Audi Connect: Ravenously Hungry Consumer of Data
02-14-2018, 12:22 PM
#1
AudiWorld Super User
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Audi Connect: Ravenously Hungry Consumer of Data
Driving from Columbus to Cincinnati (100 minutes) the other day, my wife received an email saying she had used 90% of her data (allowance) and perhaps she should consider buying more.
My wife makes a few phone calls while driving, has, as far as she knows never used a Mac or PC (via WiFi) in the car, etc. I entered the MMI and looked at the data usage counter: the number was HUGE!
In the car, but not in use -- so we thought: Her iPhone, my iPhone, her iPad, my Surface. These devices all had been using WiFi (not the car's) earlier in the day at a private residence in Columbus. At some time these devices were (we imagine, now) granted "connectivity" rights to the Audi's in-car WiFi.
Again, we have never actually used the WiFi -- for instance, I've never opened up my Surface PC and signed onto email or Chrome, etc. Yet, even as I was looking at the Data Usage counter it continued to creep up and up, like the national debt clock.
When our dealer had set up our 2018 Audis, he had turned every possible option "on" -- one of them being a parameter that says, as its two choices, "allow" or "deny" (that is, allow wifi connectivity). Both in the SQ5 and in the S4 the parm was set to allow. Everytime one or both of our iPhones was in the car, the iPhones were transmitting MB's and MB's and more MB's to google or apple or god knows who, to get location information, barometric pressure, and PPM of lead in the water supply, no doubt. I reset the counter to zero and just watched the data sent and received number LEAP up, up, and away, even as we were driving along, not using the phones (so we thought).
I changed the WiFi to "deny" and all data stopped. Did the same thing in my car -- also stopped the drain of MB's. Everything seems to work just fine -- google maps, online destinations, news, weather, weather maps, sat nav, traffic, everything. The trick is (or would be) just remember to turn the WiFi permission parm to "allow" should you want to hook up your laptop to surf or answer and send emails, etc.
The alternative would be to turn WiFi off on all of your devices, but it seems easier to turn it off at one place -- not at every device.
Don't know if you've had the data sucking Mynocks chewing on the power cables, but if you've wondered how it could even be remotely possible to have THAT much data being used, well, that's what we found and how we addressed it.
Dont' buy extra data unless you REALLY need it, that is.
My wife makes a few phone calls while driving, has, as far as she knows never used a Mac or PC (via WiFi) in the car, etc. I entered the MMI and looked at the data usage counter: the number was HUGE!
In the car, but not in use -- so we thought: Her iPhone, my iPhone, her iPad, my Surface. These devices all had been using WiFi (not the car's) earlier in the day at a private residence in Columbus. At some time these devices were (we imagine, now) granted "connectivity" rights to the Audi's in-car WiFi.
Again, we have never actually used the WiFi -- for instance, I've never opened up my Surface PC and signed onto email or Chrome, etc. Yet, even as I was looking at the Data Usage counter it continued to creep up and up, like the national debt clock.
When our dealer had set up our 2018 Audis, he had turned every possible option "on" -- one of them being a parameter that says, as its two choices, "allow" or "deny" (that is, allow wifi connectivity). Both in the SQ5 and in the S4 the parm was set to allow. Everytime one or both of our iPhones was in the car, the iPhones were transmitting MB's and MB's and more MB's to google or apple or god knows who, to get location information, barometric pressure, and PPM of lead in the water supply, no doubt. I reset the counter to zero and just watched the data sent and received number LEAP up, up, and away, even as we were driving along, not using the phones (so we thought).
I changed the WiFi to "deny" and all data stopped. Did the same thing in my car -- also stopped the drain of MB's. Everything seems to work just fine -- google maps, online destinations, news, weather, weather maps, sat nav, traffic, everything. The trick is (or would be) just remember to turn the WiFi permission parm to "allow" should you want to hook up your laptop to surf or answer and send emails, etc.
The alternative would be to turn WiFi off on all of your devices, but it seems easier to turn it off at one place -- not at every device.
Don't know if you've had the data sucking Mynocks chewing on the power cables, but if you've wondered how it could even be remotely possible to have THAT much data being used, well, that's what we found and how we addressed it.
Dont' buy extra data unless you REALLY need it, that is.
Last edited by markcincinnati; 02-14-2018 at 12:24 PM.
02-14-2018, 12:37 PM
#2
AudiWorld Super User
Yeah, if your phones are connected to your car's Wifi they will potentially use quite a bit of data in the background. For example if there are app updates in the store, the phone may decide to update them while you are driving along. If not connected to Wifi, the iPhone knows that you are on a metered connection so it won't perform data intensive tasks such as updating apps. Even worse is if there's a new iOS update, it will start downloading in the background. Those things can be huge.
In iOS and MacOS you can't mark a given Wifi connection as metered. This is something Windows allows you to do. I've long found this a major missing feature in Apple's OS's. Apple treats all Wifi connections equal, so if you are connected to a mobile hotspot one or all of your phones could be burning through your data w/o your knowledge.
In iOS and MacOS you can't mark a given Wifi connection as metered. This is something Windows allows you to do. I've long found this a major missing feature in Apple's OS's. Apple treats all Wifi connections equal, so if you are connected to a mobile hotspot one or all of your phones could be burning through your data w/o your knowledge.
02-14-2018, 01:26 PM
#3
There is another way. At least with iPhones. In the car with the ignition on, open settings- Wi-Fi on the iPhone and choose the Audi Wi-Fi. You’ll see a switch that says “Auto Join”. Turn it off then when you leave the network it will not rejoin unless you do so intentionally. You can also click “forget network” but if you do that, you will have to enter the Wi-Fi password to rejoin and you will then be back where you were. SOMBODY did enter the passwords initially or your devices would never have started auto joining.
02-15-2018, 06:14 AM
#6
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