If you have used your voice commands to instruct your car to dial a number, turn on air-conditioning or lower the music volume, you are one of very few people who interact with voice recognition systems in new cars.
The majority do not bother either because they do not understand the system or because the technology is “poor.”
At least this is the opinion of millions of drivers who say they regretted paying for the system that does not work properly.
J D Power’s director of human interface, Kristin Kolodge, said the organization would “dig a lot deeper into this problem.”
Many experts support this investigation as they regard this technology, which started 15 years, as one of the most poorly executed in the industry.
There is not a single company which masters voice recognition. Kolodge said that customers are being alienated by these systems.
She added: “Owners are telling J. D. Power researchers that they sometimes pull over to the side of the road to communicate with their voice systems.”
She went as far as showing a conference some video footage of drivers speaking clearly to their voice recognition systems but getting nowhere.
She told the audience that J. D. Power estimates that the industry has become satisfied with voice-recognition technology that works about 80 percent of the time. Imagine applying that “80 percent is OK” attitude to brake systems.
If this situation prevails in the English language, which is the original programed language in the system, then the ratio of success must be much lower in other languages. Arabic, with so many dialects, must be a nightmare to program into car systems.
Companies should come clean about the limitations of their voice recognition systems and work harder to make their systems work.
They should also offer consumers a choice to turn down such systems if they do not want to use them.
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Adel Murad is a senior motoring and business journalist, based in London.
Email: [email protected]
