ConnectedDrive

[spinball]

My ConnectedDrive app is still failing to activate climate control 100% of them. I've not been able to condition it for over 2 months now. It's my wife's car and she's a stay at home mom with highly irregular schedule so the calendar based pre-conditioning schedule is useless. Now that it's July and hot in our area, she's complaining to me that her old gas Chevy could reliable cool down for her and our toddler via the car app and yet this BMW won't.

I've so far called the BMW Assist line, BMW "i Genius" line, emailed BMW, and left a VM at the dealer for the "i Genius" to call me back. But I keep reading all these news articles that it's Tesla with the problems. :roll: My Telsa app continues to be absolutely flawless. Never even a single failure!

 

[bwilson4web]

My ConnectedDrive app is still failing to activate climate control 100% of them. I've not been able to condition it for over 2 months now. . . .

Using Bimmercode, I reprogrammed the "Panic" button on the key fob to enable climatize. I did this because cellular service can be unreliable in some areas.

My key fob testing shows about a 30-40 m range which is enough to go through the wall between the house to reach the i3. It also works at shopping malls, fishing camps, many stores, and other rural areas.

Bob Wilson

 

[Fisher99]

My ConnectedDrive started working a few weeks ago and has been working perfectly since. Just in time for our hot weather, fortunately. I'm guessing that BMW did some server upgrades on their end.

 

[robthebold]

I've posted over in the thread https://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13574 regarding my attempt to create a text-mode interactive interface to ConnectedDrive. It's a python script that should work on any device with a terminal that supports python. My motivation was that my Sailfish and Ubuntu Touch phones don't have a ConnectedDrive app, but it should be useful more generally as well. If you're sufficiently x-terminal enthusiastic and want to give it a try, check out that thread. So far it's been able to climatize my i3 100% of the time, even when the server causes it to have a timeout error.

 

[spinball]

Using Bimmercode, I reprogrammed the "Panic" button on the key fob to enable climatize. I did this because cellular service can be unreliable in some areas.

My key fob testing shows about a 30-40 m range which is enough to go through the wall between the house to reach the i3. It also works at shopping malls, fishing camps, many stores, and other rural areas.

I've done this as well but

• The key range is very limited vs the app which has no such limitations (cellular signal has never been a problem for me in the 3 years I've had an i3--I live and drive in a major metro area 99% of the time)
• Even when the key is in range, you receive no feedback through the key so I won't know if the command was successful or not unless I am physically at the car, defeating the entire purpose of a remote command!
• It is nowhere near as convenient as the app, even at home. The key is always tucked away, as it should be on a car with keyless entry/start, whereas our phones are always in our pocket or within reach at pretty much all times.

The only scenario where the key is useful is when I'm standing in the doorway of our garage looking at the i3 from 10 feet away and can hear when the climate system kicks on. For every other scenario the app is a far superior choice when it works.

 

[RostHaus]

I did what Bob did, because none of the remote functions on my app work anymore. While i can still check the range, location, and still connect it to alexa, everything else fails.

I started to just schedule all my preconditions in the idrive, as my driving times are fairly consistent.

If it keeps up, I hope aftermarket comes up with a solution. I've got an aftermarket remote access app in my 500e that has never failed. And its maintained by very small shop in Switzerland.

 

[Fisher99]

The Climatize function in ConnectedDrive started magically working for me this summer, but now for the last couple of weeks it is once again failing 100% of the time. It's a major bummer since I need it more now that we are having frosty mornings than I did just to cool the car in the summer.

Thinking about programming the panic button on the remote to do this, as some have done, although not being able to get feedback as to whether the climatize operation is successful or not is troublesome. But it seems to me that if it works once it should probably work every time, at least if you are in the same location when you push the buton (e.g., always standing at the window looking out at the i3). Worth a try anyway.

 

[Lmasta]

Yeah this app is brutal, is there a tutorial somewhere of how to battery precondition via the app? Is there 3rd party app that works better ? Thanks for any guidance

 

[Anonymous]

Am running BMW Connected version 10.3.1 on my iphone, and just tested the 'Climatize Now', and it worked immediately. App shows it is due for an update. Will see if that breaks it. :? Though 'updating' it still shows the latest version as 10.3.1???

 

[alohart]

Am running BMW Connected version 10.3.1 on my iphone, and just tested the 'Climatize Now', and it worked immediately. App shows it is due for an update. Will see if that breaks it. :? Though 'updating' it still shows the latest version as 10.3.1???

For what it’s worth, 10.3.1.1578 is on my iPhone and no update is needed. Sometimes the App Store gets confused about whether an update is needed.

 

[Fisher99]

Different version on my Android phone, but it's still refusing to climatize. I can do everything else, but not climatize.

However... I just got through coding my Panic button to climatize and it seems to be working flawlessly from my living room window. Not much help if I'm a long ways away, of course, but will make it easy, and hopefully reliable, to get the frost off the windows before leaving the house. I don't leave on a set schedule, so using the scheduling option isn't an option for me.

Also coded the mirrors to fold when I lock and unfold when I unlock while I was at it.

 

[jadnashuanh]

Yeah this app is brutal, is there a tutorial somewhere of how to battery precondition via the app? Is there 3rd party app that works better ? Thanks for any guidance

To warm the batteries, set a departure time. In that menu, you have the option of also preconditioning the cabin. If you use climatize now, all you get is the cabin. Note, depending on the actual temperatures, it may take 3+ hours for the batteries to come up to temp. It doesn't start preconditioning the cabin until about 20-30 minutes before your departure time. Setting a departure time is the only way to delay preconditioning the cabin.

 

[fbt12]

Where i live near SFO, i have BAD ATT coverage. Before i got my used 2017 used i3 a couple of weeks ago, i had already turned on ATT calling over Wifi (for my mobile phone). As long as my wifi is working, i can generally get off a CONNECT command. So far, when i am at home, it works. I know that my i3 cannot use my wifi, but things are still working.....<knock, knock>

 

[jadnashuanh]

My coverage varies based on where in my house I am - lots of tall buildings between me and the nearest tower. If you have a good internet connection, you might consider buying their microcell. This essentially becomes a mini cell tower. So you aren't serving anyone passing by, you have to register the phone numbers of the devices you want to allow access. I don't know if you can determine the actual cellular number of the car, but if you could, when it is in range, it would connect to your microcell if you added its number (it will allow up to 10-devices).

 

[Fisher99]

My ConnectedDrive app is still failing to climatize the car. Everything else in the app works, but climatize is once again failing 100% of the time. I know that it isn't an AT&T coverage issue. At least I can climatize at home now that I coded the car to interpret the remote control's panic button as a climatize command.

I have my first (since I have owned the car) service scheduled at the local BMW dealer in a couple of weeks. I'm going to see what they have to say about it, but it seems likely that it's just a crappy service/app that BMW really doesn't care enough about to fix. Then again, since they aren't charging for the service, I guess I don't have too much right to complain. But I'm complaining anyway...

 

[vreihen]

Then again, since they aren't charging for the service, I guess I don't have too much right to complain. But I'm complaining anyway...

They absolutely ARE charging for the service! For the first few i3 model years, they bundled 10 years of the remote service into the purchase price, along with 3 years of the in-car smartphone app enhancements that cost me $50/year to renew. Later models shortened the 10 year deal down to something like 3 years (I can't find the web page at the moment). Assuming that the 3G/4G network BMW is using still works, you will be able to renew for additional years if you pay them more. Big assumption, since a lot of 2013 and earlier drivers were cut off from telematics forever when the 2G network was shut down.....

 

[Anonymous]

but it seems likely that it's just a crappy service/app that BMW really doesn't care enough about to fix.

Yeah, it's kind of mind-boggling - in our 'connected' world, an app that could be a real enhancement to BMW car ownership, instead is a total boat-anchor that they just seem to ignore. :roll:

 

[robthebold]

Different version on my Android phone, but it's still refusing to climatize. I can do everything else, but not climatize.

Can you lock and unlock the doors, sound the horn and flash the lights? Because these commands use the same URL (and therefore the same BMW server). If those other commands go thru, you're able to send data to BMW, they do their thing, they send it to the car, car does its thing and responds to server and server reports success (or timeout or whatever) back to your app.

 

[Fisher99]

I thought I was able to lock/unlock, but I guess I haven't tried it since the climatize feature started failing again. I just tried an unlock and get the same "Remote Service cannot be executed at the moment. Please try again later" message and failure.

However, I can monitor the charging status of the car. That function has continued to work regardless of whether the other features work or fail. Not sure why this function would work and the others fail.

What amazes me about this is that this is the same app that is still used on current models of BMW's (not just i3's) for remote functions. Or at least that's what I've been told. Surely it can't be failing on all cars. Maybe there's just something about the age of the electronics or SIM in my 2014?

 

[jfran2]

I find that curious too, that the car's location and state of charge are always spot on, but the commands from the app don't seem to be able to be executed. One would think that if the data can flow one way, it out to be able to go the other.