[auswill]

Quick question. im at bmw now.
I have 2011 f10 520 with professional nav.
The voice recognition hasnt been working and they say its normal. only works for bluetooth phone functions

[Jon D]

Sounds like BS to me; the voice recognition works regardless of whether or not you have a phone in the car.

[auswill]

Sorry I should be more clear.....the service guy came back so I couldnt finish the post before.

I drove a new 3 series loan car today and the voice recognition worked fine
Eg. I can say "Voice Commands" and it lists all the commands
"Navigation", "Phonebook" etc all work. I can enter a Nav destination by spelling the city etc.

In my car though, if I say "Voice commands" it gives an error - unrecognised or something. If I say "Navigation" - same - doesnt work. Only commands related to the phone are recognised - BUT still dont work. The reason I know only phone commands work is because I can say "HELP" and then it lists out all the available words.

Eg.
1. "Phonebook" - car says "Phone book is empty" even though my phone is properly synced
2. "Call name", reply "Please say name"...I say a name but car says "Phone book empty" WTF.

If I say "Dial Number" and then say the number - that works - but its not very accurate.

Does anyone know what the problem could be? BMW dont really know - they updated some bluetooth software via USB today which doesnt seem to have done much. Strange thing is everything else seems to work fine (although calculated routes for navigation could be better lol)

They are holding onto my car overnight and will try find a solution but if something here knows the exact problem it would help alot. Also - FYI - it has always been like that since I bought it.

[eskdale]

The Full voice control is an optional extra on the 5er the basic voice control is only linked to the Bluetooth phone. So it sounds like you only have the basic voice control but the 3 Series was fitted with the full voice contol.

I have the optional voice control fitted and to be fair it is pretty accurate as voice controls go.

If you pair a compatible Bluetooth phone with your car then I would expect the phone functions to work but only the phone functions. The commands for the Basic and the Full even for the phone features are different.

Hope this helps

[fat dog]

As per eskdale's reply, although you have prof nav this does not bring full voice control, you need a media package for that (or whatever the equivalent name is for your country) or you need to have specced the voice control option in conjunction with prof nav.

Nonetheless, the basic voice control should work your phone when connected by bluetooth. Can you try to pair another phone to try to narrow it down to whether you may have a problem with your phone or with the car?

[Jon D]

I wouldn't worry if you don't have full voice command, it's not really all that efficient. I only use it for very basic commands such as "screen off", "journey computer" or "map". The moment I try anything more complicated such as "phone Dave", it says "navigation 250 metres" or something equally unrelated and proceeds to alter the map scale or decides to take me to the air-con page.
And they say Germans don't have a sense of humour

[F11-Diesel]

I used to have the phone voice control.
Did not use it, so when I lost it with the last software update I did not bother to get back.

[eskdale]

I must give it credit when it's due I found it very good at the voice recognition as long as use the correct words that it expects. However you can't just say Phone Dave or call Dave you have to say phonebook first and then when prompted the name as it is in your phone (You can't say Matthew when its in your phone as Matt). But it is quite intelligent in that if I have a name "Tom 2010" I can say "Tom two zero one zero" or I can say "Tom two thousand and ten" and both work.

Voice Redial is a different matter though and an annoying one. If you say redial it gives you a list of about the last 10 people you have called and then asks which one in the list you want to select, for the last one you say "one" it then tells you that there is more than one number for this person (which there is Home, Mobile, and work) and then tells you to select which one you want to use with with the idrive controller. Which defeats the whole purpose of using voice to do the redial !!! Surely it should just dial the last number you dialled without going through the full complicated sequence just to redial if it was engaged or the call dropped !!

[auswill]

Ic....thanks for the replies. i wasnt aware there was a full and basic voice system. The thing is though, i dont think voice is an option in Australia. Either way....can a simple software upgrade fix this or not so simple? after using the system on the 3 series i can definitely see myself using it all the time.

Even if I only have basic version....mine doesnt work. i use a sasung galaxy s2 but the service guy tried his iphone 4s and both were the same.

[rhinosaur]

Sorry for the slight off-topic, but since you're talking about voice recognition I thought I might ask here... Are we able to use Siri effectively when the iPhone 4S is connected to the car?

[eskdale]

Originally Posted by auswill

Ic....thanks for the replies. i wasnt aware there was a full and basic voice system. The thing is though, i dont think voice is an option in Australia. Either way....can a simple software upgrade fix this or not so simple? after using the system on the 3 series i can definitely see myself using it all the time.

Even if I only have basic version....mine doesnt work. i use a sasung galaxy s2 but the service guy tried his iphone 4s and both were the same.

There does seem something wrong somewhere. Your phone must be paired and be marked as the main telephone not as an additional telephone


If you look in this image the iphone and the Nokia have different symbols
One has a Handset with an arrow and the other similar but with a book next to the arrow showing this is the main phone that it will use for its Phonebook.

The Samsung S2 works OK with the car - I also have an S2

Hope this helps

[eskdale]

Originally Posted by rhinosaur

Sorry for the slight off-topic, but since you're talking about voice recognition I thought I might ask here... Are we able to use Siri effectively when the iPhone 4S is connected to the car?

I'm afraid I only have the 3GS so no Siri but from what I have been told you can't use Siri through the car. I'm sure someone will correct this if they have managed to get around it somehow

[Jon D]

Originally Posted by eskdale

I must give it credit when it's due I found it very good at the voice recognition as long as use the correct words that it expects. However you can't just say Phone Dave or call Dave you have to say phonebook first and then when prompted the name as it is in your phone (You can't say Matthew when its in your phone as Matt). But it is quite intelligent in that if I have a name "Tom 2010" I can say "Tom two zero one zero" or I can say "Tom two thousand and ten" and both work.

Voice Redial is a different matter though and an annoying one. If you say redial it gives you a list of about the last 10 people you have called and then asks which one in the list you want to select, for the last one you say "one" it then tells you that there is more than one number for this person (which there is Home, Mobile, and work) and then tells you to select which one you want to use with with the idrive controller. Which defeats the whole purpose of using voice to do the redial !!! Surely it should just dial the last number you dialled without going through the full complicated sequence just to redial if it was engaged or the call dropped !!

Haven't tried saying 'phonebook' first and then waiting for a prompt for whoever you want to call. Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try in the morning.
As to redial: I just press the steering wheel phone button, which brings up a list of last used numbers, in chronological order, on the instrument panel display window, then scroll the steering wheel control to the name I want and press - all done very quickly with your right thumb.

[Ryandebruin]

I have a question. I own a 2012 535i with Prof navigation but didnt select the voice control system as an optional extra. Is thee a way of having this system retrofitted ?

[eskdale]

Originally Posted by Ryandebruin

I have a question. I own a 2012 535i with Prof navigation but didnt select the voice control system as an optional extra. Is thee a way of having this system retrofitted ?

I think that it is just a coding job with the maybe an activation key to pay for. Give Patryk of BimmerTech an email with you VIN. I'm sure he will be glad to give you a quote.

[eskdale]

Originally Posted by Jon D

Haven't tried saying 'phonebook' first and then waiting for a prompt for whoever you want to call. Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try in the morning.
As to redial: I just press the steering wheel phone button, which brings up a list of last used numbers, in chronological order, on the instrument panel display window, then scroll the steering wheel control to the name I want and press - all done very quickly with your right thumb.

Hi Jon, Yes I should have mentioned the Steering wheel control for the redial. This works for some of my contacts but it only seems to work for those with a single contact number. Now if I select one with more than one number it doesn't do anything. When I had the car first if I selected one with more than one number it used to expand the name displayed to show the numbers and you could select the one you wanted. Doesn't do that any more. Don't know why. May be it was because of a change of phone
Jon E