The Hassle of ‘Hands Free’ Car Tech

Voice-Activated Systems Often Don’t Work Right, Can Add to Driver Distraction

Someday, cars may drive themselves. But first car makers must convince consumers their automobiles can handle simpler tasks on their own—like changing the radio station or making a phone call.

The auto industry’s record run of 50 million cars recalled this year has highlighted defects with mechanical systems such as ignition switches, fuel pumps and air bags. Looking ahead, the industry faces equally difficult challenges from digital systems that are getting more complex and, in some cases, harder to use.

A technology originally seen as making driving safer is now under scrutiny for the troubles it is causing. Voice-activated command systems and their software often are badly outdated or unreliable, leading to a tide of customer complaints and research questioning how safe they really are.

Car makers rushed to adopt voice recognition systems as regulators, concerned about distracted driving, called for bans on using hand-held devices behind the wheel. Use of handsets while driving is illegal in 14 states; use of “hands-free” voice controls, meanwhile, is generally encouraged.

Voice control, however, can be extremely buggy and the struggle to get them to work can cause a driver to miss traffic hazards. A recent study conducted by the University of Utah found some voice command systems could be four times more distracting than simply driving.

Cadillac User Experience, or CUE, system is just one of the automotive interfaces that have been criticized as overly complicated.

Associated Press

“Eighty to ninety percent of crashes are [caused by] human error,” says Deborah Hersman, head of the National Safety Council and former chair of the National Transportation Safety Board. “Why in the world would we want to introduce more cognitive load?”




Consumer Reports magazine found that problems with infotainment systems—music players, navigation and hands-free systems linking smartphones—are now the No. 1 reason for complaints, surpassing mechanical flaws or wind noise.

We recognize there is broad based dissatisfaction with current systems

— , Delphi Automotive

A separate study by the market research firm J.D. Power & Associates found that the rate of complaints about built-in voice recognition systems is nearly four times the rate of reported problems with transmissions or cup holders.

Auto makers and their technology suppliers are scrambling to develop better systems.

“We recognize there is broad based dissatisfaction with current systems,” says Glen DeVos, vice president of electronics and safety for Delphi Automotive PLC, a Troy, Mich., supplier of connected vehicle technology.

Delphi’s goal is to design voice systems that get commands right at least 95% of the time, and require one second or less to process an instruction. However, achieving those goals requires that car makers spend more for better microphones and faster digital processors.

The company behind many automotive speech recognition systems is Nuance Communications Inc. NUAN -0.33% The Massachusetts company makes the Dragon speech recognition software widely used to take dictation or operate personal computers.

Nuance Vice President Arnd Weil said there are initiatives under way to improve the accuracy of onboard systems. Engineers, for instance, are now recording the voices of people as they drive over rough roads in noisy cars, building a library of diverse accents in 20 languages.

“In China, we made a data collection for Mandarin, and it’s not good enough,” Mr. Weil says, noting how many accents and dialects that need to be better understood by software.

Unlike smartphones, which are consistently redesigned and easily updated via the Internet, cars need long lead times before they hit the road, and this means technology embedded in cars at showrooms can be up to five years old. “There’s a lot that has happened that will make it to the road in a couple of years,” Mr. Weil says.

Auto makers are looking to bypass their multiyear product cycles by making it easier for drivers to use the speech command systems already on their phones.

Hyundai Motor Co. , for example, plans to offer Apple Inc.’s CarPlay system on its 2015 Sonata sedan, allowing drivers to interact with familiar apps and features, such as Siri’s voice command system. Hyundai plans to offer the Android counterpart later.

University of Utah researchers say this won’t eliminate the problem. They found Siri creates a higher workload for users than some other systems. For instance, it sometimes responds differently to identical commands, or make mistakes such as calling the wrong person from the phone’s contact list.

Apple, in a statement, says the Utah study didn’t test the version of Siri that has been adapted to work in cars through either the Siri Eyes Free or CarPlay systems. “CarPlay and Siri Eyes Free intuitively use your vehicle’s native controls so you don’t need to pick-up and look at your phone while driving. These experiences are tailored so you only have access to iPhone apps that are optimized for the car and make sense for an in-vehicle experience,” Apple says.

Hyundai plans to continue to give drivers the option of using the onboard system instead of Siri or Android’s rival smartphone-based system. This means car makers will provide multiple ways to do one task.

“We will have redundancy,” says Hyundai senior group manager Cason Grover. One reason to do this, he says, is because cars sometimes operate outside the mobile phone network, making it impossible to use smartphone data.

One reason voice systems bungle commands is that the driver’s voice is drowned out by noise in the car. To fix that, auto makers could layer on noise suppression systems.

“This is big for us,” says Harman International Industries Inc. Chief Executive Dinesh Paliwal, whose company is a leader in the car audio business.

Harman’s effort to cancel noise for the benefit of speech command systems has led to a system that serves a different, but possibly just as valuable, purpose: Creating a noise-blocking sonic curtain between the front and rear seats.

This would allow back seat passengers to chat on their phones without the driver listening in—a feature that could be very attractive in markets such as China where many car owners don’t do their own driving.

“In China,” says Mr. Paliwal, “it’s a big deal.”

Write to Joseph B. White at
