BMW drivers will soon be able to play multiplayer video games and watch live and on-demand TV in their cars using integrated controllers. The two new features were among a number of innovations unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas that will be used in the German company's future production models.
They also include advancements to BMW's existing voice assistant and remote parking systems.
The wireless controllers are designed for BMW's latest 9.0 operating system (OS), which will be launched later this year, with the games displayed on the car's infotainment screen.
Controller-Based Gaming
The system works through the AirConsole app, with users able to select games from the BMW ConnectedDrive Store.
BMW also showed updates to its video app for its 8.5 and 9.0 operating systems, which allows digital content to be streamed to the central screen via the Tivo app. Developed in partnership with Xperi, the system now allows users to stream live TV and access on-demand content.
Video App
The system has been launched on the new BMW 5 Series and will be extended to other models later this year, including the second-generation BMW X2 and new Mini models.
The Video App is currently accessible in the USA, UK, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany and Spain, and will soon be coming to Japan. Like the gaming system, it can only be used when the car is stationary.
Another innovation BMW is showcasing at CES is new wearable augmented reality (AR) glasses. Developed with Meta's Reality Labs and Xreal, the Xreal Air2 glasses are used to overlay information in the driver's field of vision, effectively serving as a more immersive head-up display.
Displayed content could include navigation directions, hazard warnings, entertainment content, charging station information, and parking assistance features.
BMW says the new glasses provide a more stable visualization of content than previous incarnations of the Xreal Air (an example view is shown below). A smoother connection to the car's sensor data is also said to allow for more precise pinpointing of visualizations.
AR Ride Concept
BMW also showed off its updated voice assistant, which works in conjunction with Amazon's Alexa Large Language Model (LLM).
Intended for future production cars, it brings additional artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to BMW's Intelligent Personal Assistant, which is said to allow for faster and smoother processing of conversational commands and questions.
BMW has yet to confirm when its new LLM-powered voice assistant will be available, but the existing system (which works with limited AI functionality) will be further enhanced in cars running the 9.0 operating system in 2024.
LLM-based car expert
The company also unveiled new Level 4 autonomous driving technology. Developed in partnership with Valeo, it includes an automated valet parking (AVP) function that allows the driver to leave the car at a designated drop-off point. From that point, the car will autonomously search for an available parking space and park itself.
Teleoperated Valet Parking
According to BMW, the new AVP function also allows the car to autonomously return to the drop-off point when requested to do so by the driver.
Source: BMW
