coldrain85

Poll coming.....

Who kept Audi Connect beyond the 6 month trial?

Mine just lapsed, and I doubt that I will renew the subscription. The only feature that I miss is the Google Earth map overlay with the real time traffic info on the dashboard display. I'm using Apple Car Play now and it's fine.

Auto manufacturers sure do love these paid services, and I can see why. From a user standpoint though I don't get anywhere close to enough value out of it to make it worth $50/mo. My 1 GB fiber optic internet at home is only $60/mo, and I get HBO MAX thrown in with that.

superswiss

I renewed back when I had my 2013 RS5. That's when it was $10/month for existing AT&T customers, basically the same price as adding a tablet. I got enough value out of that. Now, though, Audi is ripping customers off with the current pricing. With my AMG now I just renewed recently. Mind you the first 3 years and not just 6 months were free, and they let you renew subsets of services instead of all or nothing. I'm at about $15/month now with the services that I actually use. I'm fine paying that for services that actually have ongoing operating costs and that I get value from. The alternative would be the Google model selling your whereabouts and data to pay for the services. I think that's worse. I would not pay $50/month, though for connected vehicle services. That's just ridiculous considering that my Gig Internet at home costs $30/month.

JNealCox

Yes, I renewed mine. I use Alexa a lot to control music streaming from Tidal by voice, among other things. It actually pencilled out pretty well. 90% of my mobile data usage is either at home (using home wifi) or in the car. Signing up for the Annual Connect Prime Plus plan for the car wifi hotspot, I was able to cut back on my phone's data plan to the bare minimum. Overall, then, the cost was close to a wash.

A4 Phil

I renewed.

I did not want to but I actually use the traffic data road tripping.

I also use the hot spot, or my family does. The whole thing is criminally packaged and expensive, but unlike the app, it appears to always work. So there is that.

coldrain85

Makes sense. I probably would renew if I spent more time in the car and used the wifi hot spot more frequently. I have a short work commute though and only use the car for local driving. I'm rarely behind the wheel for more than 20-30 minutes at a time which is good and bad. It's good because nobody wants to have to spend a lot of time in the car, but it's bad because the etron is so much fun to drive.

superswiss

That is a great point that I've made in the past as well. Looking at individual subscription costs distorts the picture. One should really look at the total of their monthly subscription costs and see which ones can be reduced. My and my wife's mobile data use is also mostly Wi-Fi. My wife actually barely uses mobile data since the pandemic as she is now working from home as well, so I've cut back our data plans to the smallest possible and we still don't come even close to the data cap. If I were to use CarPlay I'd have to up my mobile data plan which would increase the cost there compared to using the built-in nav with life traffic. At the end of the day you pay one way or the other. Just make sure you don't oversubscribe in the individual areas and look at total subscription costs. My total subscription costs are lower today than they were in the past, because I no longer pay for cable and instead use a few streaming services and my home Internet cost has drop over the years as better services became available and competition has increased. I use more subscription services today for less money.

A4 Phil

When my car subscription rates start looking crazy I remind myself I signed up for XM radio in that weird year (2007) for the lifetime subscription if I agreed to pay the $110 up front. I did, and I am still listening to XM radio 16 years later having paid nothing additional. There was some sort of class action lawsuit and now I don't even pay the $35 transfer fee to a new car.

aj3563

I only kept the $25 per month AT&T Connect PLUS. It’s great for passengers on long trips and the car’s signal booster helps with connectivity.

A4 Phil

I like posting this periodically because sometimes you need to remind Audi that a particular function you are looking for is SUPPOSED to be in a particular tier,

ThomasW

It is always good to remind Audi of their false advertising as they do not seem to feel that map updates are part of the Audi Care package.