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I have a US-spec allroad PP with tech so it might have some hardware not found on the canadian A4's. After the audi connect subscription expired the wifi still "works" but with no data transfer, google earth went away, and all the other audi connect functions ceased. I figured I'd try the adaptation/coding changes here in the first post to see what would work. From what I recall there were only three adaptations that had to be flipped ON, the rest did not need to be changed. I then disabled the car's wifi hotspot to enable it to connect to my phone's hotspot as a client. after it connected, google earth came back, but as expected the remaining subscription based audi connect services remain dead. Then I changed phones and never bothered to setup the car to connect to the new phone so I re-enabled the car's wifi defunct hotspot, but for whatever reasons google earth still worked even with no real "active" data connection. To verify this I left things as they were and drove to nova scotia taking a different route than usual that would ensure the nav would have to download new google earth overlays, and sure enough it did, up until I crossed into canada when it would revert to the traditional map, which was its typical behavior back when audi connect was still working. I am guessing the eSIM is still active and feeding the car data and whatever coding/adaptations I changed allowed the car to continue accessing google earth.
Yes, it sounds like the eSIM is still active like you say. Since Canadian cars do not have one, it would not work on those cars... I also suspect that several changes in the original posts are not necessary like you mentioned.
Hey gang, I know this is an old thread, but figured I'd post here in case it's helpful for anyone in the future.
The short of it is, I have a 2017 Q7 Technik from Canada. I'm now living in the US and I've been able to get Google Earth to work and I've been able to get the SIM slot to work as well. I've made adaptions/coding changes using a Ross-Tech HEX-CAN interface. Also, in case this does make a difference, I do have the optional ~$520 CDN option for Audi connect that was offered at the time. If I remember correctly, in order to activate the "Data Module" (which gave me the ability to activate SIM card slot in MMI) I had to change one bit using Long Coding from another forum or post that I found. Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of all the adaptions/changes, so I don't know what it was exactly that I changed (sorry for being such a noob!)
Key Observation:
Based on a poster in another thread (https://www.audiworld.com/forums/showpost.php?p=24988003&postcount=59), it appears that the Canadian Q7 does not have the LTE antenna hooked up to the MIB. I haven't taken my MIB to confirm this, but I can say with 100% certainty that when I pop in my TMobile SIM card into the slot and drive around, I get anything from a strong signal to no signal (all while I have my wife's TMobile phone connected, so I can see the strength of both signals).
I've ordered the tools and antenna that is recommended in the post above so that I can remove the MIB and install the LTE antenna. All that said, I'm not sure what value I get with an active SIM card slot. Seems that the only benefit I see is data for Google Earth, but I can already achieve this by WiFi tethering using the instructions of the original post. I don't see why I'd pay Tmobile for another line so that I can simply have Google Earth (again, since I can achieve the same using the Wifi tethering). None the less, it was fun trying to figure this out and tinker with it.
Attached are some images. Google Earth in cockpit
New Online Settings and Data Module; Selecting "Data usage counter" I can also see how much data I've used on the SIM that I've popped in
Connected to TMobile while driving around; you can see that my wife's phone has 3 bars, but here I only have 1 and the signal is "Weak".
Turning on Google Earth
Google Earth on display; you can see that here I'm not getting an LTE signal...the four bars are those of my wife's phone.
06-02-2018, 02:18 PM
