Using BlueCruise

[wayne b]

I’ve now put hundreds of miles using BlueCruise and thought a separate thread (from “when is it coming to my car” threads) would be helpful for those of us using it, with tips and feedback.

For context, my previous car was a Volvo with its own version (it required a hand on one corner of the wheel), it worked quite well. The Ford driving side of it is as good or better than the Volvo. The interface side seems as good to me, but my wife doesn’t think so and watching her use it I can kind of see why she thinks this. Her confusion is what the steering wheel with the tachometer means (the car is doing “some” steering) vs. the hands free steering wheel means. And she doesn’t think there’s enough warning indication when it turns off. The Volvo beeped at you more aggressively.

One bug I’ve found. If you set your speed limit assist (in my case, to 10 miles over the speed limit), while in BlueCruise it will slow you down if it the speed limit zone changes (eg if you are in 70 zone and it goes down to 55, you’ll go from 79 to 65). The bug is it often reads the 55 signs that are only for trucks and trailers, and suddenly the car is slowing down and there’s no indication of why (or I missed the notification in the 12" screen). This has happened three times. I think the problem is if you set speed limit assist, it’s buried in the settings and there’s no indication what it’s set at on the instrument cluster.

Similarly I’d like a better indication at all times of what my cruise gap (1-4) is set at. I think the speed you’ve set and the distance are pretty crucial pieces of information and unless the intention is to keep your eyes down on the cluster, hunting for that information, it’s odd they are buried in the bottom right corner. The hands free icon is good in terms of you can’t miss it, but it does take up a lot of space that could provide that information. Did a quick mock up of what I'd like to use.

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[Bandito]

I would agree that when it disables it doesn’t always warn you, which in my book is a problem.

One place that I’ve found that it consistently disconnects is about 2-3 tenths of a mile before an open-road tolling installation. I’m in the Chicago area and this seems really consistent, but I can’t imagine why. The only thing that I can think of is that the lane lines change to solid on both sides to indicate that you shouldn’t change lanes when entering the detection zone. But, it seems like it disconnects before reaching the solid lines. I’ll have to monitor it more closely next time I’m out on one of our tollways.

 

[wayne b]

I would agree that when it disables it doesn’t always warn you, which in my book is a problem.

One place that I’ve found that it consistently disconnects is about 2-3 tenths of a mile before an open-road tolling installation. I’m in the Chicago area and this seems really consistent, but I can’t imagine why. The only thing that I can think of is that the lane lines change to solid on both sides to indicate that you shouldn’t change lanes when entering the detection zone. But, it seems like it disconnects before reaching the solid lines. I’ll have to monitor it more closely next time I’m out on one of our tollways.

I noticed on I-5 there was a construction zone (that Waze was aware of) and it disconnected right before. So the system might have areas it knows are confusing and disconnect. I can imagine before open road tolling starts might be an area they want people actively driving. In CA some of the toll roads split off even if they have open road tolling and I can imagine they don't want people on BC to decide last second to pick the other side. ?‍

 

[F1Fiddy]

How does one get this blue cruise?
Just a guess but I thought I read where the rig gets speed limits from Sirus XM / Nav vs reading speed signs? Not sure, just what I saw somewhere

 

[wayne b]

How does one get this blue cruise?
Just a guess but I thought I read where the rig gets speed limits from Sirus XM / Nav vs reading speed signs? Not sure, just what I saw somewhere

My understanding is you need the Co-Pilot 360 adaptive cruise control option to get it. If your car was built later in the year (as mine was), you might already have it, otherwise it's coming in early 2022. The relevant threads about the roll out are:

• https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/threads/received-invite-for-early-access-to-bluecruise-update.5069/
• https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/threads/ford-bluecruise-ota-rollout-delayed-until-q1-2022.6605/

 

[Bandito]

How does one get this blue cruise?
Just a guess but I thought I read where the rig gets speed limits from Sirus XM / Nav vs reading speed signs? Not sure, just what I saw somewhere

As far as the speed limits are concerned, the built-in navigation database for Sync 4 has the speed limits within it, but if they have been changed recently, it might be wrong. If you don’t have the Copilot features in the truck, the speed limits will come from the database. If you do have Copilot, then the camera reads the signs, so you always get the current speed limit.

There are a couple of limitations with reading the signs directly: one is school zones where the system will generally read the school zone speed limit and then slow the vehicle accordingly if cruise control is active even when the school zone isn’t active; two is on the freeway where there may be multiple speed limits for different vehicle types. It seems that the system will usually select the lowest limit. Because of this, I only use the sign recognition on surface roads and disable it on the freeway as you constantly have to reset your speed when passing the signs.

 

[wayne b]

As far as the speed limits are concerned, the built-in navigation database for Sync 4 has the speed limits within it, but if they have been changed recently, it might be wrong. If you don’t have the Copilot features in the truck, the speed limits will come from the database. If you do have Copilot, then the camera reads the signs, so you always get the current speed limit.

There are a couple of limitations with reading the signs directly: one is school zones where the system will generally read the school zone speed limit and then slow the vehicle accordingly if cruise control is active even when the school zone isn’t active; two is on the freeway where there may be multiple speed limits for different vehicle types. It seems that the system will usually select the lowest limit. Because of this, I only use the sign recognition on surface roads and disable it on the freeway as you constantly have to reset your speed when passing the signs.

Yeah, I'll do this because it's happened a few times and it's jarring when it's 15mph less. Like said in the OP, I'm not sure if there's any indication that it's going to slow you down and if there is, it's just at the top bar of the 12" screen (where the school zone warning pops up). A slightly related topic is why they put important notifications there and not in the main cluster.

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