Does anyone else with a 2020 S-Class find that the voice control function is a disaster? It's so preposterously, unbelievably slow, and needs to get the wax out of its ears because it can never decipher what I'm saying, that it's almost unusable. It's not intuitive and can't understand basic commands. More than anything else, I just can't deal with how slow it is. The refreshed models with MBUX work extremely well. This 2020 S-Class (the last year of the non-MBUX W222 apparently) is just painfully slow when you try to tell it to navigate to a particular address. You tell it something, and the wheel just spins and spins and spins before it tells you it doesn't understand, misinterprets what you said, or brings back wildly inaccurate addresses/results, or in a small percentage of cases, actually works. While the car is absolutely beautiful, and is a feat of engineering, the technology/voice command component works like it's 2005.

Having some basic understanding of how these things work, as I understand it that while Mercedes/Daimler designs and builds the cars, the "Connected Car" component is left to MBUSA or the destination country to implement. Mercedes used to use a system called TeleAid, which around 2010 transitioned into a "smarter" but painfully slow and unreliable system with expanded capability. In the last couple of years and going forward they are transitioning to MBUX, which is finally designed well and works. The late model COMAND systems in the W222 and other pre-MBUX cars have internet access and internet connected features, which in cars from before 2016/2017 used Verizon 3G, and from 2016/2017-MBUX used Verizon LTE and were a smidge better than the practically unusable "connected car" features in the 2010-2016 COMAND systems.

The problem I believe that makes the W222 voice control so darn slow, is that when you tell it to navigate somewhere, it is also using the internet to do a search on what you said. So for instance if you say "Navigate to the Main Street Mall" it will use the internet to find the address for that. The problem is that the pre-MBUX internet hookup is SO SLOW and under equipped, that it bottlenecks this entire process, and bogs down the whole voice control system. I feel this way because I also have driven a 2018 GLC, which uses the same COMAND system but without the fancy S-Class internet features and extras, and thus when I tell it to navigate to "123 Main Street" it just does basic parsing to dictate my voice message into a text address, which it then inputs into the GPS. It does not have an internet search feature built into the voice control system, and thus it is much faster.

The W222 S-Class meanwhile, whether you read it an address (Navigate to 123 Main Street), or tell it a destination (Navigate to John's Restaurant in Palm Beach), it's still doing an internet lookup on what you say as part of its process, and due to the fact that the pre-MBUX internet system is so slow and underpowered, it bottlenecks the voice control system.

If there was a way to disable the Internet-related feature of this, and just be able to say (Navigate to 123 Main Street), it would work MUCH faster. I can't seem to figure out if it's even possible to do that. It seems like the only option is to trade for the 2021 W223 MBUX S-Class which, I assume like the rest of the MBUX cars, fixes this poorly performing system.

Or maybe I'm wrong about how it works/where the issue is, and it's just very slow and inaccurate.

I have tried calling the local dealer, but honestly there isn't much they can do to fix this since it's how it was designed, and I feel like many of them don't understand it. MB corporate and MB USA know the system sucks, and you'd assume they'd just play dumb about it, since it really cannot be fixed as far as I know.

Does anyone else have any thoughts/experiences with this thing? I can't (I guess I can) believe that such a top of the line, 2020 vehicle has such problems. Has anyone been able to fix it?

Thanks.

 

Interesting ... my 2014 C350 has this voice control system and I've actually never bothered to try using it. Guess that's a good thing if the six-year newer version in the mighty S barely works ...

 

You do seem to have an exceptionally bad experience. I have the same latest COMAND system in my 2019 C63S Coupe and it actually works pretty good now. I had a similar experience at the beginning and it seemed the online search service was not working properly. At times it was actually even down and returned no results. You are correct. If you use the "Navigate to ..." voice command it searches several sources, including online. It would be nice if it did it in parallel, but they are done in sequence. It actually tells you on the screen which source it is searching, so if it's stuck on a particular one, you know which one it is.

I use a combination of Apple CarPlay and the internal navigation system. If my phone is connected then I can just use Siri and say something like "Take me to address/name using Google Maps" and it starts navigation using Google Maps. But recently I've been using COMAND quit a bit with voice command and it worked actually flawless the past two to three weekends I used it to navigate to specific destinations. It found the destination online on the first attempt and started the navigation. It also was quite fast. Is it possible that your car's Internet connection is slow where you are?

Alternatively, I find my destination on my phone and then use the Mercedes Me Connect app to send it to the nav. This is very easy on the iPhone at least as one can share destinations directly out of apps such as Google Maps. If already in the car and the phone connected to Bluetooth, the destination is actually sent to the COMAND system over Bluetooth and it pops up on the car's screens within a few seconds. If done from outside the car, it goes through the cloud and then pops up within a few seconds after starting the engine and the COMAND system booting up.

I'm not aware of being able to turn off the online search, but I believe there are more specific navigation commands such as "Navigate to contact <name>", and "Navigate to address <address>" might work. This might limit the search to a specific source I believe. There's actually a somewhat cool one "Navigate to what3words <three words>". I'm not sure if you are familiar with the service, but you can refer to any 3 meter square in the world using a unique 3 word address. For example "Navigate to what3words trying vibes ruled" takes you to the Empire State Building.

https://what3words.com/

Overall, I've gotta say it works quit well for me. If the online service is down, then the experience is hampered, but as I said, I was actually pleasantly surprised how well it worked the last few weeks, even finding places with foreign sounding names. I actually like that all searches are done at once. I've previously owned Audis and there you had to use a specific command to search online, which is pretty much what I always ended up doing, because its own database was so woefully out of date that it wasn't finding anything useful. Audi uses Google Local Voice Search for their service. The COMAND system uses HERE Local Voice Search. It's also possible that HERE doesn't have good enough data for your area.

I also like that the COMAND voice control is more like a dialog. You can follow up with additional commands. For example after a "Navigate to" command that doesn't find a single unique result you can filter further by saying "Show online results" (Don't quite remember the command, but whatever it says on the screen) to specifically filter. I've had have it happen in the past that I wanted to navigate to a specific place and it found a bunch of addresses it showed to me and none were what I was looking for, but then I followed up by saying "Show online results" or "Show POIs" and one of them actually had the place I was looking for. But with the recent few searches, for most of them it nailed the actual place I was looking for as a single result and immediately started the navigation to it. The most recent one I did on Saturday had two matches. I wanted to go to Stewarts Point, CA which is a small little place on Hwy 1 up north from here. I said "Navigate to Stewarts Point" and it found Stewarts Point, CA and another one with Stewarts Point in the street name. Not even sure anymore if that one was even in California, but I then just had to say the line number, 1 in this case, and off it went. The whole thing only took a few seconds.

 

Has anyone tried lately to reply to a text using voice dictation in their 2020 S class? Mine worked for a few months when I 1st got the car, but coincidentally about the same time that Mercedes discontinued their incredibly slow Internet browser my Voice dictation to text fails 100% of the time. After Its struggles to work it finally gives up and says message not understood. I took the car into the dealer they verified the issue wanted to keep my car for several days, they were supposedly talking to Germany to get a resolution. After 3 days I needed my car back. So I plan on returning the car to the dealer when I have a week that I can leave it with them. They think it may be the Hermes unit. The dealer told me they will have to start the case all over again since I couldn't leave the car eternally with them. Pretty dumb. Am I the only one with this issue?

 

No, you are not the only one. This feature is broken currently. Nothing to do with your car. It uses a service in the cloud that is not working. I've honestly never used it and never saw much of a need for it. When I need to send a text message, I just press and hold the voice control button for a couple of seconds until Siri comes on and then I say something like "Tell John I'm running late". Much faster and easier, but it would be nice if all the features were working. MB has clearly been working on the new Mercedes Me Connect platform since the 2019 models came out. The backend services weren't ready for prime time when the cars were released. For the most part of 2019 it was a crap shoot with services going down and the portal not working. Things have stabilized, but they have also discontinued several services w/o announcement. The functionality in the portal has systematically been shrinking. Not sure if those services are coming back once they can get them to work or what's going on. Notifications never worked well and seem to be broken as well at the moment. I haven't been getting security alerts for a while when I leave my car unlocked for example. BTW, MBUX is not much better, because it relies on the same online platform. They really need to get this thing stable and functional, but software is an ongoing sore point with the German car manufacturers. From MB to VW, they just don't seem to be able to assemble talented software teams who can knock this online platforms out and actually keep them working properly. In all honesty, though, it doesn't bother me all that much, because of the smartphone integration with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Much of the same things can be achieved via the phone, so if the Mercedes Me services aren't always working, it's not that big of deal. The functions I use mostly seem to be quite stable. Traffic data works pretty well, and so does sending destinations from my phone to the car and so far haven't had any issues with Apple CarPlay. Just kinda have to be resourceful and use what works best for the current situation.

 

Oh, one more thing that I almost forgot about. MB is regularly updating the voice recognition and puts out an update along with the map updates. However, you have to login to the portal and manually download the voice recognition updates to an SD card or USB drive and then stick in the car to run the update. Only the map updates for the home region get automatically pushed to the car. Everything else needs to be updated manually via the portal. You can see from the screenshot below, I'm currently completely up to date, except for Mexico and Canada where I never drive, so I skipped those. Since I took delivery of my C63S last May, I've received three map and voice updates. These have definitely improved the voice recognition with new commands and more reliable recognition, so make sure you are actually running the lastest map and voice recognition.

 

I have noticed it takes about 5 seconds longer to voice command in a navigation destination. It works but takes almost 10 seconds longer overall. I liked the way my 2017 S class voice command system worked better than my 2019, but it's no biggie.

 

Thank you superswiss. Where is the portal that you are mentioning? I went to MB.navigation.com But it appears that is for vehicles 2018 and older.

 

https://www.me.mercedes-benz.com/

 

Thanks, I will check it out

 

Super Swiss, you rock! So far I have been able to reply to three's text messages via voice. Thank you!

 

Happy to help, but is it working for you now using COMAND dictation? That wasn't working for me last time I tried with the updated voice files and I always use Siri instead. Maybe I should try again.

 

After the update, I tested 3 text replies using the Comand dictation. Time will tell, but it failed everytime before this update. Try yours and see if it works. I dont usually use android auto, so this is great for me. I am really annoyed they cancelled the internet browser though. Yes it was super slow, but I still used it while it was available. I do take issue with a new car of this value- and the mfg. just cancels features at will. Will they cancel my driver assist package next?

 

To be clear, yes Comand text voice dictation now works after the update.

 

Thanks for the clarification. Not sure if it's related, but I decided to update my remaining regions (Mexico and Canada) in order to have everything up to date and then proceeded to dictating a new text message and it indeed works now.

 

Nice! Kind of silly that my dealer had no idea about this update. They wanted to replace hardware, when it was obviously software. Maybe MB should train dealer service departments better.

 

MB also needs to train customers better. I really had no idea about the me.connect website.

 

Yeah, not sure dealers see the map updates, unless you tell them to look for it now that they get pushed out over the Me portal and can be installed directly by the owner. You are supposed to get an email whenever there is an update, but it might not work consistently. I never got an email for the first two updates, but got one when the third update came out. It contained a link to the portal. Also, the home region is supposed to get pushed out to the car automatically and once it's installed a message should pop up on your COMAND system informing you the maps were updated, so that's another indication to go to the portal and manually download the voice files and other map regions. But yeah, the dealer didn't really explain much about this. They just had me setup the app on my phone, which I actually did ahead of time and then activated the account. However, it wasn't working right away, so I had to go back and both my sales guy and I were sitting in the car with Me support on the line and they made me go into the portal to properly activated all the services while the sales guy had to do something on his iPad. So I was aware of the portal at that point, actually if I remember correctly, I became first aware of the portal via the registration emails, but pretty much figured everything out myself. I'm a computer engineer, though, and knew more about this stuff than the sales guy in the first place.

 

Interesting thread ... there's a running debate that carmakers can't compete in the realm of user apps and will eventually just off-load it entirely to CarPlay and the Android equivalent. Many of the arguments for this are mentioned here: lack of training, documentation and support, difficulty delivering updates, slow fixes, etc.

The other side of the argument goes that a carmaker has to create and own the relationship with the end user and not become a "dumb pipe" for other companies. Give Apple all your APIs and the customer is driving a "Mercedes powered by iPhone".

Tip of the spear may be navigation, which many auto companies have completely abandoned. Do luxury marques like Mercedes, Bentley, Audi, Jaguar, etc. really have the resources to play in this game or are they going to go the same route as Honda and the big volume makers?

 

I don't see this happening unless Mercedes etc. decides to partner with Apple or Google and have them build a custom Infotainment system based on their technology stack. Apple CarPlay and AA are nice for navigation, music etc., but they don't fully integrate with the car and don't have access to many features. For example the phones have to completely rely on the GPS signal, whereas the built-in nav can use the wheel sensors and other data from the car to continue navigation even if there is momentarily no GPS signal for example in a tunnel. Ever drove through a long tunnel with Google Maps etc. and had to take an exit in the tunnel system and Google Maps completely lost it, because there was no GPS signal? This doesn't happen with built-in car navigation systems. They continue to track the car's position even inside of tunnels. I'm bringing this up, because in Europe there are often extensive tunnel systems with forks and exits while you are still in the tunnel and if you are not familiar with the area you will get lost in the tunnel system with phone apps, because they become completely useless w/o a GPS signal.

Furthermore, the map data these days is not just used for navigation, but also for all the predictive driving assistance and even DISTRONIC. It's used to automatically slow the car down when approaching intersections, roundabouts and even highway exits. This just won't work with Apple CarPlay or AA unless a much deeper integration between the two happens. Audi actually at one point showed of Embedded Android as the new platform for their Infotainment system. Not sure whatever happened to that. Even Google is actually focusing more on Embedded Android than Android Auto. Self-driving or partially self-driving cars won't happen if the car doesn't have its own high resolution navigation system. There's too much at stake for car makers to leave this up to Apple or Google.

 

Indeed is the COMAND NTG 5*2 (pre facelift) much better in many (online) respects than the newer COMAND NTG 5*5 (See other threads for that).
I have the 4G LTE module (with Vodafone SIM), but the problem seems to be at either Vodafone or MB itself (all internet traffic goes via a proxy in Stuttgart I believe).
The famous TuneIN problem (overhere in EU at least) happily has been solved, and also might have to do with a proxy (failing to connect over the required https instead of http).

Voice Command is very unpredictable indeed.......have alread version 360, and it works with commands, but not anymore with SMS/text voice recognition (used to work as a charm......). SO much for progress...........

 

I don’t want Apple or Google or Facebook or anyone designing the systems. They would love that because your car could be a massive data collection tool. Your location all the time. Where you shop, eat, work, spend your time, what hours you are active, what music you listen to...they would turn your car into a giant data collecting, ad curating nightmare. I want the car companies doing them but it’s just insane how incompetent they are at it. There are some truly awful infotainment systems out there. MBUX is in my opinion the best there is. But this last version just doesn’t work too well. The execution, hardware, and back end infrastructure is designed to fail.