airborne
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Question of the Day: Was the Airlink flyover too low?
Cars in SA with internet connected services
- Thread starter William1102
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MacAfrican
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Q for the more technically oriented…
My BMW i3 has an internet connection as I can from anywhere else see things like range, locked status and I can remotely initiate for example aircon.
When I am in the car, my phone connects to the car’s wifi but I think that is for things like Apple Carplay. It does not need a cable connection between phone and car like some other cars approach this. If I put phone in airplane mode, there is no internet connectivity on the phone. This tells me that whatever internet connection the car has, it is ringfenced to only the car’s OWN systems. The car internet is not a router to internet.
So question 1 : if I wanted to put a mobile data dongle in the car, would I be able to connect my phone and other devices that need internet to that user-added wifi network but still also have CarPlay working with the BMW system?
Question 2 : are there wifi dongles that support eSIM? It would be handy if travel overseas to load one huge data SIM On the dongle for the whole family to use (including me) instead of multiple eSIM or the family hot-spotting off my phone’s travel eSIM.
My BMW i3 has an internet connection as I can from anywhere else see things like range, locked status and I can remotely initiate for example aircon.
When I am in the car, my phone connects to the car’s wifi but I think that is for things like Apple Carplay. It does not need a cable connection between phone and car like some other cars approach this. If I put phone in airplane mode, there is no internet connectivity on the phone. This tells me that whatever internet connection the car has, it is ringfenced to only the car’s OWN systems. The car internet is not a router to internet.
So question 1 : if I wanted to put a mobile data dongle in the car, would I be able to connect my phone and other devices that need internet to that user-added wifi network but still also have CarPlay working with the BMW system?
Question 2 : are there wifi dongles that support eSIM? It would be handy if travel overseas to load one huge data SIM On the dongle for the whole family to use (including me) instead of multiple eSIM or the family hot-spotting off my phone’s travel eSIM.
airborne
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Airplane mode not all switches the phones Wi-Fi off hence you won't be able to access the vehicles Wi-Fi/internet?
William1102
Expert Member
So with the BMWs, it does use Wi-Fi for CarPlay and only this but on newer models with iDrive 8 (think 7 as well) there is a Wi-Fi hotspot feature which allows for e-sim as well but it is limited to the newer models.
If you have the ConnectedDrive Pro option on the car, it does enable things like Real time traffic notifications and Spotify Streaming using the cars mobile data which allows for unlimited spotify data as far as I can tell as I use it everyday.
Question 1 - No, definitely not on the i3, newer models yes.
Question 2 - Not that I know off most still use a regular sim.
William1102
Expert Member
Regardless the Wi-Fi in the BMW i3 is only for CarPlay
William1102
Expert Member
The car features you described, BMWs have this, most higher end ones do like Audi, Porsche etc
FiestaST
Honorary Master
William1102
Expert Member
Seems it gives you access to tidal , Spotify and Apple Music which the cars data gets used overall not badly priced