Maruti Suzuki SCross' SMARTPLAY Infotainment System

The new crossover S Cross from Maruti comes equipped with a Suzuki’s 7-inch touchscreen SmartPlay infotainment system, that was first introduced with the top model Ciaz. The voice controlled system offers smartphone integration, hands-free calling and audio streaming.

The SMARTPLAY Infotainment System

SMARTPLAY is a 7" WVGA TFT display touchscreen infotainment system that allows you to forget buttons and dial with your voice. Select songs, albums and artists as you speak. There’s a built-in GPS wherein maps are pre-loaded on SD card, so you can navigate and reach places with ease.

Placing of buttons and ease of use

On tapping the power button you will be shown home screen of the system. Four modes viz Listen, Call, Drive, Connect take up most of the screen. On the left, buttons for volume are housed and on the right are three buttons, tapping the Home button will take you back to home screen while you are accessing other menu items, second is voice control to enable voice command and the third is settings button that will take you to settings for each respective menu. And in the top center, clock is displayed. All the buttons are nicely placed and are highly responsive thus can respond to the slighest touch to give you a hassle free entertainment experience and you can concentrate more on driving.

Listen Mode

This mode allows you to choose and connect to various sources of entertainment like FM, USB, Aux-in, smart phone. So you can break free of music library and tune in to your favorite stations at just a tap of a button.

You can preset up to 18 radio stations so you will never miss out on your favorite one. The integrated system automatically mutes music and entertainment as you receive a call and switches back in action as you end it.

During music playback, a tap onto the centre of the screen launches quick function menu. Scroll through entertainment with play, pause, forward, rewind, previous track, next track, shuffle and repeat always on your fingertips.

The system can also be commanded via voice input and allows you speak out artist, album or song title to select the track to be played. We tested this feature using iPhone 5S and SMARTPLAY easily recognized our accent and started playing the selected track. It supports formats such as mp3, aac, mp4, wma, H.264, mpg, and wav. 

Call Mode

When connected with a smart phone this section displays SMSes received, your synchronized phone book, and recent calls. It also allows you to make calls.

Call quality is excellent and voice did not fumble or breaks during a call in progress.

Drive Mode

Adding a new address is breeze and you can also select, block, add or create places and routes. You can choose your preferences of routes - shortest, fastest or optimized. Search for points of interest or mark your favourite destinations or refer to the menu to check out last visited places. The map also displays important information including name of the street, distance and expected time of travel.

The customized maps pre-loaded in SD card for India include several popular points of interest, including Maruti Suzuki Service Centres, hotels/motels, public places etc. Some of the features are city centric and are available in select cities.

Connect Mode

Apart from Bluetooth, SMARTPLAY also offers direct connectivity via Mirror Link wherein compatible smart phones can be connected via USB port and once connected with USB, you can touch and access apps on your smartphone directly on the display.

When we connected Samsung Galaxy S5, the home screen morphs itself and displays the car mode version of your smart phone screen.

Phone now displays dial pad and contact list, enables voice recognition via smart phone, and tapping on music gives you access to your music library. When you will use Mirror Link without bluetooth connectivity, micro phone won't work so you will not be able to make/receive calls. Thus to get most out of it, connect your phone with Bluetooth also.