BMW goes big on in-car digital experiences and gaming at CES 2024

In-car digital experiences will dominate the theme of BMW’s presence at the Consumer Electrics Show (CES) 2024 taking place in Las Vegas in the US between January 9-12. The company says it will show new infotainment products for the current BMW model portfolio, and demonstrate innovative development for the future.

For starters, visitors will teleoperate a BMW iX and guide it around the Silver Lot on the exhibition site, discover as a passenger the potential offered by augmented reality glasses and experience a new generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) BMW personal assistant with quicker answers and how-to responses on vehicle features.

BMW Operating System 9 (OS9), which will be rolled out this year, makes new gaming experiences possible. The optional BMW Digital Premium offering will allow customers with cars fitted with OS9 access to an extended range of products, including on-demand functions for the vehicle, and third-party apps in the music and audio, news and magazines, and gaming categories.

Use of proper gaming controllers is also coming, adds BMW.

For example, the classic console game Beach Buggy Racing 2 is available, with two players in the vehicle able to compete against one another in split-screen mode using any standard gaming controllers with Bluetooth capability. The controller link-up will be made available over the air for BOS9 in 2024.

In addition to the BMW Theatre Screen with Amazon Fire TV built into the rear compartment of the BMW 7 Series, customers are now able to watch a variety of video content on the central display too, including live channels and on-demand media libraries covering the categories news, sport, entertainment for children, movies and TV series.

BMW will extend the video capability to more compact models, including the MINI sub-brand with a number of portals including Pluto TV, Bloomberg, TED, Yahoo! and Chili being made available.

Wearables of the future will enhance the driving experience with XREAL Air 2 augmented reality glasses. BMW will also use CES 2024 to demonstrate for the first time how augmented reality (AR) glasses enrich the driving experience.

Visitors can test the AR glasses on a drive through Las Vegas, seeing how navigation instructions, hazard warnings, entertainment content, information on charging stations and supporting visualisations in parking situations are embedded into the real-world environment by the XREAL Air 2 function.

The BMW Group has been working on the development of Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) technology since 2008 and is investigating possible applications for head-mounted displays in research projects. AR and MR devices are poised to become increasingly popular in the next few years, while technological advances will debut in cheaper entry-level models in future.

The BMW voice assistant is now enhanced with the help of the Alexa Large Language Model (LLM) and is in preparation for a potential series rollout. Since the introduction of the first BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant in 2018, language interaction has been an essential part of BMW iDrive.

Now thanks to generative AI, visitors will experience how the voice assistant provides quicker instructions and answers about vehicle functions in a much more human, conversation-like manner, while being able to control some vehicle functions.

The latest proof point gives customers control over many vehicle functions so they can keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road.

The next-generation of automated level 4 parking solutions is also being prepared, including the development of solutions for automated valet parking (AVP) where the customer leaves their vehicle in a designated drop-off area and the vehicle then searches for a vacant parking space itself, manoeuvres into the space and later exits and can even drive back to the pickup area for collection by the driver.

Either an autonomous driving system or a teleoperated valet system can be used as the underlying technology for this, says BMW. Using live camera images to guide and move the vehicle, teleoperation offers complete control in situations that could be challenging for fully autonomous systems, such as in complex or unfamiliar environments.

CES 2024 visitors will have the opportunity to try out this teleoperated valet parking for themselves.