[Agni]

That’s the story of the 2017 530i. It’s a car that’s supposed to represent the future of “state-of-the-art” car technology, but instead of feeling indispensable, most of its tech proved to be confusing, hidden in menus, or dysfunctional. After four days of driving, it seems that BMW has misplaced its focus on design rather than functionality. It is a gorgeous car, though.

After my spending time with the BMW 530i, I found that most of its featured tech feels more like a flashy fad than an actual iterative addition to the 5 Series. Beyond being almost too much to handle, the tech itself needed tons of explainers in the form of a massive owner’s manual that took me hours to read. Most of my complaints and issues likely have a solution, but it’s unreasonable to ask users to spend their time figuring out how to use their new car. Well-integrated tech should be fairly obvious to both use and discover. It shouldn’t be hidden in submenus or explained in videos on BMW’s YouTube page.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/3/151...-series-review

I have to say I agree with this article. The gesture control is so stupid, does BMW think people will actually use this crap?

[AP]

it is at least an option. you don'thave to buy it or use it.
I agree thiugh that this particular feature is tech for tech's sake rather than a genuine enhancement.

as for having to read the manual I don't see why that is a problem. I do think a lot of things these days are 'dumbed down' and having to some reading to learn something might be regarded as complicated is no bad thing.lots of things in life are not simple.

just my thoughts....

[steve090619]

Originally Posted by AP

it is at least an option. you don'thave to buy it or use it.
I agree thiugh that this particular feature is tech for tech's sake rather than a genuine enhancement.

as for having to read the manual I don't see why that is a problem. I do think a lot of things these days are 'dumbed down' and having to some reading to learn something might be regarded as complicated is no bad thing.lots of things in life are not simple.

just my thoughts....

This car is very similar to F10 model. I had a 535 and have no problems with tech in this car. I read manual briefly to find out how to keep wipers vertical for snow and just to familiarize myself with this car. Technology is very easy to use and if this is not your 1st bmw, you will have no problems.

[ZigmundUK]

Ouch. In my mind if Bmw are compromising on ergonomics and intuitive controls they're shooting themselves in the foot. The tester I drove seemed fine and in line with my experience of the. Rand but you never know until you spend enough time in it.

However things like gesture control is different. It seems like an unnecessary gimmick but when we get more and more into the territory of self driving cars your hands aren't going to be near the wheel controls and who wants to touch stuff when you can describe things in 3D. Remember how cool minority report looked when it first came out?

[Agni]

Originally Posted by ZigmundUK

Ouch. In my mind if Bmw are compromising on ergonomics and intuitive controls they're shooting themselves in the foot. The tester I drove seemed fine and in line with my experience of the. Rand but you never know until you spend enough time in it.

However things like gesture control is different. It seems like an unnecessary gimmick but when we get more and more into the territory of self driving cars your hands aren't going to be near the wheel controls and who wants to touch stuff when you can describe things in 3D. Remember how cool minority report looked when it first came out?

Agreed, but BMW needs to wait until gesture control is actually useable and accurate. Don't implement tech that is still in beta and then charge customers for it. Who do you think you are?? tesla? :P

[babaikram]

Originally Posted by Agni

Agreed, but BMW needs to wait until gesture control is actually useable and accurate. Don't implement tech that is still in beta and then charge customers for it. Who do you think you are?? tesla? :P

Gesture control is accurate 90% of time for me, if you know how to use it.

May I say I love it. I can not remember the the last time I touched the volume dial of my G30 radio

Make your palm align with the gear stick and slightly above it. I believe by using it often and not rotating or pressing buttons etc would prevent wear and tear failure and paint wearing off. The same reason why modern TVs with remote controls almost last forever.

People do not read manuals of their cars before they start complaining. I would not order another BMW without it.

[w4termelon]

I think gesture control in car is far more user friendly than touch screens. Touch screen can not be used safely in a car because you need to look at the screen when you want to touch it, because you have no feedback on what you are actually doing. Also, the I drive screen is too far from the driver, and again it will distract you from what you should really look at. On the other hand, gestures can be performed with no need to see where your fingers exactly are. Today, this is correct that gestures are basic, but in the future, when gesture control will become more and more developped, we can even imagine that a standard will emerge and shared by all brands, meaning that you don't even need to learn anything when ou switch from one car to another, it will be completely intuitive. Even today, using traditional knobs on dashboard requires an adaptation period to mentally record where buttons are without looking at it. For instance, I don't really use shortcuts (1 -8 buttons where you can customize a dedicated action ) on daily basis because it s hard to click on them without looking at it or on the screen. With gesture we could imagine that a user can define its own gestures as shortcut to specific features, and reuse these shortcut on any car brand.

[BiGFather]

Well I think I will mb not use the gesture too.. But I have it in packet innovation so I don't care so much. It is going to be fun to try it.

I don't agree with that Parking assistant doesn't get you into "small" space. Well it's 5m car, they can't expect it will get u in space 5,2 or so.. The 5,7m is normal.
Ye with taking more time(or handsome hands) you can get into smaller space but not so different than it can park itself : I guess it could be like 20cm front and 20cm rear so 30cm better but the tought work with this kind of big ship...

I am really looking forward to test these options myself in my car

[ZigmundUK]

Originally Posted by BiGFather

Well I think I will mb not use the gesture too.. But I have it in packet innovation so I don't care so much. It is going to be fun to try it.

I don't agree with that Parking assistant doesn't get you into "small" space. Well it's 5m car, they can't expect it will get u in space 5,2 or so.. The 5,7m is normal.
Ye with taking more time(or handsome hands) you can get into smaller space but not so different than it can park itself : I guess it could be like 20cm front and 20cm rear so 30cm better but the tought work with this kind of big ship...

I am really looking forward to test these options myself in my car

Self park has been around a while. My wife's auris has it and does a half decent job of a tight spot. I'm expecting Bmw to have nailed this one based on the amount of time they've had to refine it.

[ZigmundUK]

I just read the article. Actually the guy had about 2-3 compatibility issues with the entertainment and texting systems and clearly built up gesture control (which I doubt was a deciding factor for anyone's purchase).

The criticisms around self park were so contrived - all the cars need you to drive 'slowly'. If you didn't you'd be way past the spot before your reactions got you to stop anyway. And car +2.5 feet is a smaller than our auris requires too.

How about the fact that it actually does it itself whereas in previous generations cars required gear selection and acceleration and breaking.

How about talking about the lights or auto cruise and lane assist? How about talking about the 360 camera system? Or the driverless parking? Or the digital display (non Usa of course)?

Sounds like someone thought of a headline and tried their damnest to make the small subset of features fit in... I'd like good objective criticism, and one or two comments were so. The rest... meh

[Agni]

Originally Posted by ZigmundUK

How about talking about the lights or auto cruise and lane assist? How about talking about the 360 camera system? Or the driverless parking? Or the digital display (non Usa of course)?

Eh thats tech that even non luxury cars have. BMW didnt develop any of this tech internally, they use 3rd party vendors, who also sell to other car companies. Nothing special about BMW.

[Nivarox]

This debate made me rewind things back to earlier 2000s when I heard some people using their mobile phone to make a call but instead of pressing the buttons on the numeric pad they voice out the contacts name but phone misunderstands and calls a wrong person
I have never had happened to me but I thought I have to share this with you . Well, you're welcome , not always you don't say welcome to someone when you meet or newbies , to say what's that post about that debate ?
My point is at least gesture control works fine and doesn't make phone calls to order Papa John Pizza when you twirl your fingers to volume up/down
People also miss a point , you can also zoom in/out and view 360 view camera using your fingers , a few pinches work well

[BiGFather]

Originally Posted by Agni

Eh thats tech that even non luxury cars have. BMW didnt develop any of this tech internally, they use 3rd party vendors, who also sell to other car companies. Nothing special about BMW.

Ye.. iphones also not developing proccessors, screens etc.. it´s not about what is from their own and what´s from 3rd.

It´s about what does the car have inside/what can have inside. I think it´s really really well equipped car.
Yes new VW has 80% of this technology too but.. how does it work?

I just hope that too many things like this will not have so many issues.

[Shakespere]

Well. Got mine last Wednesday so it will be a week old tomorrow. So far I have had no trouble finding anything. Downloaded drivers guide on iPhone using my VIN number and any question is answered easily. Most of things I figured out myself. I have also apple car play but I tend to use the idrive more as it's more user friendly and the voice commands work wonderfully compared to F10. Hand gestures. Like babaikram said works 99% for me. Am not using volume adjustment and the two finger skip to next song works Marvelous. The only issues I have had so far was with a talkative person who kept using a lot of gestures and unwantingly changing the song. In the 360 surround view pinching and rotating needed some practice but it works now fine. Menus are easy to operated. No problem. Loving my G30 with 365 km on it.

[ZigmundUK]

Originally Posted by Shakespere

Well. Got mine last Wednesday so it will be a week old tomorrow. So far I have had no trouble finding anything. Downloaded drivers guide on iPhone using my VIN number and any question is answered easily. Most of things I figured out myself. I have also apple car play but I tend to use the idrive more as it's more user friendly and the voice commands work wonderfully compared to F10. Hand gestures. Like babaikram said works 99% for me. Am not using volume adjustment and the two finger skip to next song works Marvelous. The only issues I have had so far was with a talkative person who kept using a lot of gestures and unwantingly changing the song. In the 360 surround view pinching and rotating needed some practice but it works now fine. Menus are easy to operated. No problem. Loving my G30 with 365 km on it.

Sounds sweet. Thanks for reminding us there are people enjoying the new cars too, not just criticising it

[MMY]

Originally Posted by Agni

http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/3/151...-series-review

I have to say I agree with this article. The gesture control is so stupid, does BMW think people will actually use this crap?

Just saw an ad on TV for the new VW Golf .... Which comes with Gesture Control as an option.....the disease is spreading!!!

[KungFuJoe]

I paid for gesture control. The ONLY thing I wanted it for was to decline incoming voice calls. In my F10, it's a one button press on the steering wheel controls to answer a phone call, but to decline, you have to use iDrive and twist the knob down to Reject. Sounds like a simple task, but it's pretty annoying when trying to keep your eyes on the road to the point where sometimes I just let the thing ring until the other end hangs up.

The ability to wave off an incoming call was worth the money, in my book.

[54Me]

Originally Posted by KungFuJoe

I paid for gesture control. The ONLY thing I wanted it for was to decline incoming voice calls. In my F10, it's a one button press on the steering wheel controls to answer a phone call, but to decline, you have to use iDrive and twist the knob down to Reject. Sounds like a simple task, but it's pretty annoying when trying to keep your eyes on the road to the point where sometimes I just let the thing ring until the other end hangs up.

The ability to wave off an incoming call was worth the money, in my book.

Can't you just use the little scroll wheel on the steering wheel button to select reject?

[bimmerlife208]

I love Gesture control! It works for me 99% of the time. I use it to increase/decrease volume, skip tracks and reject calls!

[KungFuJoe]

Originally Posted by 54Me

Can't you just use the little scroll wheel on the steering wheel button to select reject?

Sorry...yes...the scroll wheel thing..not iDrive.

On a related note, I'm definitely miffed that they removed the center scroll temp wheel and moved that to the iDrive system. I know there's a quick select button for it, but the same concept applies...don't want to have to take two steps for something I'm going to be using so often. I fiddle with that thing too many times to count.

[Chuckyarla]

I just wish I could receive text messages (iphone 5c). I can get and have my emails read out but not texts. On the whole though the tech is really very good. The adaptive cruise is great. So are the news and weather/rainfall apps and the voice command. Great car so far after 1,300kms. Having had a new model E220d I can say that the BM is better built inside, better tech, more comfortable seats, quieter re road noise, the same re engine and wind, has a better gearbox and feels livelier. The ride is also equal to the E-Class. The only area in which the Merc is better, I think, is in the exterior styling insofar as it was a big departure from the previous model, whereas the G30 is very similar to the F10. Unless you know your cars, at a glance you could easily mistake it for the F10. You wouldn't make that mistake with the new E-Class.
Unless you spec up the E with Command and the TFT dials you get, as standard, a fairly crappy set-up - a small screen with a useless Garmin nav and two forgettable analogue dials. With the G30 even the most basic car has the ProNav and TFT dials - much better.

[Tony_Soprano]

Originally Posted by Chuckyarla

I just wish I could receive text messages (iphone 5c). I can get and have my emails read out but not texts. On the whole though the tech is really very good. The adaptive cruise is great. So are the news and weather/rainfall apps and the voice command. Great car so far after 1,300kms. Having had a new model E220d I can say that the BM is better built inside, better tech, more comfortable seats, quieter re road noise, the same re engine and wind, has a better gearbox and feels livelier. The ride is also equal to the E-Class. The only area in which the Merc is better, I think, is in the exterior styling insofar as it was a big departure from the previous model, whereas the G30 is very similar to the F10. Unless you know your cars, at a glance you could easily mistake it for the F10. You wouldn't make that mistake with the new E-Class.
Unless you spec up the E with Command and the TFT dials you get, as standard, a fairly crappy set-up - a small screen with a useless Garmin nav and two forgettable analogue dials. With the G30 even the most basic car has the ProNav and TFT dials - much better.

Having had the car for a week I am very happy with it. I find it a big step up from the F10. Techwise is the only place where I think it is a letdown. I have a Samsung S7 and I find the apps for it are absolute rubbish. They don't really do anything useful and most of the time they wont connect properly. I ordered enhanced Bluetooth because I get a lot of messages on whatsapp and I was hoping that there would be a way of connecting to it. Also most morning when I start the car I get an error message for Connected Drive that it can't connect or there is an error. After a while it works.

My sister in law has a Suzuki Vitara that would put BMW to shame in terms of what it can transfer to the car.