Does i3 App work in USA? (yet)

[brent]

I took delivery of my white BEV i3 today.

I cannot seem to find a USA connectedDrive portal in order to make an account, as documented in:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19UNRVt-8ubISZBT9xK9pnxKArmuwSCWyYU57OWdVBjo/edit?pli=1

I am guessing BMW does not have it online yet for USA? Or am I doing something wrong? Is it somewhere in bmwusa.com -> My BMW that I am not seeing? My car still says "at the dealer" under the track link, despite the fact that I took delivery and its at my house.

If I click on the "I forgot" (password) button in the app, I get a bunch of "Technical error" messages when I click Select country (I was guessing because the ip address I am using is in USA range, and its not supported yet).

If its not turned on yet, anyone get any answers from BMW on when they expect to turn it on?

Thanks,

Brent

 

[brent]

Update:

The process in USA is a bit different:

(1) Your BMW dealer needs to submit your info to BMW Assist (this did not happen in my case, it happened today)
(2) You press the SOS button in the car for initial setup (this may have to be 24 hours after step 1)

I am waiting at step 2. BMW Assist (888-333-6118) confirmed they received the info, but said it can take 24 or even 48 hours for activation. Once I am activated, I should be able to get the i Remote App to work.

I will post another update once it is working.

-Brent

 

[TomMoloughney]

It definitely does work in the US. My friend has been using it since he got his i3 last week:

 

[agj]

Update:

The process in USA is a bit different:

(1) Your BMW dealer needs to submit your info to BMW Assist (this did not happen in my case, it happened today)
(2) You press the SOS button in the car for initial setup (this may have to be 24 hours after step 1)

I am waiting at step 2. BMW Assist (888-333-6118) confirmed they received the info, but said it can take 24 or even 48 hours for activation. Once I am activated, I should be able to get the i Remote App to work.

I will post another update once it is working.

-Brent

Great!
Feel free to update the wiki doc if you think this could be useful to other US based owners : https://docs.google.com/document/d/19UNRVt-8ubISZBT9xK9pnxKArmuwSCWyYU57OWdVBjo/edit

 

[Gonville]

(1) Your BMW dealer needs to submit your info to BMW Assist (this did not happen in my case, it happened today)

This really is a common failing in their PDI process. They should do it at the start of that process but they need you to sign up to it physically. (Provide email address etc) So rather than call you in early they do it when you take delivery. This means an inevitable wait while some background data entry occurs followed by sever roll out of data.

In the excitement of delivery day they sometimes forget to get you to fill out the form. Or as in my case the sales rep forgot to give it to the dealer admin people who saw I already had an account and therefore didn't submit it.....arrrgghhhh.

Worse still when you change models......the ID belongs to the chassis not to you as the owner. So when you move to a new chassis rather than just adding that to your account and deleting the old chassis they have to delete your account and make a new one.....nightmare. Loss of presets different ID as the first one still exists in the system.

So as engineers BMW see the chassis as owning the owner......either that or the IT folks just didn't see that as a possibility in a life cycle.

So lesson is ask early about it, fill in the form, and make sure it gets activated before delivery day......so you can do the SOS thing.

 

[stumbledotcom]

My sales person pulled up the enrollment portal and had me enter my details at his computer while he went off to finalize the paperwork. The system recognized my info from the E90's account and corrected my password even. Twenty four hours later I pressed the SOS button on the way home and was activated in about five minutes. One small gotcha: If you already have a car with BMW assist active, you need to use a different email address for each vehicle. Otherwise, locations sent through Google Maps will go to both cars.

Before getting the app going, I was a bit concerned that the i3 might not be able to communicate with the network when parked in my underground garage. Cell service is nonexistent down there. Not to worry though. I'm sitting six floors above the car right now and monitoring the charge.

 

[Gonville]

That's good news indeed if they have access directly. Last year here in UK it went to an outsourced provider. Glad to see USA leading in technology adoption.

I hadn't recognised the two email issue. Perhaps the chassis is not the only issue. Having said that if you send a message from within the connected drive area it allows you to select which vehicle it goes to. I only have one vehicle now but it is set up for more which sort of disproves my hypothesis.

I guess if you do it from google maps directly with the send function it asks for your BMW connected drive ID. So I guess that is where the duplication comes from?

Does this mean you have two IDs or just a different email attached to each chassis?

Curious for September now,,,,,,

 

[stumbledotcom]

Same thing I believe. Sending a location from Google maps, requires your BMW Assist user name which is the email associated with that car. I specifically asked about the feature while on the activation call. The rep confirmed that using the same email address for both vehicles would result in sent locations going to both. I didn't want that because, at least the '09 E90, can store a set number of locations. Once the limit is reached, new ones replace old ones. Even though I'd done the initial i3 setup with the same address used for my E90, the rep switched the i3 to one of my secondary addresses while on the call.

Given the difficulties I've read about the app set up for some, I was delighted by how easy the process turned out for me.

EDIT: It's possible that the systems between Europe and the US have subtle differences. Also, the Send to Car feature is not in the new Google Maps. You have to revert to the classic version.

 

[Gonville]

Yes that could be true. We don't use the email address for the send to in google maps it is an ID which I guess could be an email thinking about it. Mine isn't and it seems like a global capability on Google map interface.

I noticed that 'send' is not available on the new Google Maps too. I had been using that capability since 2006 when connected drive was first available. That single capability linking Google and BMW enabled me to stop buying paper maps!

When the new Google maps came out it took me through some rigmarole saying that if I linked my car to my Google account then I would continue to have the capability available. That was a pretty big decision. However I have never made it work since except in Classic. Also it doesn't work in safari on an iPad and it's not in the native app that I can see?

 

[brent]

Following up, it was just yesterday that I finally got the app working (almost a month after taking delivery of the car).

Make very sure that your dealer gets the email address correct. My dealer had a typo (they did it when I was not present to check), putting an "A" instead of an "S" in the email address. BMW tried to fix this, but they removed the "A" rather than replacing with an "S", and despite my speaking with 6 or more different representatives, and carefully spelling the address ("Bravo", "Romeo", "Echo", "November", "Tango", ...) either no one caught it, or it was not changed in the system until yesterday.

For the USA, the folks you speak to are not techs and the only contact they have with the techs are through filing a ticket (essentially email). They will not let you speak with a tech, nor have one call you back. They say it takes 1-3 weeks to change the email address on your account (apparently they have to ship the changes by boat to Germany on stone tablets). Every single time, they say that they will call you back when the ticket is completed (in one case a supervisor claimed they would call be back either way on Monday, but had not called me back by Friday), but they never did call me.

My email address is still incorrect, and the customer service rep said that some functions may not work, but by typing in the incorrect email address, I was able to log in to the i3 Remote app. The tech said it may take up to 3 more weeks to correct the email address in the system.

Note, there are two systems, the 'primary' system, which had my correct email address, which is just used for correspondence, and the 'secondary' system, which is used for i3 app, which had the typo in the email address for me.

Save yourself a lot of headache and triple check that the email address is correct when your dealer sets up your account.

-Brent

(I added the following to the google docs i3 remote info)

You need BMW Assist account (only for USA)
(1) Your dealer must set up your account.
Not all dealers do this, make sure you ask for it while you are there, and watch them set it up.
Your dealer will submit an email address for the account. Triple check the email address, as it may take up to 3 weeks to correct, if there is a typo.
(2) 24-48 hours after the dealer has submitted the account, press the SOS button in the car,
this will call BMW Assist Customer Service (888-333-6118).
(3) If the account has been set up, BMW Assist will let you set up a password over the phone. This password is both the spoken password needed every time you call them to verify your identity, and the login password for the BMW i3 Remote App
(4) Note, both the email address and password must be entered in all caps in the i3 remote app