superswiss

per 6 or 18 months, depending on which plan you get. So, while the 6 months plan is a little more expensive on a per month basis, you effectively get 1GB/month of hotspot data with the 6 month plan vs 1/3GB/month with the 18 months plan.

prashanth1337

wow, that's just stupid.

stan23

Exactly.

I think it's safe to say that all of us can comfortably afford it, but rather what you get for the $$ is not all that reasonable.

PRGeno

N8! is voting with their wallet. They apparently found enough value in the service to pay the price Audi set for it.

It seems like the rest of us don't quite see the same value and if this forum is any indication most owners are voting "No" with our wallets.

I really would like to keep the traffic display in the VC, but I find virtually nothing else about the service being worth anything to me. Therefore, the price to play well exceeds my cost pain point. I really think Audi would do well if they broke the various features of the service up into more reasonably priced segments. Traffic is a natural thing to break out, and something I'd be more than happy to pay for if it was priced appropriately.

zamba0321

Someone needs to build an OBD dongle with 'reverse hotspot into the car' , basically use your smarthpne's hotspot
to provide 'free' connectivity to the car...

I know it's very unlikely doable via the OBD port, maybe there's a way in via the entertainment system

superswiss

It would be interesting to see some stats from Audi on how many sold cars have a paid subscription after 6 months. I'm not sure this forum is an indication of the real world. I'm really surprised that traffic is the only thing that folks think has value. Are you all manually entering addresses like we did in the 90s or spelling names of POIs using the crappy handwriting recognition and hoping it's found in the offline database? The biggest value of Audi connect to me is the integration with my phone and Google Maps, so that I never actually have to manually enter a destination and instead just send it to the car from Google Maps on my computer or any app on my phone as well as doing adhoc Google Local searches for destinations I didn't plan ahead. Many times the destination is on my calendar, so I just send the calendar appointment to the car. That kind of integration is really what it is about for me, and I'm willing to pay for that. Yes, the service is overpriced, I don't disagree with that. We are paying early adopters money. The whole connected car thing is just starting to go mainstream. I predict that pricing will come down as having a connected car becomes a necessity for V2V and V2I communication.

shtaka

Has anyone tried using an alternative SIM card, e.g. Verizon?

superswiss

Yes, has been tried. There's a license check that has to pass for the Audi connect services to work. An external SIM can be made to enable the Wifi hotspot via vagcom mods, but that's about it. Verizon would be the wrong choice, too. They don't have a compatible 3G network to fall back on if you drive outside of LTE coverage, so you'll loose connectivity completely. Only T-Mobile and AT&T have fully compatible networks.

rocko76

In my case, Android Auto replaces this functionality. While it's not necessarily convenient to plug it in all the time, and we don't get the map on the VC, it's just a matter of saying "OK Google - directions to XYZ". Don't need to pull the phone out after that to send to the MMI and I find the traffic much, much more accurate in my area. Also don't get the overlays, but that seems satellite view might be something that Google adds over time.

jamis

Traffic, google maps (going away), and google POI search were the primary features I used. I typically use the voice recognition for address/text entry which usually works pretty well.

The Audi MMI phone app has some interesting features, but ones I almost never used. If it had remote start, I'd probably use it all of the time (and actually pay for the service).

I never saw sending addresses to my car via computer all that useful or efficient, to be honest.