn, which sounds uncomfortable.
If the parking space is close to the wall, there may occasionally be a situation where the vehicle is not completely parked in the parking space. In addition, after upgrading visual parking, the automatic driving out function of the old version of automatic parking is canceled, and the driver needs to drive out of the parking space manually after parking.
Overall, the automatic parking level of the Ideal ONE is still inferior to that of skilled drivers in manual parking.
Navigation-assisted driving is finally available for Ideal ONE users!
The 2021 model of Ideal ONE has upgraded Horizon Journey 3’s assisted driving chip, 8 million high-definition front camera, and rear dual-sided millimeter-wave radar. The speed limit display function of the new version of the instrument screen can display road speed limits and electronic eye information, all of which come from the map navigation data of the vehicle.
As long as you come to a road section covered by high-precision maps and can activate Navigation on Autopilot (NOA), the direction indicator icon on the right side of the speedometer will have the letters “NOA” added, and it can be activated with the toggle lever on the right side of the steering column. It can guide the driver to enter and exit ramps, recommend lane changes to the driver, and adjust the vehicle speed intelligently according to the speed limit.
When “Navigation on Autopilot” is turned on, the high-end map of the central control screen will automatically switch to a lane-level navigation interface, and the environment, road and other information will be virtually displayed; the instrument screen will also visually prompt the driver of cones, triangular signs, ramps, double lines, dash-dotted lines, and dotted lines; when overtaking buses and trucks in adjacent lanes, it will also automatically move slightly to the other side of the lane to avoid a strong sense of oppression.
In addition, when merging into a ramp on a highway, you can choose to follow the speed of the front vehicle instead of driving at the speed limit. The general speed limit on Chinese highway ramps is 40km/h, but if you really drive at such a low speed, it will block a lot of cars behind you and easily cause rear-end accidents.
Note: The 2020 model cannot use this NOA function, but the instrument panel still has speed limit reminders.
NetEase Cloud Music users are finally comfortable
Version 3.0 of the car system now allows for setting NetEase Cloud Music as the default music player, with a deep customization of the user interface that aligns with the overall style. In addition, the intelligent voice system directly supports in-app recognition, including playlists, song switching, switch order/random/single repeat, opening lyrics, opening play lists, and more. You can even select songs by saying the song number in the playlist.
It’s worth noting that the customized version of NetEase Cloud Music on LI ONE does not remove the cloud disk feature (unlike some other cars). If you are like me and prefer to download music before uploading it to your NetEase cloud disk, all you have to do is log in to your account on the car app, and you can play music directly from your NetEase cloud disk without being affected by copyright issues, such as all songs by Jay Chou.
Music source files are like atomic bombs. If someone changes their mind, they can just go back on their word. It’s better to have your own music source.
Visible Voice Control
In addition to the “visible voice control” function of NetEase Cloud Music mentioned above, LI also implemented a “visible voice control” function for one and two-level setting menus in other apps, so as long as the words displayed on the screen are visible, they can be operated by voice.
At the same time, voice control is also available for features such as the induction tailgate control, automatic window closure when locking the car, and default music media.
For example, if you want to activate the “lower media volume when the door opens” function, you can simply say “open lower media volume when the door opens” to LI.
After testing, LI’s wake-up speed is very fast, and its understanding of ambiguous instructions is also relatively strong. It can be accurately woken up in the front and back rows, including the third row (which has an independent microphone but uses the same audio zone as the second row). If the children in the back row keep waking up the assistant, you can say “don’t listen to the back row” to LI to turn off the recognition solely for the rear row.
Other Update and Optimization Features#### Locking and Window Closing:
The automatic locking and window closing function (including sunroof, but not including sunshade curtain)has been added. This function is turned off by default and can be turned on in Settings – Vehicle – Door and Lock.
Remote Air Conditioning:
The Ideal ONE car has added a “remote air conditioning quick heating/cooling” function to its app. After being turned on, the remote air conditioning will run at the highest/lowest temperature and maximum fan speed for 15 minutes. This function will take effect within one week after the full push is finished.
Remote Air Conditioning Logic Optimization:
All air conditioning settings made on the phone will only take effect when remotely adjusted. Once the air conditioning is turned off or the car door is opened, the settings will automatically return to the state of the last time the car was used.
On-Time Departure:
The “on-time departure” function has been added, supporting seat ventilation settings to meet the needs of car owners in areas with high temperature.
Automatic Emergency Braking:
The detection and fusion capabilities of cameras and millimeter-wave radars have been optimized, improving the performance of automatic emergency braking and adapting to more dangerous driving scenarios.
Summary
The 2021 Ideal ONE does not upgrade the car central processing unit. The familiar Qualcomm Snapdragon 820A processor is still used in the central control screen and the co-pilot entertainment screen. Similarly, the instrument screen and function control screen also use the Texas Instruments Jacinto 6 processor.
However, through good software optimization and design, its smoothness, voice recognition accuracy, application opening speed, video playback speed, etc. still belong to the first echelon of all intelligent cars. It is not an exaggeration to say that the user experience of this system is even better than some car machines that are equipped with the 8155 chip, and I am responsible for this conclusion!
However, the 2021 Ideal ONE still has some areas where it lags behind other models, such as not equipped with a face camera, not supporting face ID to save seat and rearview mirror memory, not equipped with HUD head-up display function, and the co-pilot entertainment screen does not support mobile phone projection function, etc. If these features can be added in the future, the Ideal ONE’s competitiveness in intelligence will be further enhanced.
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.