[SPEEDRAC3R]

My Audi Connect subscription is about to expire and so far I am not all that impressed. Everything the connect can do, my iOS and google seem to do better; albeit its not integrated into my dash screen.

I tend to use Google Maps on my iOS and have noticed that if I set the same destination on the car and phone they show different routes with the phone always showing me a faster route and updating along the way. Plus it finds locations faster and more intuitively than the in dash unit. Am I doing it wrong???

Other than the MMI Connect App and myAudi Destinations I don't use a lot of these features. The WiFi hot spot is a nice idea but it's slow compared to my phone.

What do you'll find yourself doing with Audi Connect when your subscription expires?

For those of you who let it drop do you miss it?

 

[john]

Sadly I am not using any of these features.

 

[DampDuffer]

I think if you do a search of this forum you'll find what others have done as far as renewing their sim cards.....but I don't recall any comments about missing or not missing their Google search once it expires.

Obviously you know best what you'd miss, but I use Audi Connect for one thing only: navigation! I (almost) always use the voice feature to find a location, especially if I don't have the address. The state I live in, and the adjoining states, only allow hands-free devices while in motion, so I find the voice feature indispensable.

I will renew my Audi Connection when the time comes.

(The only time I do not use the voice feature is when I'm the co-pilot/navigator....my wife hates me talking to another woman. )

 

[rnlabas]

@OP : have you checked/compared the routing priorities for your car vs your phone. Sometimes you may want to use back roads as a priority instead of highways; Toll Roads vs non tolls, etc. the search and routing criteria need to be the same for a fair comparison. Nominally, they should the same or at least present some or all of the same routing options based on your preselected priorities...

 

[SPEEDRAC3R]

@OP : have you checked/compared the routing priorities for your car vs your phone. Sometimes you may want to use back roads as a priority instead of highways; Toll Roads vs non tolls, etc. the search and routing criteria need to be the same for a fair comparison. Nominally, they should the same or at least present some or all of the same routing options based on your preselected priorities...

Thanks Roger. I've checked the settings and they are the same on both systems. My phone is always more accurate (ETA wise) and reroutes me more frequently to shave off time compared with the Audi. Traffic rerouting is active on the Audi NAV too.

I did this more out of curiosity and to help me decide between keeping connect or not than to bash the system. I still haven't decided that, but the net result of my experiment is disappointing though.

 

[Q3egolfer]

I also find that Audi Connect App is quite useless. Only thing that works is to send destinations. Those features like lock/unlock doors or getting the car status shown in the App store are not even available.
There's parking info but it's not working at all with my 2016 Q3. I tried to connect my iPhone with in-car WiFi but still the parking info is not shown in the app.

And no point using in-car wifi which only provides 3G speed while my iPhone connects 4G LTE...

 

[9242]

Still in the "playing" phase of this system. I added a few destinations on the "MYAUDI" website and can retrieve them in the car, but has anyone figured out how to copy them to the MMI locally for faster retrieval. Posting them to a cloud location is convenient, but would like them local for quicker access and if I decide to not renew, then I wouldn't want to recreate all of them again.

In my situation, I don't think I would renew it even at $10/Month added to my family plan. This is my commuter car and wont be lugging my family around on long trips where playing around with the system while traveling may come in handy. In all honesty....its a toy. You can find this stuff faster on your phone which has more compute power than the MMI. As long as the maps are kept up to date, Google search ability in the car wont be much value when looking for destinations.

 

[Ohio Joe]

Still in the "playing" phase of this system. I added a few destinations on the "MYAUDI" website and can retrieve them in the car, but has anyone figured out how to copy them to the MMI locally for faster retrieval. Posting them to a cloud location is convenient, but would like them local for quicker access and if I decide to not renew, then I wouldn't want to recreate all of them again.

In my situation, I don't think I would renew it even at $10/Month added to my family plan. This is my commuter car and wont be lugging my family around on long trips where playing around with the system while traveling may come in handy. In all honesty....its a toy. You can find this stuff faster on your phone which has more compute power than the MMI. As long as the maps are kept up to date, Google search ability in the car wont be much value when looking for destinations.

Yes, this can be done but you need to go in and save them individually....

 

[Q3User]

Still in the "playing" phase of this system. I added a few destinations on the "MYAUDI" website and can retrieve them in the car, but has anyone figured out how to copy them to the MMI locally for faster retrieval. Posting them to a cloud location is convenient, but would like them local for quicker access and if I decide to not renew, then I wouldn't want to recreate all of them again.

In my situation, I don't think I would renew it even at $10/Month added to my family plan. This is my commuter car and wont be lugging my family around on long trips where playing around with the system while traveling may come in handy. In all honesty....its a toy. You can find this stuff faster on your phone which has more compute power than the MMI. As long as the maps are kept up to date, Google search ability in the car wont be much value when looking for destinations.

Agreed.
Mobile phone technologies & services are far outpacing what the car manufacturers can provide at the moment.

I will hand it to them, the car guys are trying to make grounds up but they are till a couple of years away from making things smoother.


But I am not renewing either the Audi connect...the way it's configured on this car 3G & send maps to your car? Very last decade.

 

[AMILL]

Speed...
I think you will find a wealth of information on the Audi Connect. Personally, I really liked Google Maps but I don't have a T Mobile account to add another data card to use in the car. I decided I'd rather have the Google Search when I need it and I just got used to using the regular maps. I went thru Truphone and set up an account. If you don't use Google Maps you can put just $20 on your account and it will last forever. Every time I use Google Search I literally use 3 cents.

As I said I wish I could justify spending the $400 up front for the renewal but I just weighed the pros and cons and this is my choice I decided on.

If you research the site you'll find much more information on Truphone as well as some other companies.

 

[Antimoz]

I too went the Truphone route. It's great for all of the features EXCEPT the Google maps overlay on the Nav system. During the first 6 months of trial service from AT&T I used about 2 Gigs of data. No hotspot use or music streaming during that period. Right now, Truphone is charging $0.09 USD per Mb of use. That's about $320/year for 4 Gigs of data. You can get AT&T service at full price for $20/month or $240/year with a 2 Gig/month data cap.

I've got Google maps turned off now and won't use it. The rest of the services are of marginal use and I've got my smartphone that, as others have noted, do a better job.

Now, if Audi adopts Apple Car Play or integrate Pandora, Spotify, etc., they might have something worthwhile to pay the data charges.

 

[rnlabas]

Car Play is here on the new Q7 and will be on the new A4 (and following 'new' Qs) ...

 

[Recshooter]

I'm new to Audi and just found this forum so let me ask a newbie question. My car is a 2016 A6 with 6GB credit by Audi to the AudiConnect account. My wife likes the Google Maps and that really is the only use for AudiConnect. I'm willing to buy another block of data, but not a monthly fee program and I don't have AT&T for my phone. Are there any options where I can just buy a block of data access? Thanks.