BMW System Follows The Weather

[JoshCalkins]

BMW's ConnectedDrive system can do a number of things. First, it continues the company's trend of taking two separate words and splicing them together. Second, a new feature can deliver updated weather forecasts directly to your car with precipitation radar. The feature is currently only available in Germany, but it is quite impressive, and is also a first-ever in a production car. The service is going live in July of this year and it provides some handy functionality to the German BMW owner.

The system works rather simply. It downloads satellite imagery of the area every fifteen minutes, storing a total of 90 minutes of history, and then provides an animated satellite overlay like the kind found on your local television station's newscast. The overlay has two levels of zoom. The BMW ConnectedDrive system already provided daily weather forecasts to drivers, but this delivers even more specific detail to drivers.

While BMW hasn't announced specific plans to bring the precipitation radar to areas outside Germany, but one would imagine they will be as soon as possible. BMW has lately announced their intentions to further position themselves as a premium vehicle manufacturer, and the addition of precipitation radar certainly counts as "premium."