Ok, so addressing each point. I really was being honest, however: I was also honestly frustrated. Note that I had just come back from a 1hr drive back from the dealer in Friday evening traffic (usually much worse) after finally waiting 2mo to get this fixed in my moderately expensive newly purchased car.
Alerts:
So many many places to start. Are you using the US iOS app? Do you have the screen below on your app ? Nothing to install in the car. Lots more once we are sure we are on the same page.
You can control the alert settings in the app, I use it all the time when I valet or drop off at dealer. Press the hamburger menu icon top left and go to alert settings.
Yes! This. Thanks for pointing this out. I checked again and
now I can find it ("Alert Settings" at the top of the hamburger menu when open). I couldn't find it before and didn't realize it was there. I honestly did do a
thorough search for it and, either I was completely blind to it and clearly wasn't thorough enough (very possible) or it didn't appear within the app. The second theory is only plausible because I already had installed the app installed and logged in well before Blue Link was finally fixed 2mo later on my car (after they replaced the "I-Box" unit) and also installed the app in the car's Blue Link apps area as well. And it's possible that they don't surface the feature unless they think/know that you have the capability to use it.
That said
@Mcc and
@Mr. Incredible -- I read above that the app on the car itself apparently isn't required (i.e. the one you download through "Download Center" under Blue Link section) so just curious: Do you guys have that installed on your car as well or no? (With Alert Settings still showing in the iPhone app)?
Latency issues: Commands
The watch part of the Genesis app is what I use for remote start, it is simple and straight forward. Press the crown, press the Genesis app press the start button, enter pin. Done. 5 seconds tops and i can do it while I am walking to my car.
I have a Series 4 and use the watch app as well, which is nice. Unfortunately when i used it, it stalled and I had to restart my watch to get the app to unfreeze (since closing it in the task switcher didn't get it to start responding again). Also, when I was at the car lot yesterday to pick up my car after they fixed the head unit on my car and got Blue Link working, I also tried the horn + starting the car remotely. It
still took >30s for it to respond (not just the notification in the app, but for the car to begin honking or to start up). And that was in the middle of San Jose which should have a great signal (I have Verizon and had full signal there, and I presume
Blue Link uses Verizon now too with '18 G80's).
While it's still slow
where I live, I will say I'm impressed it works at all... it has 1 or 2 bars and I can watch the icon say "Data ↑↓" but it still happens roughly 30s later. I'm probably going to still try to get a range extender off eBay (
per my comment quoted here) just to see if that helps at all. It'll still be a win for me regardless of if Blue Link in my case isn't actually over Verizon since that's who I use normally anyway (regardless of using WiFi calling). Worst case, resell it on eBay and take the hit on shipping
Latency Issues: App Load Time
While agree with some of what you said, I don’t agree with all. My app takes less than a second to load...
I have an iPhone X (which is a pretty fast phone by modern standards) and very fast internet. I've actually tested the iPhone's own Internet connectivity over WiFi (since it can very from device to device) seconds after making the screen recording below and it was in excess of >100Mbps (
screenshot here and below), so at least I know that's not the issue. It could be a geographical issue (e.g. SF is far away from their servers) or maybe their servers are slow. I'm
pretty sure it's not the app itself (even though I've called it "bloated"), because it hangs on the login screen after the app has already loaded, not on loading the app itself prior to the login screen.
Here's a demo of how long it takes to load (I only modified it to remove the PII):
So for me, it still takes roughly
5-6 seconds to load. Not a huge deal, of course
Calendar/PoI Functionality:
Actually I find this one of the most useful features. It syncs with my iPhone calendar. I add locations to my calendar entry and then they prelioad and pop right up in the app. Just touch the location in the app and it sends it to the car. Pretty simple and slick IMO. Nothing to enter.
This is where we enter the realm of opinion, for sure. I think it's only useful if you plan on using your built in navigation, which I never do. That way you have very easy and quick access to navigate to meetings and etc in your calendar as well as add new PoI's remotely, which is convenient. However, if you're a
CarPlay user like me, that's very much a secondary feature IMHO (maybe a good failsafe/backup) and more critical functionality would be remote functions, as far as the app is concerned.
Things are very easy for me when it comes to navigation (thanks of course in part to
@Mr. Incredible's suggestion to
get a mount for the phone). For example, if I'm walking up to my car, I may already have researched where I'm going on Google Maps, so it'll already be on my phone (or sent to my phone via Google Map's app) or it'll be already in my calendar via Apple's calendar + Maps integration. I just drop my phone into the mount and be on my way. Seconds later, it'll pop up on screen and not only will Google Maps (or Apple Maps, or Waze, etc) be directing me to my destination (a far superior suite of navigation apps, again,
opinion) but it'll all be integrated into Apple's slick
CarPlay interface, with my music, podcasts and etc.
So, that's just the thought process in my head when I form the opinion of calendar/PoI's being less important; I just lean on different apps and have different habits. In my case, I just use apps that are more specialized for their purpose.
Also:
I suppose you could stop the app from syncing with the calendar. I do like the locations in the app. It tells you when to leave to get there on time.
Siri does a fantastic job of this already, actually. If you already use Apple's Calendar app (I do, and technically all my calendars are actually on Google Calendar and just point my Apple Calendar app at that) and if you drop in addresses, not only will Siri tell you when to leave, but the maps app will pop right up and, of course, if you plug it into your car via USB (see link to mount setup above so no fumbling with wires), then
CarPlay comes up and you are instantly already setup, no synchronization, etc.
Not only that, but Google Maps has a notification that stays on my screen starting at roughly 7-8am telling me how long traffic will be into work and it adjust the notifications dynamically somehow to update the estimate as traffic wanes when I decide to head out.
Inaccuracies:
Ok, so I've shamefully crossed out the incorrect stuff in
my previous rant post and warned innocent bystanders of the incoming rant. Did I miss anything?
(at least right now in Feb 2019)
