I had a 3G to 4G TCU upgrade to prove a point.

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ronbot said:
My 2015 finally stopped giving me updates on its condition (and stopped responding to my requests) on 3/10/2022... sad day.

Mine too.

Hoping to try this swap if I can find a 2016/17 box.

Best
:idea:
 
IMO, it would be better to get an aftermarket module, that could allow your phone to securely connect directly to your i3, bypassing BMW's servers and the cell towers. Trading that little bit of convenience for all the data collection is not for me. I wonder how many people out there feel the same way (whether they care about the data collection or not).
 
imkazaam said:
IMO, it would be better to get an aftermarket module, that could allow your phone to securely connect directly to your i3, bypassing BMW's servers and the cell towers.
Smartphones have Bluetooth (very short range), WiFi (short range), and cellular (long range) radios. Connecting directly to an i3 via Bluetooth or WiFi wouldn't be very useful due to their short ranges and pairing requirements.

The cellular radio's behavior is determined by a SIM card or eSim. Pairing occurs automatically and can't be controlled by the user. If a smartphone paired with a cellular device in an i3, phone call and Internet data connections would be broken until the phone paired with a cell phone tower. So how would connecting directly to an i3 via a cellular signal work assuming one still wanted to use a smartphone for phone calls and Internet access?

Seems like an Internet-connected server would be required, and this server would have to know how to connect to the cellular device in every i3 using this proprietary in-car cellular device. Hmm, sounds exactly like the system that BMW set up but doesn't manage very well.
 
eNate said:
airman2482 said:
Well, here is an update on my 2017 i3 REX and the 4G TCU replaced under the original BMW factory warranty ...

Wait, yours is a 2017? What's your build date?

Are you sure your original box wasn't 4G? My July 11 2016 had a 4G box, despite the screen indicating 3G.


eNate said:
airman2482 said:
Well, here is an update on my 2017 i3 REX and the 4G TCU replaced under the original BMW factory warranty ...

Wait, yours is a 2017? What's your build date?

Are you sure your original box wasn't 4G? My July 11 2016 had a 4G box, despite the screen indicating 3G.

Yes I’m sure it was a 3G telematics box (aka “TCB”). My actual build date was 04/17.

I was told the reason why the TCB was replaced in December 2021 was because it became intermittent and didn’t work (for whatever reason) consistently. My remote services weren’t working properly, the dealer checked logs and after testing, found the TCB module was faulty.

Since my BMW i3 was under original factory warranty until the end of February 2022, the dealer was obligated to “make it work” again, and the replacement part was the 4GLTE TCB part.

The invoice showed almost the exact same thing the other i3 owner (the OP) who had his 3G TCB replaced with a 4G-LTE TCB except my invoice was a warranty invoice and didn’t show any prices.

I just renewed my connected drive yesterday after remote services stopped working. (When I brought up the BMW app, the screen message stated the services stopped, expired or something like this)

The first thought when the remote services stopped was: “oh oh, my car has been removed from the BMW database”.. base on the OP’s post. I logged into the BMW website, connected services renewal was offered, and I immediately renewed until April 2023.

I think it was luck that my 3G TCB failed under the BMW original factory warranty, and BMW honored their warranty. Just a “stroke of luck”. Otherwise I think the services would have stopped on 22FEB2022 as others have stated in this and other forums.

Another poster in another forum stated everything was going to stop in Feb 2022 on my car and the TCB I got installed wasn’t 4G-LTE… etc. he’s full of “hot air”. (That’s what the BMW tech people stated along with ‘opinions are like …….. everyone has one’)

I’ve been in areas where there is no 3G service. (Shutdown) (brought at old iPhone 3 to see if there was any reception, and there was no 3G)

My i3 works fine.

Lucky I guess.

I’m buying a FiskerOcean when they finally come out, and getting the new i3 when it ever gets imported here, it’s being released in Asian markets first.

Thought of an i4, but want a bit better battery range (comparing it to other vehicles in price range)
——-
BTW, I wouldn’t be sore at BMW, I have a Mercedes’ ML350 which has a 3G telematics box, and Mercedes’ “TeleAid” ceased, no resolution to fix it. Not happy with this, but tech changes and the car company (no matter who it is) doesn’t have any obligation to change. (unless of course it’s in the agreement when you purchased the vehicle)(yes I think it sucks, but that’s “progress”….)
 
airman2482 said:
Yes I’m sure it was a 3G telematics box (aka “TCB”). My actual build date was 04/17.

My 2017 also has a build date of 04/17 and it has an original 4G Telematics Control Unit.
I'm unclear why you continue to insist the original on your car was "3G", particularly when other owners with cars that have earlier build dates also have 4G Telematics.
 
EvanstonI3 said:
airman2482 said:
Yes I’m sure it was a 3G telematics box (aka “TCB”). My actual build date was 04/17.

My 2017 also has a build date of 04/17 and it has an original 4G Telematics Control Unit.
I'm unclear why you continue to insist the original on your car was "3G", particularly when other owners with cars that have earlier build dates also have 4G Telematics.

FYI: I’m not insisting anything.

I’m just stating FACT. I saw the invoice and the unit they took out - I looked at the part myself BEFORE I brought it in, and saw the new part after I rehooked up the RoadTop box. They wouldn’t work on it under warranty with the RoadTop box connected.

And FYI, I have 2 other friends who have 2017 model year cars I helped put RoadTop units in and they did NOT have the new 4G LTE telematics unit installed in mine in their i3 either. Both of them no longer have connected drive.
 
The question I ask is: Has anyone done a conversion from NBT ID4 with TCB to a NBT EVO unit with ID5 or 6 and an ATM and got BMW to recognize the new ATM telematics box so connected drive can be used?

I may have a working connected drive setup, but the older NBT ID4 is slower. Would be nice to have built in CarPlay with the newer setup and remote services active.
 
airman2482 said:
The question I ask is: Has anyone done a conversion from NBT ID4 with TCB to a NBT EVO unit with ID5 or 6 and an ATM and got BMW to recognize the new ATM telematics box so connected drive can be used?

I may have a working connected drive setup, but the older NBT ID4 is slower. Would be nice to have built in CarPlay with the newer setup and remote services active.

maybe you should start a new discussion thread for that? It gets lost here in this one.
 
airman2482 said:
And FYI, I have 2 other friends who have 2017 model year cars I helped put RoadTop units in and they did NOT have the new 4G LTE telematics unit installed in mine in their i3 either. Both of them no longer have connected drive.

well, also FYI- on every other forum where someone with a 2017 stated they only had 3G and lost Connected Drive it turned out their subscription had expired. That's been my experience so far. They were going off the icon on the screen. Your experience as a data point is an outlier and does not make sense when BMW was known to have been putting the 4G modules in since mid July 2016.

I am not saying you are wrong and I am not looking for an argument. It just does not make sense to me given everything I have encountered over the past year.

I would be interested in seeing what the label looks like on your new TCU. particularly where it says "MODEL:"
 
EvanstonI3 said:
airman2482 said:
And FYI, I have 2 other friends who have 2017 model year cars I helped put RoadTop units in and they did NOT have the new 4G LTE telematics unit installed in mine in their i3 either. Both of them no longer have connected drive.

well, also FYI- on every other forum where someone with a 2017 stated they only had 3G and lost Connected Drive it turned out their subscription had expired. That's been my experience so far. They were going off the icon on the screen. Your experience as a data point is an outlier and does not make sense when BMW was known to have been putting the 4G modules in since mid July 2016.

I am not saying you are wrong and I am not looking for an argument. It just does not make sense to me given everything I have encountered over the past year.

I would be interested in seeing what the label looks like on your new TCU. particularly where it says "MODEL:"

Yes, the screen still states “3G”.. I know what you mean.

FWIW: One of the two 2017 i3 owners I know tried to renew his connected drive and services and the person at BMW exclaimed he was “out of luck”…

It’s kind of crappy outside today, and I have a pile of stuff in the back seat, I’ll post a pic this weekend, I have to clean the car out after the winter, now that it’s highway construction season in Minnesota. (It seems there are only two seasons here in MN, winter and highway construction seasons, with a brief pause for the changeover)

And yes, this is a good idea to start a new thread!

Let me dig up the invoice, I’ll begin by giving the old and new part numbers from it.
 
airman2482 said:
EvanstonI3 said:
airman2482 said:
And FYI, I have 2 other friends who have 2017 model year cars I helped put RoadTop units in and they did NOT have the new 4G LTE telematics unit installed in mine in their i3 either. Both of them no longer have connected drive.

well, also FYI- on every other forum where someone with a 2017 stated they only had 3G and lost Connected Drive it turned out their subscription had expired. That's been my experience so far. They were going off the icon on the screen. Your experience as a data point is an outlier and does not make sense when BMW was known to have been putting the 4G modules in since mid July 2016.

I am not saying you are wrong and I am not looking for an argument. It just does not make sense to me given everything I have encountered over the past year.

I would be interested in seeing what the label looks like on your new TCU. particularly where it says "MODEL:"

Yes, the screen still states “3G”.. I know what you mean.

FWIW: One of the two 2017 i3 owners I know tried to renew his connected drive and services and the person at BMW exclaimed he was “out of luck”…

It’s kind of crappy outside today, and I have a pile of stuff in the back seat, I’ll post a pic this weekend, I have to clean the car out after the winter, now that it’s highway construction season in Minnesota. (It seems there are only two seasons here in MN, winter and highway construction seasons, with a brief pause for the changeover)

And yes, this is a good idea to start a new thread!

Let me dig up the invoice, I’ll begin by giving the old and new part numbers from it.

Here’s a transcription of the invoice:

(Sorry, I’ve never uploaded an image)

CUSTOMER IS EXPERIENCING ISSUES WITH CONNECTED DRIVE AND SOS. SEE SFTS.

FAULTY TCB
6121528(1) 0000006(4) 6100006(1) tp 18m/485
8410811(6) 6100730(4) 8411021200 ps

1. HOOKED UP CHARGER/PULLED FAULTS,
2. RUN TEST PLAN AND PERFORM A
FUNCTIONAL TEST OF THE TCB. RECEIVED DIAG TO REPLACE THE TCB.
3. REMOVED AND REPLACED THE TCB, PROGRAMED THE VEHICLE, UPDATE ONLINE SERVICES AND CHECK THE ICC-ID NUMBER AND PART NUMBER INSTALLED AND IT IS THE UPDATED 6 836 777 PART NUMBER

QTY - - - FP-NUMBER——--DESCRIPTION-
1. 84-10-6-836-777 TCB
3. 07-14-7-335-808. NEOPRENE NUT

- - - - UNIT PRICE- TOTAL - PARTS
1 TOTALS- WARRANTY
1 TOTAL CHARGES: 0.00

WARRANTY
0.00
——
I hope this helps!
 
I wonder if the BMW Dealer has to do anything 'special' in registering the modem with BMW, other than programming it to the car with ISTA+?? Does ISTA programming pass on/register the new phone/ID number to the BMW Connected Drive server? Or is there some extra registration step that must be done by a BMW Dealer??

hellodear.in

teatv.ltd
 
jaaniwangu8 said:
I wonder if the BMW Dealer has to do anything 'special' in registering the modem with BMW, other than programming it to the car with ISTA+?? Does ISTA programming pass on/register the new phone/ID number to the BMW Connected Drive server? Or is there some extra registration step that must be done by a BMW Dealer??

hellodear.in

teatv.ltd

You got it. Doing the ISTA+ programming puts the vehicle's VIN into the new TCU's ROM (which is why you cannot use a scrapped TCU from another vehicle for this) and registers the new TCU to the the VIN in Connected Drive servers. No special steps needed.
 
alohart said:
imkazaam said:
IMO, it would be better to get an aftermarket module, that could allow your phone to securely connect directly to your i3, bypassing BMW's servers and the cell towers.
Smartphones have Bluetooth (very short range), WiFi (short range), and cellular (long range) radios. Connecting directly to an i3 via Bluetooth or WiFi wouldn't be very useful due to their short ranges and pairing requirements.

The cellular radio's behavior is determined by a SIM card or eSim. Pairing occurs automatically and can't be controlled by the user. If a smartphone paired with a cellular device in an i3, phone call and Internet data connections would be broken until the phone paired with a cell phone tower. So how would connecting directly to an i3 via a cellular signal work assuming one still wanted to use a smartphone for phone calls and Internet access?

Seems like an Internet-connected server would be required, and this server would have to know how to connect to the cellular device in every i3 using this proprietary in-car cellular device. Hmm, sounds exactly like the system that BMW set up but doesn't manage very well.

Sorry for the late reply. First, the i3 has a phone in it. Someone with more knowledge than me can (and likely has) figured out how to put the built in phone 100% in service of the owner instead of the automaker. Second, the challenges you present are just logistical challenges the aftermarket solution would handle. Plenty of people are more interested in convenience first, kudos to them, that's not me. I'm interested in convenience and security, not being data collected by the automaker is part of my security. We pay for a lot of expensive comforts people would consider useless, just driving BMWs, so I won't even engage anyone on the necessity or practicality of opting out of being data collected. I've owned my i3 for nearly 7 years. I've never used the app. Never will.
 
imkazaam said:
Sorry for the late reply. First, the i3 has a phone in it. Someone with more knowledge than me can (and likely has) figured out how to put the built in phone 100% in service of the owner instead of the automaker.
I'm not aware of any ability of a cell phone to connect directly with another cell phone using the cellular radio in both phones. A cellular tower is always involved, so there goes your security.

imkazaam said:
Second, the challenges you present are just logistical challenges the aftermarket solution would handle./quote]Plenty of people are more interested in convenience first, kudos to them, that's not me. I'm interested in convenience and security, not being data collected by the automaker is part of my security. We pay for a lot of expensive comforts people would consider useless, just driving BMWs, so I won't even engage anyone on the necessity or practicality of opting out of being data collected. I've owned my i3 for nearly 7 years. I've never used the app. Never will.
 
skelly14 said:
I have a 2015 i3 rex in the USA, and have embarked on the journey to upgrade to 4g, as 3g disappears in Feb. So far, results are mixed. I was able to swap in a used TCB, and code it with eSys, and I can use it to call customer service or SOS, but tying the IMEI to the Vin in BMW's Connected Drive system seems to be impossible. The Connected Drive folks refuse to do it. I even tried contacting AT&T to see if they could help, but got nowhere. I will ask the dealership next week, but they are conservative, and I don't expect much.
So my question is whether anyone has succeeded in getting the remote services, such as remote lock, working with a retrofit 4g module?
The one interesting thing I noted is that when I made a roadside assistance call from the car, my mobile app was updated with the time and date. But that's it.

Have you tried coding your headunit to the original VIN of 4g box?

You probably will have to run commands from "my bmw" using the car VIN you got the 4g module

I think this will also kill the map data though, might allow you to send commands from my bmw app
 
alohart said:
imkazaam said:
Sorry for the late reply. First, the i3 has a phone in it. Someone with more knowledge than me can (and likely has) figured out how to put the built in phone 100% in service of the owner instead of the automaker.
I'm not aware of any ability of a cell phone to connect directly with another cell phone using the cellular radio in both phones. A cellular tower is always involved, so there goes your security.

If that was true, online banking wouldn't be possible. It's the same concept.
 
imkazaam said:
alohart said:
I'm not aware of any ability of a cell phone to connect directly with another cell phone using the cellular radio in both phones. A cellular tower is always involved, so there goes your security.

If that was true, online banking wouldn't be possible. It's the same concept.
I don't understand what you mean. Online banking using a bank app on a smartphone connected to the Internet via a cellular data connection (not WiFi) involves a cell phone tower connected to the smartphone. The cell phone tower transfers data from and to the smartphone to and from the Internet. The bank app doesn't connect directly to a bank's servers.
 
alohart said:
I don't understand what you mean. Online banking using a bank app on a smartphone connected to the Internet via a cellular data connection (not WiFi) involves a cell phone tower connected to the smartphone. The cell phone tower transfers data from and to the smartphone to and from the Internet. The bank app doesn't connect directly to a bank's servers.

Online banking involves encryption. Encryption allows two devices to share information without anyone in between knowing what is being shared. They can intercept the information but cannot decode it.

For context, below you said:
alohart said:
I'm not aware of any ability of a cell phone to connect directly with another cell phone using the cellular radio in both phones. A cellular tower is always involved, so there goes your security.

Encryption secures the information shared, regardless of a cell tower or other device being involved in the transfer.
 
imkazaam said:
alohart said:
I'm not aware of any ability of a cell phone to connect directly with another cell phone using the cellular radio in both phones. A cellular tower is always involved, so there goes your security.

Encryption secures the information shared, regardless of a cell tower or other device being involved in the transfer.

Yes, I think the confusion (mine at least) comes from your comment of "bypassing the cell towers", so I'm not exactly sure what solution architecture (or feature set) you're describing.

imkazaam said:
IMO, it would be better to get an aftermarket module, that could allow your phone to securely connect directly to your i3, bypassing BMW's servers and the cell towers. Trading that little bit of convenience for all the data collection is not for me. I wonder how many people out there feel the same way (whether they care about the data collection or not).

If you find an aftermarket module that replicates functionality (charge schedule, specifically) of the BMW app without using BMW servers, please do post it here. I know I'm interested at least. Especially if it's just over wifi and has no monthly recurring costs.
 
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