CarPlay Siri vs. Sync voice commands

[justlookingaround]

Do any owners out there know how well Sync 4a voice commands work with CarPlay on? We currently have a long-term loaner (long story) with Sync 3, and with CarPlay on, Siri preempts the voice command button on the steering wheel. That's fine on a car with physical climate control buttons, and very limited climate voice commands (basically overall temperature adjustments only).

My wife and I had an hour-long test drive with the Mach-E, and the lack of physical climate buttons had us leaning towards no, especially because the floor and front panel vent buttons are buried in the pop out card right of the volume knob. The windshield vents and heated seats get their own top-level button at the bottom of the screen, and that's not ideal but doable.

Then I read about Sync voice commands, and the other thread with the list of climate voice commands include windshield, panel, and floor vents. So if we could tell the car to turn on floor vents, with CarPlay on doing nav and podcast duty, that may work.

I am kind of hesitant to book a second test drive just to see if voice control works to turn the front panel and floor vents on and off, but if anyone here knows that it works, then that's even better. I vaguely remember reading something about "Hey Siri, tell Sync to set climate temperature to 65" but of course I don't have a Mach-E at home to test.

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[Macheeee]

Do any owners out there know how well Sync 4a voice commands work with CarPlay on? We currently have a long-term loaner (long story) with Sync 3, and with CarPlay on, Siri preempts the voice command button on the steering wheel. That's fine on a car with physical climate control buttons, and very limited climate voice commands (basically overall temperature adjustments only).

My wife and I had an hour-long test drive with the Mach-E, and the lack of physical climate buttons had us leaning towards no, especially because the floor and front panel vent buttons are buried in the pop out card right of the volume knob. The windshield vents and heated seats get their own top-level button at the bottom of the screen, and that's not ideal but doable.

Then I read about Sync voice commands, and the other thread with the list of climate voice commands include windshield, panel, and floor vents. So if we could tell the car to turn on floor vents, with CarPlay on doing nav and podcast duty, that may work.

I am kind of hesitant to book a second test drive just to see if voice control works to turn the front panel and floor vents on and off, but if anyone here knows that it works, then that's even better. I vaguely remember reading something about "Hey Siri, tell Sync to set climate temperature to 65" but of course I don't have a Mach-E at home to test.

Siri activates with a 2 second press of the voice button on MME’s steering wheel. A tap of the button without holding it brings up the sync4 voice commands. Both easily accessible

 

[MailGuy]

My experience has been that Siri and Sync co-habitate nicely. You don't have to use the button to invoke either. "Hey Siri call ..." and "OK Ford set Climate to 72 degrees", both work equally well with Car Play enabled. I'll admit I haven't tried to ask Siri to ask Sync to do something and vice-versa, nor have I tried to redirect the airflow with either. My biggest beef is that Car Play takes over all the phone functions when it's active and to get back to "native" bluetooth you have to disable Car Play in Sync. Car Play chews up battery way too quickly for my liking in every car where I've used it. The wireless charging pad keeps the phone charged, but it sure gets hot with Car Play enabled. I prefer the Sync interface (in dark mode) over the juvenile looking Car Play and may end up just turning off Car Play, but for now it's still on.

 

[justlookingaround]

So CarPlay might not be the way to go, considering that AppLink exists?

In that case, does anyone have an exhaustive list of Sync 4a climate voice commands? On Sync 3 in this car only temperature setting seems supported.

What does "OK Ford, Climate list of commands" give you as a response?

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