Land Rover's latest refresh for the Discovery Sport adds support for Tile Bluetooth trackers from the vehicle's 10.2-inch infotainment screen. The little square tags can attach to anything – your keys, purse, backpack, sports equipment bag or children.
Since Tile's are Bluetooth devices, the Land Rover InControl Touch Pro infotainment system can connect to it and notify you if you forgot something. Land Rover lets drivers establish an essentials list that always checks if certain items are in the car before you drive off.
The integrated app can trigger the Tile's alarm too, just in case you lost something in the car. I've only lost micro SD cards in a car, which are too small to attach a Tile too, so I'm not sure I'd find that feature useful.
However, if your kids have matching duffel bags and want to make sure they grab the right one, a quick trigger of the Tile alarm could help them leave with the correct bag.
Tile tag support is made possible with the latest InControl Touch Pro infotainment system. The 10.2-inch, ultra-wide and 21:9 aspect ratio screen eliminates all physical buttons from the previous 8-inch system. The system supports swipe and pinch gestures, like your smartphone, too.
It's powered by an Intel quad-core processor and 60GB SSD, which should make it very responsive. One of my major complaints with Jaguar and Land Rover infotainment systems is the sluggish performance, but my brief experience with the InControl Touch Pro system at auto shows were positive.
InControl Touch Pro has a sleek new interface with fluid animations and excellent touch response. Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are not supported, unfortunately. Land Rover continues to rely on its InControl App platform that provides smartphone app connectivity without the Google or Apple-designed user interface.
Also new to the 2017 Discovery Sport are a trio of driver assist technologies, including driver condition monitor (DCM), intelligent speed limiter (ISL) and lane keep assist (LKAS). DCM ensures you don't fall asleep with visual and audible alerts if its algorithm believes you're drowsy.
There isn't a built-in tea dispenser for a caffeinated boost, unfortunately. That requires stepping up to a long wheel-base Range Rover and chauffeur.
ISL automatically reads speed limit signs and asks you to accept the new speed before slowing the vehicle down, if you're using cruise control. While I appreciate the ability to read speed limit signs and display it in the gauge cluster, I prefer to drive at my own pace.
The LKAS can prevent the Discovery Sport from veering out of its lane by applying counter steering measures. It relies on a forward-facing camera placed above the rear-view mirror to detect the lane markers.
