eric strauss

… we have so many points of connectivity. Since the live traffic is now included in the Nav, I have let my Audi Connect expire in both Audi's. If I need connectivity I use my iPhone as a hotspot and can connect four devices.

Eric

oswalde2000

I used my trial subscription in Europe and it was nice to get weather updates, flight info and news feeds. Now that it's expired, the dealer said it's around 350 Euro to renew. Is this in addition to the mobile data I'll have to buy every month or is this covered by the network provider I choose? I keep hearing about AT&T vs. T-mobile subscriptions and it's confusing me. Here in Germany, I purchased a prepaid SIM with 5G of data every month for 24 Euros before the trial expired.
But then again, I think Audi should come up with a way to retro Carplay in the MMI. It's sad that a 2016 A6 would lack it.

superswiss

Voice command is actually a combination of the MMI and Google. In case of Google Search, the MMI recognizes that you want to do a Google Search and it then sends anything you say after Google Search to the Google Voice service for interpretation. It's actually quite powerful. You can say pretty much anything that Google understands and has an answer in the form of a list of locations that the MMI can then display.

I interact with the MMI mostly with voice commands. While it's not natural language recognition like the upcoming Q7, it gets the job done. It rarely fails me and I'm not even a native English speaker. I also didn't have to do the voice training. I continue to be amazed by how well it performs even with a lot of road noise. The voice recognition systems in my previous cars pretty much failed once you were moving as they couldn't isolate the voice from the background noise. I suspect that the B&O system has something to do with it. My understanding is that with the B&O system, the microphone gets noise cancellation.

I'm currently using AT&T for the Audi Connect data connection. The car is part of my Mobile Share plan for $10/month. It's faster and less laggy than T-Mobile was. I use anywhere from 100MB to ~400MB a month, depending on how often I leave my immediate home area. I have Google Earth maps turned on as I like it a lot better than the boring standard maps.

The part I use very frequently is sending destinations to the car either from my desktop using Google Maps or from my phone using the MMI Connect app. I can't remember the last time I have directly entered a destination into the Nav. I either pick an address from the synced contacts on my phone (BTW, you can just say "Navigate to John Smith" and it starts navigating to the address you have stored for John Smith), send a calendar appointment with location to the car, do a Google search or while I'm researching a trip on my PC, send the destinations from Google Maps while I'm at it.

I don't get how folks buying $50k,$60k+ cars plus the running costs balk at $10/month for an IMO very useful feature of the MMI. Sure, it's not quite at the level of today's smartphones, but it gets the job done. YMMV, but the MMI has so far gotten me to my destinations in time, routing me around bad traffic and making it very convenient without an unsightly mount for my phone or having to fumble with my phone every time I get into the car. I pretty much put my phone away the moment I get into the car and use the MMI to get to places, call people etc. Occasionally I use Hey Siri and use Siri over Bluetooth or Google Now and Cortana as Siri kinda sucks compared to Google Now and Cortana. I get the impression that many dismiss the MMI, because it isn't as fancy as a smartphone and don't ever realize the full capabilities it has.

eric strauss

… as you probably know, the location/navigation apps rely on cell tower connections. That is fine for most folks. However, I am routinely out of cell coverage, so unless you are navigating with satellite connections, you are in the fog… this is a bit of travesty as the iPhones are equipped with satellite connectivity that is blocked.

Happy New Year

Eric

snagitseven

It may be that voice commands are interpreted seperately by Google for the online searches. But to answer mikey's question, voice command will still work for the functions I mentioned in my last post without Audi Connect.

superswiss

Yep, I've been pointing this out for a long time and not sure why this doesn't get more attention. Google Maps actually finally added proper offline support (but I believe only on Android so far), so this major flaw is being addressed. I frequently travel internationally and apps like Waze, Apple Maps and Google Maps are basically useless unless you are willing to rack up roaming charges. I've actually been using HERE Maps for my International trips and even domestically when not driving my car, because it had proper offline map support from the beginning. It was the reason I had switched to a Windows Phone, however, now HERE Maps is available on Android and iOS and I'm back on an iPhone. It was always funny going on road trips with my friends and they had to rely on me as the lead car, because their navigation apps were dead in the water.

EDIT: The other thing with Google Maps and other smartphone apps is that they still tend to get completely lost if the phone loses the GPS signal in areas with tall buildings. The MMI when it loses the GPS signal relies on signals it gets from the ECU such as steering angle, speed, direction of travel etc. and so it doesn't get lost until it manages to acquire a GPS signal. I've actually tried Google Maps again a few weeks ago and the moment I drove into San Francisco Downtown it went completely bananas until I cleared the tall buildings. I was just curious if it had gotten better, but didn't look like it. I read a story from a concerned father the other day who had his young daughter getting lost in an unfamiliar area in the middle of the night using Google Maps, because she drove in an area without cell coverage.

mikey94025

Thanks for this info -- It confirms what I suspected for the specific "google local search" voice command.

I agree and this is why I subscribed to the service for my S8. The extra convenience of the integrated, hands-free steering wheel solution is worth the extra $10/month (for me).

mikey94025

I wanted to follow up because I've been experimenting with the "Google local search" voice command over the past few days because of this discussion. It really does very well and better than a local database of POIs. I will always do "Google local search" and select #1 (in immediate vicinity) and then speaking any address or POI string for the search keywords, even if it is remote.

For example, the Four Seasons Silicon Valley is actually in East Palo Alto but often mistaken for (the much more prestigious) Palo Alto. I was able to find it driving a few cities away with "four seasons silicon valley", "four seasons palo alto", and also "four seasons east palo alto".

I was also able to find my childhood address "121 ranch trail williamsville new york" even though the result shows up as Amherst, NY. Basically, it's as effective as doing a single-string search using google.com. Very convenient.

superswiss

And you are even doing the slow version. You can do this all in a single voice command. For example "Google Search four seasons silicon valley". No need to go "Google Search", then "1", then "four seasons silicon valley".

mikey94025

Sweet... Thanks for the tip!