Voice Control, Basic Function - GF82.70-S-9903A

Model all (Light transporter) 

Overview 

This document contains the following information:

• Voice control
• Online voice control

General 

Voice control makes it possible to control multimedia system and vehicle functions conveniently without the driver having to take their hands off the steering wheel. For this, microphones in the vehicle interior record the spoken language, convert it into microphone signals and transmit them to the control unit for the voice control system.

The voice control system analyzes the microphone signals and converts them into operation signals or answers, which are output via the voice output.

Voice control 

Voice control can understand natural language and offers users the opportunity to formulate their wishes freely without having to learn specific voice commands.

Recognition of commands spoken in natural language is available in different variants depending on the language:

• Recognition of natural language with significant freedom to formulate commands (currently integrated in vehicles for the most important 14 languages)
• Recognition with reduced scope

Online voice control offers recognition of natural language with significant variety in formulation in all languages in which it is available.

The voice-controllable scopes include:

• Operating navigation, e.g. destination entry
• Using the address book entries for making phone calls or sending text messages (SMS)
• Reading out and dictating SMS messages
• Operating the audio systems (radio and media)
• Actuating the menus for various vehicle functions
• Operating vehicle functions, e.g. air conditioning system, seat heating, interior lighting
• Calling up the weather forecast

Voice control is activated via a button on the multifunction steering wheel.

Voice control can also be activated by using the keywords "Hey Mercedes". The user can switch this function on and off via the multimedia system. If the function is switched on, the multimedia system permanently monitors the hands-free system microphones for keywords for activation.

If voice control cannot clearly recognize the voice command, a query is made via the voice output.

Online voice control 

Additional function requirements:

• Sufficient mobile phone network coverage
• The user is registered with the service center and the vehicle is linked with their account.
• Online voice control is activated in the Mercedes-Benz customer portal.

Online voice control is only available for vehicles with navigation pre-installation and telematics services control unit.

It provides better recognition of the customer's request and provides additional results, e.g. information on POIs and the weather, using external information.

The functions dictating, weather forecast and entry of "what3words" addresses are only available with online voice control.

Online voice control is switched on at the factory. If online voice control is active, the multimedia system transmits the recognized voice commands to the Mercedes-Benz Back-end.

High-performance back-end servers analyze the voice inputs and convert them into control signals for the vehicle or answers for the voice output.

The Mercedes-Benz Back-end transmits the control signals and answers back to the vehicle again. The back-end server makes it possible to better recognize spoken language and, by accessing external information, provide detailed answers to the customer's voice request.

The multimedia system always carries out voice recognition in the vehicle simultaneously. The multimedia system compares this with the recognition from back-end and selects the better result. If the back-end does not send a reply, the multimedia system uses the recognition conducted in the vehicle.

Online voice control is not available for all system languages of the multimedia system.