The 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS, an all-electric sedan aiming directly at Tesla’s top offering, will offer an optional display that spans the full width of the dashboard. Mercedes calls it the MBUX Hyperscreen, because it is not only a screen, but also hyper.
MBUX is of course the infotainment system introduced by Mercedes in 2018. The MBUX Hyperscreen will be the most complete expression to date. The screen will certainly be bright and look slick with its OLED technology. It is 56 inches wide and covers an area of 377 square inches.
But what interests me most is how Mercedes says it uses artificial intelligence for personalization.
Quoth Merc:
Mercedes-Benz has researched the usage behavior of the first MBUX generation and learned that most use cases fall into the Navigation, Radio / Media and Telephone categories. Therefore, the navigation application is always in the center of the screen unit with full functionality for ease of use. More than 20 other functions – from the active massage program to a birthday reminder and suggestions for a to-do list – are offered automatically with the help of artificial intelligence, if they are relevant to the customer. “Magic Modules” is the internal name the developers have given to these suggestion modules, which appear on the zero layer.
Here are four usage examples. The user can accept or reject the respective suggestion with just one click:
1. If you always call one specific person on the way home on a Tuesday evening, you will be prompted to call on that day of the week at that specific time. A business card appears with their contact information and – if saved – their photo is displayed. All MBUX suggestions are linked to the user profile. If someone else controls the EQS on Tuesday night, this recommendation will not be made – or another will be made, depending on the other user’s preferences.
2. If the EQS driver regularly uses the hot stone massage function of the optional Active Multicountour Seats, the system learns the hot stone massage function for the driver in colder temperatures and suggests it automatically.
3. If the user regularly uses both the heated steering wheel and the seat heating together, MBUX intelligently proposes to turn on the heated steering wheel as soon as the user turns on the heated seat.
4. The suspension of the EQS can be increased to provide more ground clearance. A useful feature for steep driveways or speed bumps to create a smoother ride. MBUX remembers the GPS position where the user used the “Vehicle Lift” function. When the vehicle approaches this GPS position again, MBUX will automatically propose to increase the EQS.
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All of the examples from Mercedes aren’t exactly essential, although I could see that ride height comes in handy if you live somewhere you’d use it. Aside from that, the screen is an interesting look at where infotainment in cars is headed. (It is also far from it the first big screen we have seen, very far.)
Mercedes, for example, deviates from submenus – the so-called “zero-layer” has most of the major apps available without a menu – which is a welcome change as submenus are often the most tedious part of using new car infotainment. That’s good too, because what people miss about buttons and knobs is that they put everything there for you.
Gorden Wagener, head of design at Mercedes, said the strategy is in fact to create technology that users don’t always dislike, as has been said about touchscreens in cars.
When I use MBUX I intuitively didn’t have to think about if and how. When we look at the thinking of my parents’ generation, they asked, Do I want to use technology? Today it is completely different, the fusion of technology and design makes it so easy: I want to use this technology. If technology can do a lot, but I have to calculate the use, I always keep my distance. That’s why it was important that our success is based on the idea that it should work as well as it looks.
Here are some more photos; do not sleep on the air vents.
