MUNICH: June marks the start of the rollout of the new BMW Remote Software Upgrade for 1.3 million vehicles with BMW Operating System 7 in selected countries.
This activates Amazon Alexa integration in four more markets. The over-the-air (OTA) upgrade also includes improvements, such as the integration of the traditional destination entry in BMW Maps.
The upgrade will update the BMW Operating System 7 to Version 21-03. The rollout in Germany started on June 1, and will gradually cover more BMW Connected Drive markets worldwide. In total, more than 1.3 million BMW vehicles (and more than 20 models) will be given the upgrade.
Customers can now also use many of the Alexa features in their car they often use at home: add items to shopping lists, check the news, play music or control compatible smart home devices from the car. So far, Alexa has been available for BMW Operating System 7 vehicles in Germany, Austria, Britain, Spain and Italy. This upgrade adds four more countries to the list - France, the United States, Canada and Brazil.
The BMW Maps navigation system was rolled out in mid 2020 for vehicles with BMW Operating System 7. The system, cloud-based for the first time, makes route calculation significantly faster and more dynamic by combining real-time information with predictive models. The cloud also contains additional context-related information on now over 120 million points of interest, such as ratings, opening hours and images. The POI database is updated and kept up-to-date several times a week at short and regular intervals.
The easiest way to enter the destination is in natural language in dialogue with the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant. With BMW Maps, additional improvements in terms of ease of use via touch or BMW controller have been implemented. The One-Box Search was used for the first time, for example. This allows customers to search for the addresses and names of places, as they are used to with when entering text in web search engines. Algorithms are used to filter the applicable database to display the probable suggestions already during input (auto-completion).
The adaptation for BMW Maps is activated after installing the current BMW Remote Software Upgrade.
One of the improvements provided by this upgrade is that the Lane Departure Warning settings can now be saved permanently.
With BMW Operating System 7 and BMW Remote Software Upgrade, it has been possible since 2018 for BMW drivers to keep their vehicle up-to-date with the latest software easily and quickly. The new functions can be conveniently installed in the car over the air. The installation files are prepared in the vehicle in the background. After that, even the installation of extensive upgrades will rarely take more than 20 minutes.
Due to the coronavirus situation - with its impact on support capacities - the rollout of the current upgrade may be delayed in individual markets.
Vehicles with BMW Operating System 7 not produced before March 2021 already have the latest software version.
Customers are informed about available Remote Software Upgrade via the My BMW App or on the control display in the vehicle. In addition, the software status can be viewed in the vehicle settings under Remote Software Upgrade and a search for available upgrades can be carried out. Remote Software Upgrade is now available for more than 20 BMW models and thus almost for the entire BMW fleet.
Vehicles with software versions older than 20-07 can only install the latest version after downloading and installing the intermediate versions. Only the next possible upgrade is offered for installation in the vehicle. The customer can never install a wrong version.
