2014 i3 radio question

[djbrh]

Bear with me for what might sound like a strange question, but it has to do with FM radio presets.

Background: I own a 2011 328i wagon with iDrive. I could swear that in that car I could get a screen in the radio where my presets were shown to me in a list I could select from using iDrive. Yes, I know I could also push buttons, but I liked the list. I also seem to recall that if I left that screen, it could be a pain to get again. But a few years ago I upgraded that car to the F30 NBT (Bimmer-Tech kit) and now I get a list no problem.

Now I also have a 2014 i3 that I bought a few months back used. It came with the 6.5” screen an no HK stereo. I’ve since added MMI and a 10.25” screen and coded it and all the fun stuff. But strangely, when using FM radio, I can’t get a list of my presets on the screen. Should I be able to? Am I misremembering what my 2011 did before the NBT upgrade? Yes, I have presets programmed on the physical buttons, but I really like that list. No, I am not going to do an NBT upgrade on the i3 just to get that, but am hoping there’s something I’m missing in the current system and I just need to know what it is.


—Donnie

 

[eNate]

> Radio

> > Presets

> > > Preset [icon at top looks like a hamburger menu over a floppy disk]

And of course you can store this to one of your hot keys for easy call-up.

 

[djbrh]

I need to test this, but I think I know what it is. I think it’s that I conflated the button presets with the “Presets” on the screen. I think I thought that setting buttons should ALSO show up in the Presets list on the screen, but they don’t and because I’ve reset everything due to coding (and the BMW code update), they got wiped at some point. I now “backup” and “restore” with USB but I didn’t start doing that until after they got wiped once.

So I think if I just use the “save this station” icon to actually save something to the list, I’ll get a list. Somehow that just wasn’t obvious to me.


—Donnie

 

[eNate]

Ah, yeah, I suppose that makes sense. I have three presets saved and two of them are assigned to hot keys, but I haven't tried it the opposite way 'round like you're suggesting. But I suppose a station saved to a hot key wouldn't automatically show up in my preset list.

In any case, it's not the most intuitive menu to locate.

 

[djbrh]

To close this out, it was me being dumb. It just wasn’t obvious to me that the Preset page, when there are no presets yet, is an empty list. *sigh* But yes, once I added some presets it all became obvious again.


—Donnie