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Say Happy New Year to Your BMW, See What Happens

It’s about time you start greeting people left and right with the proper “Merry Christmas,“ and soon enough with the "Happy New Year" follow-up. If you happen to be a BMW owner, you can wish the same to your ride, and it will reply in kind.
BMW Christmas and New Year greetings 3 photos
Photo: BMW
BMW Christmas and New Year greetingsBMW Christmas and New Year greetings
Taking advantage of the capabilities offered by the BMW Operating System 7.0, the Bavarian carmaker cooked up special greetings for its customers, available through the car’s main display.

Starting December 24, a simple phrase like “Hey BMW, Merry Christmas” will prompt the system into showing a special response created in the BMW laboratories. Likewise, starting December 31, the phrase “Hey BMW, Happy New Year” will bring to life the screen to show another such greeting, accompanied by festive music. Of course, both can be summoned the good-old fashion way as well, by accessing the car’s menu on the display.

Additionally, “the New Year banner will appear automatically up to three times on starting the car and will be accessible anytime in the Messages menu following the first activation,” say the Germans. According to the carmaker, the greetings will be available for a limited period of time, and only for cars running software status 07/2020 or later.

The Germans are thus talking about the cars running the massive update rolled out starting mid-October, the “biggest and most extensive upgrade in the premium manufacturer’s history so far.” This means these animations should be available in cars wearing the BMW badge from 41 countries.

A total of around 750,000 vehicles have been targeted by the new version, free of charge and over-the-air. Eight major areas were covered by the new software, ranging from navigation (three choices are available, BMW Maps, Google Maps, and Apple Maps) to wireless Android Auto.

If you didn’t get the update yet, head over to this link and check for instructions.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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