Fans of Knight Rider, the day you've been waiting for has arrived. Volvo and Microsoft have paired up to allow forward-thinking owners to remotely control their cars by talking to a "smart band" connected with the Swedish brand's On Call smartwatch app.
If you own a Microsoft Band 2, using the Volvo system is easy enough: all you do is tell the band what you want the car to do.
The system can turn the heater on, honk the horn, set the navigation and even start the car if you're not comfortable getting into a car that's not running. The driver is even able to get the lights to turn on, the motor to start and the doors to unlock by simply telling their smartband to "prepare the Volvo."
As you may have guessed, Microsoft Band 2 integration doesn't offer any functions that you couldn't access through Volvo's app, but who are we to criticise a car manufacturer from having a bit of fun with wearables?
The voice-control technology will be available in Spring 2016 (Northern Hemisphere). Until then, you're going to have to keep watching those Knight Rider re-runs for your talking-car thrills.
Source: Volvo
Taking this device into consideration, it would make sense for competitors to follow the same operation protocol. It might even make sense for all voice commands to be in the lingua franca, English, and thus take advantage of the economies of scale.
A similar philosophy could be applied to third generation vehicles (advanced driver assistance) and to fourth generation vehicles (fully autonomous) - if they ever manage to solve the multitude of obstacles in their way to being so-called.
In short, as vehicles become ever more complicated technologically, they need to become ever more easy to drive. That can only be achieved if all the controls follow a common means of operation and have a common location relative to the steering wheel. If the manufactures don't take the initiative, the politicians will, which is surely a situation to be avoided at all costs.