macchiaz-o

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Husein Dakroub posted a short video of himself trying out a bunch of functions in SYNC 4A from a Grabber Blue First Edition in his driveway. It looks pretty good. Response times appear to be okay, not awesome but definitely not bad. IMHO we're still seeing it early and possibly with debugging slowdowns, so this is hopefully the low bar.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/huse...evs-mustang-activity-6677339340495994880-otj4

Some other interesting info extracted from his work experience (he is the technical manager for SYNC 4A and whatever it ends up being called as it rolls out to Ford's MY 2022 vehicles):

The codename for the first rapid prototype of SYNC 4A was Menlo. (Probably referring to Thomas Edison's invention factory Menlo Park.)

Ford's allocated > $150 million towards development and release of its "next generation" infotainment system, targetted for model year 2022 and beyond. I'm assuming this expands SYNC 4A to work with a wide variety of HMI form factors and vehicle specific requirements, and with support for more countries/regions.

We saw this already in Ford's "making of" video for the Mustang Mach-E, but Husein's profile seems to confirm that the SYNC 4A front-end is rendered with HTML and React.js.
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buzznwood

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Looks wise a vast improvement over sync 3 & 2 and has plenty of potential, but lets hope there is still a long way to go as a response time of 'ok' is a rather diplomatic answer ;). From the video it is sync 2 levels of bad :( and needs improving as cheap throw away android phones are faster.

I will give ford the benefit of the doubt that it is not final hardware, but it is a place where classic ford bean counting winning over engineering can not prevail, they really can not be cheapening out and using some low end bargain basement chipset.

The whole point of moving over to html 5 was so the interface could easily but updated over time and over the air so the hardware chosen really needs to be capable of handling not just the current settings but also any potential updates all without issue.

We also have to take into account that all the hvac controls have been replaced by the screen so any delay that is not present when using a physical dial / button is not acceptable.
 
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macchiaz-o

macchiaz-o

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From what little we can see in the video, it appears maybe 20-30 times faster than MyFord Touch (Sync 2) in my Fiesta.

I expect that this *is* the final hardware, just perhaps not the final software.

By comparison, according to Google's Polestar 2 emulation profile, that vehicle's infotainment uses an 1152x1536 pixel display and has 1.5 GB RAM. Nothing to write home about. But I'd bet it is automotive grade, and I expect that Ford's requirements took them in a similar direction. I'll be disappointed if the display yellows within the first 10 years, or if infotainment fails to work when it's too hot in the cabin (even high end smart phones don't handle this well).

I agree that the HVAC and volume controls need to be easy to access, and responsive to driver demands. In the video, it looks like both are fine -- they made the decision to have HVAC controls on screen at all times, with one tap access to things like raising or lowering the temperature. It looks fine to me so far. To know more, I'd need to sit in the driver's seat and see how comfortable the controls are to reach and use.
 

KT-PNW

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I’d agree that the responsiveness appears “ok” and not great in the video. You can see visible stuttering between menus. Still plenty of time to optimize the software though.
 

buzznwood

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There is some pretty major lag on some of the menus, not a massive deal breaker but I would expect a lot better in this day and age, while screens where classed as more of an addition I am forgiving of lag and low dpi screens, once you go down the route of making the screen front and center in needs to be on par with the current top phone standards which unless they make the hardware with potential upgrades in mind is going is to be what we have to use for 10+ years

Which is one of the main reasons why I am a not fan of havc controls on screen and never will be if the screen dies or the system crashes I no longer can make changes, no sat nav pain, but I can use my phone hvac as a fall back, also unless you happen to be driving on a silky smooth road all the time using a screen on rough roads is not ideal either. Certain physical buttons are mandated due to legislation they really need to add the hvac to that list.

The one big plus point for me of the screen based controls, is that all mach-e models have the exact same interior design, with color and seat design being the only real differences, when your typical ford has multiple screen size options and interior features, you can end up with a dash design that has to account for a multitude of swap-able parts based on trim levels that results in many contact points that are potential sources of squeaks and rattles in later years. :(, so by everyone getting the same there should hopefully be less chance of that :)
 


ChasingCoral

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Slick. Not sure where you thought you saw lags. I watched it several times and did't see any significant lags.
 

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I agree with ChasingCoral I dont see any lags it is very good !!
 

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Nice, that's not bad. Though yes a little laggy. It's definitely better than MFT but not as responsive as the Model 3. It might be slightly quicker than the Sync 3, so it will be an improvement for most. Still plenty of time for them to smooth out the interface though.
 

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Looked very fast to me. Faster than I can read, that is for sure. Sync3 in my FFE is great. No complaints so I am sure I will be happy with the MME system. Looking forward to placing my order and seeing it in my garage.
 

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Probably Beta software so I would not worry about response times. There is barely any lag in that demo.
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