<story><title>Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS</title><url>https://media.mbusa.com/releases/software-architects-mercedes-benz-previews-its-operating-system-mbos</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SoftTalker</author><text>&amp;gt; Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow&lt;p&gt;That’s what it should do, honestly. It’s not safe to drive with cruise control in low traction conditions.</text></item><item><author>lh7777</author><text>&amp;gt; if the system fails to detect any other vehicles for a period of more than about 90 minutes, it assumes that there is a sensor fault, and refuses to operate&lt;p&gt;I have a current model Sprinter and this behavior is frustrating (thanks for the explanation, by the way, I thought it was a random bug). Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow, with the system saying the sensor is dirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if traditional cruise control would keep working without the active braking assist, etc. but unfortunately it’s all or nothing. I do like the system when it works, which is most of the time, and it’s never done something that felt unsafe.&lt;p&gt;I haven’t had any problems with the info system. This is my first vehicle with a touchscreen, and I was worried that it’d be a pain to use. But Mercedes provides real buttons for common actions, little trackpads on the steering wheel that can control the system without ever having to touch the screen, Car Play works great, and the built-in nav system is useful for those times I need directions and don’t have a cell signal.&lt;p&gt;My biggest worry is how these delicate parts will hold up over the years. My 10 year old car has a monochrome dot matrix display that loses a good number of pixels when it gets hot out. Will I really be able to get replacement parts for the Sprinter when the screen or computer start to die in 10-15 years?</text></item><item><author>qrohlf</author><text>I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience.&lt;p&gt;It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because the vehicle kept the computer system &amp;quot;warm&amp;quot; for up to 30 minutes or so to avoid doing a full (and slow) bootup process every time you stopped for fuel, this was a real problem on long trips and couldn&amp;#x27;t always be solved by power cycling the vehicle.&lt;p&gt;Had a dealer try to update it twice, which didn&amp;#x27;t seem to meaningfully impact the system stability at all.&lt;p&gt;Then there were multiple other, non-head-unit related glitches like the lane assist and cruise control features being incompatible with the state of Nevada (if the system fails to detect any other vehicles for a period of more than about 90 minutes, it assumes that there is a sensor fault, and refuses to operate [1]. Unfortunately it is &lt;i&gt;quite easy&lt;/i&gt; to spend hours on the road alone in many southwestern US states, triggering this failsafe mode)&lt;p&gt;Suffice it to say that I am very skeptical of any software coming from Mercedes these days.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.winnieowners.com&amp;#x2F;forums&amp;#x2F;f265&amp;#x2F;2019-sprinter-cruise-control-design-flaw-362188.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.winnieowners.com&amp;#x2F;forums&amp;#x2F;f265&amp;#x2F;2019-sprinter-cruis...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xattt</author><text>This is one unconscious bias from California-based self-driving companies: weather conditions worse than overcast skies exist in other parts of the world.&lt;p&gt;Recently, I drove in a whiteout blizzard with huge flakes without much accumulation on the road. Road was drivable, but I couldn’t see road markings. The experience would have been less scary with some sort of augmented display to show the road borders.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS</title><url>https://media.mbusa.com/releases/software-architects-mercedes-benz-previews-its-operating-system-mbos</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SoftTalker</author><text>&amp;gt; Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow&lt;p&gt;That’s what it should do, honestly. It’s not safe to drive with cruise control in low traction conditions.</text></item><item><author>lh7777</author><text>&amp;gt; if the system fails to detect any other vehicles for a period of more than about 90 minutes, it assumes that there is a sensor fault, and refuses to operate&lt;p&gt;I have a current model Sprinter and this behavior is frustrating (thanks for the explanation, by the way, I thought it was a random bug). Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow, with the system saying the sensor is dirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if traditional cruise control would keep working without the active braking assist, etc. but unfortunately it’s all or nothing. I do like the system when it works, which is most of the time, and it’s never done something that felt unsafe.&lt;p&gt;I haven’t had any problems with the info system. This is my first vehicle with a touchscreen, and I was worried that it’d be a pain to use. But Mercedes provides real buttons for common actions, little trackpads on the steering wheel that can control the system without ever having to touch the screen, Car Play works great, and the built-in nav system is useful for those times I need directions and don’t have a cell signal.&lt;p&gt;My biggest worry is how these delicate parts will hold up over the years. My 10 year old car has a monochrome dot matrix display that loses a good number of pixels when it gets hot out. Will I really be able to get replacement parts for the Sprinter when the screen or computer start to die in 10-15 years?</text></item><item><author>qrohlf</author><text>I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience.&lt;p&gt;It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because the vehicle kept the computer system &amp;quot;warm&amp;quot; for up to 30 minutes or so to avoid doing a full (and slow) bootup process every time you stopped for fuel, this was a real problem on long trips and couldn&amp;#x27;t always be solved by power cycling the vehicle.&lt;p&gt;Had a dealer try to update it twice, which didn&amp;#x27;t seem to meaningfully impact the system stability at all.&lt;p&gt;Then there were multiple other, non-head-unit related glitches like the lane assist and cruise control features being incompatible with the state of Nevada (if the system fails to detect any other vehicles for a period of more than about 90 minutes, it assumes that there is a sensor fault, and refuses to operate [1]. Unfortunately it is &lt;i&gt;quite easy&lt;/i&gt; to spend hours on the road alone in many southwestern US states, triggering this failsafe mode)&lt;p&gt;Suffice it to say that I am very skeptical of any software coming from Mercedes these days.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.winnieowners.com&amp;#x2F;forums&amp;#x2F;f265&amp;#x2F;2019-sprinter-cruise-control-design-flaw-362188.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.winnieowners.com&amp;#x2F;forums&amp;#x2F;f265&amp;#x2F;2019-sprinter-cruis...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nuccy</author><text>Well... there is another problem obviously apart of low traction, which car cannot sense directly. Accumulation of water or snow obstruct the radar. Actually a car with no camera would report exactly that just from radar readout alone, since it can detect worse signal-to-noise due to too much reflection in its readings.</text></comment>