Volvo's winning weapon has always been "invincible safety technology", but this is not all of Volvo. The "DRIVE-E" power system that Volvo mainly promoted at the beginning of the year was showing technology, and in the second half of this year, it brought a brand new SENSUS system. This time the show is about intelligent services. extreme. Car Owner's Home participated in the SENSUS briefing. Compared with OnStar, G-BOOK and other systems, this system has greatly surpassed. What is so magical, please see the breakdown below.
Introduction to Volvo SENSUS System
Before explaining in detail, refer to Volvo's official introduction to briefly understand this system. "Sensus is an innovative technology sub-brand created by Volvo Cars under the guidance of the brand philosophy of "respecting people" based on a deep understanding of human-computer interaction trends and consumer needs, including mobile Internet (Connect), service (Service), The in-vehicle interconnection functions including entertainment (Entertain), navigation (Navi), and convenient control (Control) provide users with the safest, convenient, intelligent and efficient in-vehicle interconnection experience. SENSUS intelligent in-vehicle interactive system has a smart online (Sensus Connect ) and Volvo On Call, involving as many as 34 smart applications and services, have been installed on the 2015 S60L for the first time, and the 2015 Volvo V40, XC60, V60 and 60 series equipped with Sensus R-Design has also been listed simultaneously on July 2.
To sum it up in one sentence: Sensus is Volvo's OnStar, G-BOOK, which has more powerful and comprehensive functions because of the "launch".
What's so special about Volvo's system?
Since it is a "later development" system, Volvo naturally launched targeted products after studying all competitors, and its special feature is also its core competitiveness. There are so many highlights in the on-site introduction that it is really too many to count. See the picture below for details.
Some of the functions in it are relatively common, so I won’t go into details here, but focus on a few functions that were not available in most systems before.
1. Mobile phone and vehicle networks are fully connected
We know that many smart vehicle systems now realize the connection between mobile phones and cars. Volvo's smart online system makes mobile phones and cars truly connected. The strongest points of Volvo's system are as follows: a. It realizes the function of sending the route directly to the car navigation after the computer has planned the route. This function is very useful, because most of the route planning is done at home, and after implementing this function, there is no need to repeat operations in the car (and the ease of use of any car computer is weak compared to a computer).
[Unicom card slot is hidden in the glove box]
b, three modes to achieve networking. Regardless of wifi, bluetooth or directly built-in Unicom card, it can realize networking. And as long as the wifi mode is detected, Baidu Maps will update and download the latest map by default, ensuring real-time updates, a very considerate function.
2. Remote start and view vehicle status
Remote control start and stop, and check the status of the car through the mobile phone, this is the "future technology" displayed by many manufacturers at the auto show. Volvo belongs to the group that is applied quickly, and has already done very careful and perfect practice. According to Dai Zhiping, Senior Manager of Marketing Department of Volvo Southern District, Volvo's SENSUS system can set a remote start time of 1-15 minutes, so that the pre-start time can be determined according to the weather conditions.
In addition, if you go home and forget whether you have locked the car, you can check the status through your mobile phone (install Volvo's official APP). With this function, there is no need to think about the hated and loved automatic locking function when leaving the car. In addition, after the remote start function of the mobile phone is realized, it is equivalent to having an extra spare key. When multiple people use the car to hand over, they can even directly put the key in the trunk for "handover".
3. All-encompassing Volvo on-board butler
Volvo's SENSUS is divided into two parts. The car butler is a system with similar functions to OnStar and G-BOOK. This system does not require a network. Volvo's on-board butler is very similar to the design concept of GM's OnStar. To put it bluntly, there are only two buttons, one for "chat" and one for "help". However, these two buttons contain a wide range of functions, which not only realize remote anti-theft, automatic alarm for dangerous situations, but also realize comprehensive intercommunication between the car owner and the control center.
I experienced Volvo's ON CALL system on the spot. In addition to the basic navigation settings, I can talk to ON CALL about any information I can learn, including hotel information, news, traffic, weather, etc... . Even ON CALL also provides a news reading function. The strange thing is that it is obviously an on-site answering, but the other party reads like a robot, and there is a problem with sentence punctuation. This should be related to the service staff. In the words of the on-site demo staff, if you are bored, you can use ON CALL to chat with the customer service staff for 24 hours!
4. A speech recognition system that can learn accents
The most important task of the intelligent system is to simplify the operation, and finally realize that the car owner can complete all the in-car operations as long as he moves his lips. Volvo's SENSUS system is based on voice control. On-site experience found that this system has a very distinct advantage: the response is fast and not long-winded. As long as any voice command can be recognized, it will directly jump to the corresponding page. For example, say to the system: "Navigation", the system will not have any cumbersome confirmation voice prompts, but will directly enter the navigation system page. This should be based on its own powerful voice recognition ability, so Volvo dared to directly skip the questioning process.
Of course, I personally like such a direct system. I once turned off the system because of the "whether" confirmation prompt sound that constantly popped up on Ford and Buick cars.
What's even more powerful is that even if you have a strong dialect accent, SENSUS has a way to recognize it. You can manually set the language adaptation, and SENSUS will learn your accent well.
5. Targeted research and development according to the opponent's performance
Before the launch of this system, Volvo obviously studied the situation of its opponents and made a lot of targeted functional improvements. We know that OnStar is free for one year, G-Book is free for two years, and Volvo is directly free for three years. As for the follow-up renewal fee, because the system has just been installed and there is no actual pricing yet, Mr. Dai in the Southern District of Volvo estimates that the annual price will be around 1,000 yuan.
In addition, Volvo also did another thing that all competitors failed to do. That is, this SENSUS system will be standard on all subsequent Volvo models, although the on-board service ON CALL function will only appear on models with high configuration, which is already a very kind approach.
My only personal regrets about the system are that the Volvo's LCD screen is too small and there's no touchscreen yet, though Volvo can cite its excellent voice recognition as an excuse. But for such a user-friendly interactive system, it is a pity that there is no touch screen.
Final conclusion: Volvo's SENSUS system is not a high-tech technology, but it is a very "intentional" intelligent system. This type of system competes on who is more caring, whose functions are more humane, and who pays more attention to the ultimate user experience, making car use more "fool-like". Undoubtedly, none of the in-vehicle systems currently on the market are as comprehensive as SENSUS, nor are they as powerful as SENSUS. SENSUS is ahead of all competitors. But the user experience will never be perfect, and Volvo's exploration should not become the end of intelligent human-computer interaction in cars.
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