How to Activate BMW's Voice Assistant?

[Kathy]

By clicking on the vehicle's central control screen, select "My Vehicle"; enter the interface, click "Settings", and find "General Settings". In the new interface, click the "Language" option; finally, check the box to use "Hey BMW" to start voice dialogue and complete the setup. After the BMW voice function is activated, it can be used for functions such as navigation search, music playback, and phone calls.

[VonMolly]

I drive the new 3 Series, and BMW's voice wake-up button is quite intuitive. There's a button with a microphone icon in the middle of the left-hand side of the steering wheel—just press it to start a conversation. If you find pressing it manually troublesome, you can simply say 'Hey BMW' to wake it up. The recognition rate is much higher than in my previous car. Once activated, you can control basic functions like navigation, AC temperature, and skipping tracks. Just remember to enable voice permissions in the settings, or it won’t respond no matter how loud you shout. Here’s a fun fact: holding the wake-up button for two seconds can forcefully interrupt voice playback, which is especially satisfying when the navigation gets too chatty. After a system update, it even supports dialect recognition, though my broken Cantonese hasn’t managed to trigger it yet.