The mode of operation on Model S changed some time ago.
Originally it was push-and-hold, speak, release.
Now it is click-once, wait-for-beep, speak, click-again.
Unless it's changed again...
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Voice Commands
- Thread starter SimonT
- Start date
The mode of operation on Model S changed some time ago.
Originally it was push-and-hold, speak, release.
Now it is click-once, wait-for-beep, speak, click-again.
Unless it's changed again...
thegruf
Active Member
I do believe (but have no proof) that Tesla improved the quality of the mic in later MS cars, possibly somewhere around the facelift.
An interesting experiment would be to substitute the standard mic setup with a higher quality one.
Also I am not understanding right now how much of the voice processing is in the car and how much is sent to the mothership and returned as commands. I always understood it was mostly the latter so Tesla had unlimited MIPs to process this on one software platform that could be easily upgraded, the tradeoff being that you would need a mobile connection for it to work. This rollout suggests either it is all badly broken, or the car is processing it locally and struggling.
Irrespective, and yet again, it seems Tesla have released a half baked feature that really should have no place in a car on the public highway. The last thing any driver should do is get distracted or frustrated trying to get various bits of tech working. Much though I dont wish to stifle Tesla's imaginative development, I am actually genuinely surprised that regulators let them get away with this.
An interesting experiment would be to substitute the standard mic setup with a higher quality one.
Also I am not understanding right now how much of the voice processing is in the car and how much is sent to the mothership and returned as commands. I always understood it was mostly the latter so Tesla had unlimited MIPs to process this on one software platform that could be easily upgraded, the tradeoff being that you would need a mobile connection for it to work. This rollout suggests either it is all badly broken, or the car is processing it locally and struggling.
Irrespective, and yet again, it seems Tesla have released a half baked feature that really should have no place in a car on the public highway. The last thing any driver should do is get distracted or frustrated trying to get various bits of tech working. Much though I dont wish to stifle Tesla's imaginative development, I am actually genuinely surprised that regulators let them get away with this.
Transformer
Do the math. Save the world. — Mark Leon
It looks like it's all processing in the car. Sending the voice data to a server would add noticeable delays and would be hard to do incrementally -- the text showing up on screen in real time is helpful when parked and testing out voice commands. A modern phone has enough processing power to do it without a server thanks to recent software tech.
Last time I tried that, the click-again cancelled the voice command.
The voice function works exactly the same way everyone has said - it works sometimes, but mostly doesn’t work properly,
on the way home from work a few days ago, I thought I would activate the Xmas Easter Egg. I said “Ho Ho Ho”, and Max-Q (Teslas name) heard “Hole Ho Ho” and then opened the glovebox!!
on the way home from work a few days ago, I thought I would activate the Xmas Easter Egg. I said “Ho Ho Ho”, and Max-Q (Teslas name) heard “Hole Ho Ho” and then opened the glovebox!!
We also have a Discovery and the voice commands work ok with that. In in Tesla I tend to just use Siri.
planehazza
Member
Can the car control siri? I discovered in my BMW that holding the mic button triggers the assistant on the BT device, be it Siri or Google Now.
Got some MP3s on a USB stick. Had something playing from it already. Wanted to play a particular song so I pressed the button and said "play" and the title of the song (metadata on the file is correct, as is the name of the file.) When i finally got it to understand what I was saying, it went off and found some other song with the same name online (via Spotify I think). I told it to stop, so it did.
Then I tried "play USB" and it must've found a song or artist called USB because some other random thing started playing.
Eventually I reached a red light which gave me a safe opportunity to poke at the screen to switch it back over to USB and choose the actual song I wanted.
Then I tried "play USB" and it must've found a song or artist called USB because some other random thing started playing.
Eventually I reached a red light which gave me a safe opportunity to poke at the screen to switch it back over to USB and choose the actual song I wanted.
MrBadger
Badger out
One of the things I'm looking forward to when premium connectivity is hopefully not having it go searching and mismatching songs from Spotify when I have a much better version on SD card and a selection of my choice so its likely to be a goodun even if it does mis match.
12Pack
Member
It doesn't. And because you'd have to unlock your phone anyway to message,e.g., no point. On older iPhones at least you could press and hold the button to invoke Siri and unlock the phone.
Anyway, receiving and reading out text certainly seems to be working well on both my AP1 and AP2.5 cars.
Drew57
Active ember
My car normally recognises almost everything I or my wife ask of it first time & it's genuinely impressive (a/c or temp, fan speed, music artist/song etc, text message, phone, wipers, glovebox open etc...)
Recently we've returned to visiting Snowdonia for a long weekly walk & sometimes the car loses connection so asking to make a phone call doesn't work...as would be expected.
However yesterday I noticed that whenever the signal is lost, the car won't respond to a voice command, the pop-up card shows the green symbol but remains blank. Because everything remains within the environment of the car, shouldn't the onboard software/hardware process the request without needing an LTE connection?
(...the other bizarre thing is the the last 3 software update notifications to my app (currently 2020.24.6.1) have all happened whilst in a remote car park & I've been walking miles away - I accepted each, 2 minute countdown & none required wifi, all used LTE so the car had finished updating by the time we returned. Most people seem to need wifi?).
Recently we've returned to visiting Snowdonia for a long weekly walk & sometimes the car loses connection so asking to make a phone call doesn't work...as would be expected.
However yesterday I noticed that whenever the signal is lost, the car won't respond to a voice command, the pop-up card shows the green symbol but remains blank. Because everything remains within the environment of the car, shouldn't the onboard software/hardware process the request without needing an LTE connection?
(...the other bizarre thing is the the last 3 software update notifications to my app (currently 2020.24.6.1) have all happened whilst in a remote car park & I've been walking miles away - I accepted each, 2 minute countdown & none required wifi, all used LTE so the car had finished updating by the time we returned. Most people seem to need wifi?).
Where I live mobile coverage is patchy. If no phone signal then no voice command. My S mostly gets it right, now...but i was brought up with correct diction, innit?
LukeUK
Member
Pretty sure voice command processing is carried out server-side, not in the car. If I don't have any signal, I can't use any voice commands.
Has anyone compiled a list of commands?
I've tried;
'Phone <phonebook name>'
'Call <phonebook name>'
and neither is reliable at all. Maybe 10% success rate.
What's more interesting is what the car thinks I said - completely rubbish combinations of words, usually. Nothing to do with the likely commands one would use in a car. You'd have thought Tesla would have biased the recognition software towards key words, but I guess not......
Has anyone compiled a list of commands?
I've tried;
'Phone <phonebook name>'
'Call <phonebook name>'
and neither is reliable at all. Maybe 10% success rate.
What's more interesting is what the car thinks I said - completely rubbish combinations of words, usually. Nothing to do with the likely commands one would use in a car. You'd have thought Tesla would have biased the recognition software towards key words, but I guess not......
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Drew57
Active ember
So why have a system that processes in-car voice commands on a remote server - is it to leave max processing power for driving & navigation?
rincewind
Member
Drew57
Active ember
I've used this app (just a list really) on my iPhone which shows commands which work or not. I've occasionally found it useful to lookup something when the car didn't understand what I was trying to ask.
Tesla Voice Commands. (scan bar code with phone camera)
EDIT: we must have both been typing at the same time.... It may seem comical but attempting American pronunciation often helps (ie 'call Pawool' for Paul)
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LukeUK
Member
In theory, it's a good way of doing it. The local hardware only has to be good enough to record the sound file, probably compress it, and then upload it to the server.
The server can then use some grunt to try and work out what it is you said, and what you meant. In theory, it should be able to do this by comparing what a few other hundred thousand people asked for, and find a good match. The server can then reply to the car with a small amount of data that conveys your intent.
It's the way Alexa works, and its a good way for a system to learn. It can gather lots of data from lots of sources and use this data centrally to compare and analyse similar commands, patterns, requests and errors, etc.
Working in the cloud also means that future functionality is less likely to be limited by the hardware that's in our cars today.
Except, Tesla's current effort is absolutely pants. The voice control in my Mazda, that only had about 10 commands, was rock solid and I used it all the time. I've practically given up using the voice control in the Tesla - which isn't good for the system as a whole, if it is to keep on learning and improving.
