In-Vehicle Assistant Suggestions for Hands-Free App Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users interacting with vehicle computing devices face increased distraction and resource consumption due to manual control of applications while driving, as they often need to manually input commands for various features, leading to inefficient use of computational resources and safety hazards.
Innovation Solution
An automated assistant that provides contextual suggestions for assistant inputs to control vehicle and mobile applications, allowing users to interact hands-free by processing contextual data and generating suggested spoken utterances to perform tasks, thereby reducing the need for manual input and minimizing driver distraction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If users manually control vehicle computing device applications, then application functionality is achieved, but user distraction and safety risks increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual mechanical interaction (touchscreen tapping, graphical keypad entry) with voice-based acoustic input. Users speak natural language commands that the automated assistant processes to control applications, eliminating the need for visual attention to the display and manual finger movements, thereby reducing driver distraction while maintaining full application control functionality
Solution Approach 2:
The automated assistant serves as an intermediary between the user and the vehicle computing device applications. It receives voice inputs, interprets intent, and executes appropriate actions across multiple applications (phone, media, messaging), allowing users to control complex functionality through simple spoken commands without directly interacting with graphical interfaces
2Productivity
If users manually control vehicle computing device applications, then application tasks are completed, but computational resources are wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The automated assistant proactively monitors application states and predicts user intentions based on contextual data. It prepares and suggests appropriate commands before users need to execute them, and can automatically execute routine tasks without waiting for explicit user input, thereby reducing the number of processing cycles required for task completion and minimizing computational resource waste
Data Source
AI summary
Implementations set forth herein relate to an automated assistant that can provide suggestions for a user to interact with the automated assistant to control applications while in a vehicle. The suggestions can be provided to encourage hands-free interactions with the applications, by suggesting an assistant input that invokes the automated assistant to operate as an interface between the user and the applications. Assistant suggestions can be based on a context of a user and/or a context of the vehicle, such as content of a display interface of a device that the user is accessing while in the vehicle. For instance, the automated assistant can determine that an action that the user has employed an application to perform can be initialized more safely and/or in less time by utilizing a particular assistant input. This particular assistant input can then be rendered at an interface of a vehicle computing device.