BMW Online/BMW Connected Drive

[Kojak]

I never thought about it until it came up here. I guess you can always carry a satellite phone but even that is no guarantee of success I've been mountain biking in the Santa Cruz mountains with a GPS and unable to "see" satellites due to terrain and tree cover. If you don't want to vanish without a trace, LoJack might be your best bet! It broadcasts a radio beacon. Just have your wife report your car stolen when you don't show up.

[dmlgc]

Originally Posted by Kojak

I never thought about it until it came up here. I guess you can always carry a satellite phone but even that is no guarantee of success I've been mountain biking in the Santa Cruz mountains with a GPS and unable to "see" satellites due to terrain and tree cover. If you don't want to vanish without a trace, LoJack might be your best bet! It broadcasts a radio beacon. Just have your wife report your car stolen when you don't show up.

Thanks, usually the wife is with me. I understand about line of site for satellites, just figured BMW would have something in this area for when you do have line of site.

[archwerks]

Originally Posted by dmlgc

I knew most of that but figured the emergency service part would be tied into the sat/gps somehow. Other wise I can call AAA or a couple of other services I get with insurance or something (have about three cards, never looked at them) with my cell phone. Not what I would call high tech emergency service.

Wait until my wife finds out she wanted us both to have this after watching the story of the couple that broke down in the Oregon mountains and the guy froze to death.

I guess if U travel often to remote areas, u should get a satellite telephone or cb radio.

[dmlgc]

Originally Posted by archwerks

I guess if U travel often to remote areas, u should get a satellite telephone or cb radio.

I always have a scanner and CB in the car along with 3 day earth quake survival kit. So all this high tech and we are back "breaker breaker".

[xDrive50i]

Originally Posted by dmlgc

"The BMW assist function will only work in areas that have sufficient cell coverage."
So if I'm in the mountains with no cell coverage and break down I'm SOL ?

Yep, that's pretty much it. All of these emergency systems rely on the cell phone network.

Another thing to consider is that if your battery gets disconnected for whatever reason, your SOL as well!

I may be wrong on this, but I think if you flip your car and your antenna gets knocked of the roof and you end up upside down, I don't think this system works either!

There is only so much these systems can do...

[xDrive50i]

Originally Posted by Kojak

I never thought about it until it came up here. I guess you can always carry a satellite phone but even that is no guarantee of success I've been mountain biking in the Santa Cruz mountains with a GPS and unable to "see" satellites due to terrain and tree cover. If you don't want to vanish without a trace, LoJack might be your best bet! It broadcasts a radio beacon. Just have your wife report your car stolen when you don't show up.

What if it IS the wife that 'made sure you WILL get lost in the mountains' ???

[xDrive50i]

Originally Posted by dmlgc

Thanks, usually the wife is with me. I understand about line of site for satellites, just figured BMW would have something in this area for when you do have line of site.

As you know, satellite phones are still a LOT more expensive than regular cell phones. So considering what the BMW assist will cost you on an annual basis after the initial service you get with the purchase of your car, just think of what a satellite based communication service would cost! I highly doubt that the majority of people that live and normally stay within cell coverage would go for the 'premium' service they would have to ask for!

[xDrive50i]

Originally Posted by dmlgc

I always have a scanner and CB in the car along with 3 day earth quake survival kit. So all this high tech and we are back "breaker breaker".

That's good thinking ... Over and out!

[dmlgc]

Originally Posted by xDrive50i

...

I may be wrong on this, but I think if you flip your car and your antenna gets knocked of the roof and you end up upside down, I don't think this system works either!
.

yes I knew that and so do all the thieves , first thing they do is break off the shark fin. That's the reason I lojacked it.

[dmlgc]

Well Xdrive I can see your logic but you would think BMW would a least have a satellite link for an "emergency button" that would not provide any voice capabilities but would indicate that "I have serious trouble, send me help" kind of function. There are satellite communications available for PC internet available now, yes very slow but the technology does exist currently to implement something like this. Maybe even have a cb chip permanently set to channel 9 (emergency channel in USA monitored by police agencies,REACT, Forest Service,etc).

If BMW ever wants to get out of the "we're only trying to sell to the sophisticated I'm somebody older male or the 28 year old male with lots of testosterone but no brains or the older male who thinks he's 28" (guys don't even bother with the spears, it's us) they need to address these things.

To the female demographic these are big deals , we males well never admit we get lost (or ask for directions, reason we bought car with nav) or will ever need someone to save us.

Ok enough soap box, BMW doesn't ask it's customer what they want anyway
so I will be happy with my integrated ipod interface knowing my electronics are more sophisticated than lesser cars.

[xDrive50i]

Originally Posted by dmlgc

Well Xdrive I can see your logic but you would think BMW would a least have a satellite link for an "emergency button" that would not provide any voice capabilities but would indicate that "I have serious trouble, send me help" kind of function. There are satellite communications available for PC internet available now, yes very slow but the technology does exist currently to implement something like this. Maybe even have a cb chip permanently set to channel 9 (emergency channel in USA monitored by police agencies,REACT, Forest Service,etc).

If BMW ever wants to get out of the "we're only trying to sell to the sophisticated I'm somebody older male or the 28 year old male with lots of testosterone but no brains or the older male who thinks he's 28" (guys don't even bother with the spears, it's us) they need to address these things.

To the female demographic these are big deals , we males well never admit we get lost (or ask for directions, reason we bought car with nav) or will ever need someone to save us.

Ok enough soap box, BMW doesn't ask it's customer what they want anyway
so I will be happy with my integrated ipod interface knowing my electronics are more sophisticated than lesser cars.

LOL... I totally agree with you.

In regards to CB, there is no guarantee that this system works either or that someone will be listening. The other issue too is that this again would be a country specific option as not all countries use the same frequency for emergencies not to mention that every country has different restrictions on transmit power.

There are satellite PC cards that can do two way communication, however I don't think there is a single one out there that doesn't require the antenna to be pointing direct at a particular satellite. Well maybe BMW could implement a little antenna that auto-tracks the satellite, like a Bond kinda gadget

But ultimately, I think it all just comes down to reliability and liability issues....

[neo_andersson]

Hi everybody, i have the same problem. I recently bought a BMW 320i cabrio (E93) and i have BMW Connected Drive option installed. I live in Romania but i bought the car from BMW Germany. Every time i want to access BMW Online on the iDrive i get the following error message : "Installed Sim Card not available". I assume that the dealer removed the sim card as he knew the car will go to Romania. I found on other forums that in Germany and UK, BMW has a contract with T-Mobile and the cars are equiped with simcards from factory in order to access the internet. For example, i am entitled for a 3 year free internet in my car as is stated on BMW.de website. Probably this service is working in Germany or UK only as for sure providing data services in roaming for free for 3 years is not a good business for BMW.
I want find out where is this sim card located and try to use a local sim card from a Romanian operator with data services enabled. Until now i had no luck. I spoke with local BMW dealer and the answer was "BMW Connected Drive is not working in Romania".
Any help will be highly apreciated. Thank You!

[neo_andersson]

Today i found the sim card installed in my car by BMW used to access the BMW online service and the BMW Connected Drive. It is located inside the TCU in the trunk totally inaccesible to the regular user. Mine is a T-Mobile Germany Sim, pin locked.

I removed the TCU from the trunk, it is quite easy as it has only 4 screws. On the back side there are another 7 screws that has to be removed in order to access the electronics board.

Inside you have to pull gently the board and underneath it you will find a smaller module that has the SIM slot.

I replaced the original TMobile SIM (which was not working in my country) with a local SIM with all the data services enabled. Unfortunatelly i could not make it work. There is no seeting in the car menu to define the APN in order to access the internet. The sim inside the module is active, i can call it and it rings without automatic answering, i can press the SOS button and the sim dials 112 automatically and that was all i could do with it. The data services are not working as the car does not know how to handle the APN.

I assume it has a preset APN valid for the TMobile network in Germany. Now i am looking for a way to define the APN.

If anybody knows how to do this it will be highly appreciated.

Please find below some pics of the TCU module.

[dimitrik]

Hey guys just wanted to chime in with some info. Over here in France the system works fine. I have travelled to the UK and Italy with my X6 and I didn't have any problems using the system.

My guess is BMW has a contract with T-Mobile as someone mentioned and they have a roaming agreement for some European countries but not all. One thng I do remember is I signed a contract when I bought my X6 but that was to activate the Telematics.

In order to activate the BMW Connected Drive, I had to go to BMW's Connected Drive website and register. It asks you for your chasis number and all your personal info. After about 48hrs I received a message saying my account had been activated and all the systems on the car started working. Before that I kept on getting a message on the iDrive saying it was unable to activate the services.

I highly doubt you can put in your own sim even if you know where it goes. Best bet might be to contact BMW in Germany and see when they plan to roll out the service in your particular country.

D

[dmlgc]

there's a sim in my X6 ? I thought you had to have a phone linked to the car for all these features to work.