I attended a Saab driving school a few years ago where the instructor stressed the importance of driving with two hands properly positioned on the steering wheel, eyes concentrated on the road occasionally scanning left and right. He emphasized the need to be prepared to make a sudden maneuver to avoid an accident. If that's considered safe driving, then what are we to make of those, myself included, who with a phone in one hand and the other hand on the wheel try to maneuver the car around a corner?
Driver distractions continue to grow as we add GPS, a cell phone, music player and satellite radio with hundreds of stations to navigate. Some people even send text messages while driving!
Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft have been working on a technology solution to make these activities safer and easier to manage. They've developed a product called SYNC that's available as a $395 option on many of Ford cars. I had a chance to try it out last week on a Lincoln MKZ, which I drove to Las Vegas for CES.
SYNC is designed to work with most any phone with Bluetooth and any music player with a USB connection. Instead of manipulating individual devices, each with their small screens and tiny buttons, you use voice commands and dashboard controls. While my car was equipped with an optional GPS system, SYNC is available with or without GPS.
The first time I used the car, I synced my phone with it. From then on, whenever I entered the car, the phone automatically synced and the display confirmed it saw my phone. It worked with the phone tucked in my pocket or in a briefcase in the backseat. (It will sync with up to a dozen different phones, but you can have only one conversation at a time.)
Once synced, I was able to access my contacts using voice commands. For example, I said, "Phone, call Jane's cell," and it would confirm the name and then dial. If there were two different Janes in my contact list, or if Jane had more than one number, it would ask for clarification. The screen also provided buttons to access my address book and recent calls and displayed a phone keypad, useful for dialing extensions or for navigating through voice mail.
When I received a call from someone in my contact list, the caller's name would pop up on the screen.
The voice recognition did not require training and recognized my commands about 90 percent of the time, improving over time as I spoke more carefully. In fact, it was as accurate a system as I have used on a consumer product.
A typical weakness of in-car telephony is the car's microphone. In my Acura RL, it's difficult for people to hear me clearly when my phone is connected through the car's Bluetooth. Lincoln's microphone performed much better. Unless I was traveling at a high speed with noticeable road noise, others could hear me clearly.
When I received SMS messages on my phone, the SYNC system would alert me then read me the messages using text-to-voice technology. I could reply using canned messages. When I plugged my iPod into the USB connection in the center console, SYNC automatically read my iPod contents. It didn't physically load the songs into the car, just the titles and other attributes. Then I was able to use voice commands to play my music. I could requests songs by artist or by title and set the play options, such as random, just as I would on the iPod itself. SYNC will recognize up to four different music players. The quality of audio in the car was quite good.
The SYNC system is designed to work with most phones. While it worked fine with my iPhone, it didn't work with the iPhone's built-in music player. The phone asked me to disable it to use the player, which also occurs with other iPod accessories not designed to work with the iPhone. Even when I did, I got a "USB disconnected" message, and it couldn't reliably play my music. I experienced no problems using an iPod. Ford indicated that there would be upgrades in the future to accommodate new phones.
During my travels to and from CES I made dozens of phone calls and listened to my music, relying mostly on voice commands. SYNC performed well; it was difficult to go back to a car without that capability.
Sync made driving a little safer than cars without it, although it's still easy to get distracted with all that's going on.
While there are a few cars that provide similar phone integration, I'm unaware of any that integrate music as well. There is a learning curve of a couple of days to become familiar with all of the features and commands. SYNC provides audio help when needed and the separate manual was clearly written and helpful.
According to Ford, SYNC is the first step and will go through many improvements. Ford has a six-month exclusive and then it will be available from other manufacturers. For now, it's ahead of anything else out there and is a deal at $395. I highly recommend it.
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