Handsfree BlueCruise is pretty nice

[OrangeCrush]

My first out of town trip since I got the truck in Dec. Atlanta (Alpharetta) to Charlotte (Marvin). Despite the never ending construction on I-85 and harrowingly narrow barricaded lanes for miles filled with semi-trucks, BlueCruise and Handsfree worked great. I was on Handsfree for 90% of the trip. Good job Ford!

Handsfree does seem to disconnect randomly for a short period though. It may be due to curves..

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[RickLightning]

Yes, it will disconnect on curves, it will disconnect if it loses the left and right painted lines, and it will disconnect if construction takes you to the other side of the highway to drive there due to them closing your side.

BlueCruise 1.2 will handle the curves, and do lane changing among other features. Should roll out later this year.

 

[Zaptor]

Mine tells me BlueCruise is on, then only seems to give me about 20 seconds of hands-free then gives me a warning message and tells me to put my hands back on the steering wheel (and doesn't believe that I have until I 'nudge' the wheel one way or the other)... what am I doing wrong to get this to implement correctly? Thx.

 

[OrangeCrush]

Mine tells me BlueCruise is on, then only seems to give me about 20 seconds of hands-free then gives me a warning message and tells me to put my hands back on the steering wheel (and doesn't believe that I have until I 'nudge' the wheel one way or the other)... what am I doing wrong to get this to implement correctly? Thx.

Just to clarify, there are two "levels" of BlueCruise. One uses lane keep assist and adaptive cruise and requires that you keep your hands on the wheel. The other is "Handsfree" only on mapped highways where you can take your hands off. It then "watches" you to make sure you are watching the road . What you are describing sounds like the first. Ford BlueCruise Hands-Free Driving | Maps & Features | Ford.com

When the second level activates, the console turns blue and a big "Handsfree" wheel appears on the left.

 

[OrangeCrush]

Yes, it will disconnect on curves, it will disconnect if it loses the left and right painted lines, and it will disconnect if construction takes you to the other side of the highway to drive there due to them closing your side.

BlueCruise 1.2 will handle the curves, and do lane changing among other features. Should roll out later this year.

Good to know. But it appears that it can do "some" curves even now. Perhaps only relatively steep curves are not automatic.

 

[Zaptor]

Just to clarify, there are two "levels" of BlueCruise. One uses lane keep assist and adaptive cruise and requires that you keep your hands on the wheel. The other is "Handsfree" only on mapped highways where you can take your hands off. It then "watches" you to make sure you are watching the road . What you are describing sounds like the first. Ford BlueCruise Hands-Free Driving | Maps & Features | Ford.com

When the second level activates, the console turns blue and a big "Handsfree" wheel appears on the left.

Thanks, that makes sense. The roads it has engaged on are secondary roads near my house, haven't had a ton of highway time yet and have not seen the second message. Thanks for the info, good to know what to look for on the display.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Thanks, that makes sense. The roads it has engaged on are secondary roads near my house, haven't had a ton of highway time yet and have not seen the second message.

Definitely more usable on limited access freeways than secondary state highways that I have experienced in the Southern New England region.

Work nearly flawlessly on all interstates except where painted lines are really bad.

 

[Mike G]

Before the middle of '21 model year there was no such thing as BlueCruise. After the clarification and branding rolled out there was even more confusion because initially in relevant marketing materials BlueCruise meant "hands-free" to the average viewer.

Once BlueCruise updates rolled out in the frst three months of '21 for vehicles that had the hardware from the plant...the Sync screen changes went from Adaptive Cruise (or words to that effect) to Adaptive Cruise with a sub menu saying "Lane Centering with Hands-Free".

But everytime you activate the cruise control button, and wherever you happen to be at that moment, in town, on a two lane county road, a divided four lane state highway, or the interstate, it's going to pop up with a message that BlueCruise is now on and you need to watch the road and be ready to take back control.

"BlueCruise" is now the umbrella term for Ford's cruise control and that covers all aspects, whether it's hands-on or hands-free...it's all BlueCruise.

Many in the forums have taken to using the acronym BCHF to specify that what they are talking about is hands-free mode.

If you are not on a so-called 'Blue mapped' hands-free road then you will be hands-on even though you just got a message a few seconds ago that "BlueCruise is on and you need to....."

Cause it's all BlueCruise now, hands-on, hands-free, jazz-hands....all of it.

 

[MRButtler]

Hands-free has also blipped off before underpasses.

 

[sotek2345]

Yup - love Bluecruise. Between our Mach-e and Lightning we have about 6k miles done hands free. Great for longer road trips, especially when driving by myself. Just engage it, start up and audiobook and chew up the miles.

 

[chillaban]

I do have to say, as a long time Tesla owner with two FSD cars, our family unanimously prefers BC for road trips now. It just drives in a much more confident and smooth manner and the attention checking system offers some peace of mind for drivers that love to be tempted by their phones or reading the airbag sticker like they’re on the toilet reading shampoo labels

We got our Lightning last fall and since then, I’ve noticed a significant improvement in number of Hands Free road segments. We took an odd detour yesterday which put us on a little CA state route that connected two freeways and I couldn’t believe such an esoteric road offered hands free.

I find most of the cases when it’s on Hands Free it really doesn’t get into trouble, and the small segments where it kicks back to hands on is highly correlated with the system being prone to mess up. In Autopilot land, whether you’re on the word’s most boring highway or you turned it on in a parking lot with faded lines, Autopilot shows the exact same “hold my beer I got this” UI.

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