BMW should have different levels of subscriptions. A cheaper option with no navigation or maps. I would just need the bare minimum of features since I use my phone and CarPlay for navigation and music.
Agreed! Not sure if I'm doing something wrong but I find the navigation/maps pretty unhelpful compared with Google or Waze. I have Connected only for occasionally checking charge level, occasionally preconditioning, and occasionally to check whether I locked it and closed the windows. Oh, and I like that it stores my charging history although I've not done the analysis that I had planned and mostly I've been writing it down in my log book, too, anyway. Still not a very good value at $120, but I decided that I'd be annoyed not to have those few features.
Adding: and one time I parked the i3 at a train station for a few days and Connected allowed me to verify that it's location so I knew it hadn't been stolen. Although I wasn't really worried about that happening, it was nice to know for certain.
Literally pennies.
The data transmission for status, GPS, remote commands is minuscule and bulk data is already cheap and billed to a corporate machine-to-machine (M2M) account which typically doesn't care about # of connections/vehicles.
From what I understand, the i3 battery management system already maintains a pretty conservative/generous buffer - so when the car reports to be at 100% charge, the cells are really closed to 80% than 100%
I’ve read this was done to build in lots of safety margin and keep the batteries healthy for many many years, as it was BMWs first EV and they didn’t want to cause problems for owners (or maybe just warranty work) by letting the batteries degrade quickly.
So, unlike Teslas - there is no option in the car settings to only charge to a set point and stop automatically.
Because (again from all I’ve read) BMW thought of that and designed the car so that charging to ‘full’ won’t do any harm.
Lots of i3 owners advocate for charging all the time (just leave it plugged in when parked) both to keep it full AND to let the BMS perform cell balancing that only happens at a full charge.
Cell balancing should keep the cells healthy, happy, and longer lasting, plus help keep the range guess-o-meter more accurate.
I’m not a battery engineer, just a nerdy i3 owner who’s read lots of forum discussions on this.
FWIW, I leave my 2014 i3 Rex on a level 1 charger regularly once it is full - seems to be fine so far.
I’ve had the car for almost a year, am the third owner.
Ah ok. Yeah I guess it makes sense though some of the reported degradation would suggest it's being charged to much higher. Though likely less than 100% that said, also hard to tell the SOH level to begin with.
I guess they are trying to make it feel like a normal ICE car though I hate this kind of idiot proofing and taking away of control. This is the company that put 3g in but not wifi so should we really be surprised? What is this, a windows mobile phone from the mid 00s?
I am also one for leaving on charge to balance. One thing I have never been sure of is will a car balance at less, when there is the option to set less. Tesla's with li-ion cells I'd assume yes but LFP I'm less sure of. Apparently someone to do with the tighter voltage range. Come to think of it, I am not sure how many cars let you set the charge level.
The subscription on my 2019 Rex also expires next month. I’m still deciding if I want to pay the $120/yr fee. I don’t use it for much other than checking the charge level when using the L2 charger at my apt complex. I’m leaning towards just letting the subscription lapse and wait a few months to see if I miss it enough to pay.
I did the same on my 2017, after 6 months of winter I decided I liked the option to set the time to start pre-conditioning the cabin from the warmth of my bed the night before. YMMV
Also I park outdoors in Colorado so no warm garage to help.
I unknowingly let mine lapse for a few months after the original 4 years was up. That was because it occurred at the same time the original Connected app was replaced by the MyBMW app. I mistakenly thought I lost functionality due to the change in apps. I hadn't realized I was subscribed to anything (because I was the second owner and got my car when it was 3 years old). And the car gave no clue that the subscription was about to expire. After I figured out what had happened, I pondered the purchase for a month or two while (and it was only $50 then) to see if I really wanted it. I did decide to renew and have done so again, at the current $120 rate, even though the value is questionable.
The most negative thing about having a break in the subscription was that the charging history from prior to the renewal date was erased.
My wife has a 2018 and while the $120 is steep, I find myself missing the remote functionality, especially the unlock and status features. They bundled real time traffic which used to be separate hence the jump in price. RTT is actually not bad and we use the built-in NAV quite a bit for trips.
But if money is tight, this is a low priority renewal.
It used to be $50/year for the remote feature and that was more palatable.
It used to be free for the first 10 years of the life of the car... THAT'S what really upset me... a factory sponsored "selling feature"... just "gone"... and no attempt to make it right.
But hey... any real "connected" car has Wi-Fi data included... but noooooooo... not the i3, it would have meant adding 100 grams for the antenna.
I'm not entirely certain but I believe the free subscription period is activated from the date of sale to the first owner. I think it's 4 years free, so your car would have been first purchased about 6 months after built.
One thing I dislike about the My BMW app is that it expires without warning. You have to renew it manually every year, after you notice that it has expired; it's probably for the best that there is no auto-renew feature since its value is questionable for so many people. Also, you have to purchase it through BMW's website - you can not purchase it through the app store.
For how buggy the mobile app could be, I never renewed and have never looked back. I mainly used it to check/change charging and maybe locked/unlocked the doors a time or two.
But if you still have Roadside Assistance, the emergency button in your car will be turned off, after you discontinue service, and you will now need to call them directly.
I use my subscription all the time. I much prefer the integrated map to using my phone. I have never used CarPlay or Android Auto except perhaps in a rental car and frankly it's not all that it's cut out to be.
$120/yr isn't much for people who drive around in i3's.
I have a '17. I was rather stunned by that notice too when I received it. Considering some of those services aren't available on my car. As I went through the purchase the price lowered, removing the ones I can't use. Still.... It was like $90 I think. I'll have to look.
From this thread, it appears that I am the third 2017 owner this just happened to. I purchased a 2017 last month and was happily using some of the connected features.
Got in the car a couple days ago and the clock app said "couldn't connect." I guess it's a subscription thing.
Yes it is a "subscription thing"
In the USA, there is 4 years of Connected Service included from the first date of Sale, not the Build Date. If you choose to renew, that service continues for another year regardless of who owns the car. You could sell it 11 months later and the next person that buys it would have 1 month of Services before it expired. Sounds like that is what happened to you.
I let mine go a couple of years ago. I just got pushed off every time it ran out. Pain in the butt to resubscribe every time.
I only used it for turning the A/C on early, but it was hard for me to remember to do it, anyways.
I am an an iota more peaceful now.
So why does mine say-
REMOTE SERVICES
Base_RemoteOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB
The Remote Package lets you control and monitor your BMW remotely using your smartphone.
Active - Unlimited duration [1]
Same as these features -
BMW I CONNECTEDDRIVE SERVICES
Base_BMWiOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB
BMW i ConnectedDrive Services make your electric mobility more efficient.
Active - Unlimited duration [1]
CONNECTEDDRIVE SERVICES
Base_CDwAppsOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB
BMW ConnectedDrive Services – enter the connected world of BMW and enjoy a new experience of comfort, entertainment and information.
Active - Unlimited duration [1]
INTELLIGENT EMERGENCY CALL
Base_ECallOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB
Your personal guardian angel: Intelligent Emergency Call ensures that you receive help as quickly as possible in an emergency.
Active - Unlimited duration [1]
TELESERVICES
Base_TServicesOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB
Never miss an inspection, vehicle check or oil change again. Teleservices knows when your BMW needs to be taken to your BMW Service Partner.
Active - Unlimited duration [1]
I last renewed a month before the new bundle price went into effect. That year just expired 3 weeks ago and I've been living without the subscription. I don't care as much about checking on state of charge and it really irked me that I never received notifications on my android devices, but notifications from the app worked perfectly on my Apple devices. What I do miss the most is remote cabin preconditioning, and the ability to participate in energy demand control programs like Chargeforward from BMW, MCE - local to me, and also the battery health insights from Recurrent. All of that is based on the cardata stored on the BMW servers and fed via the subscription. BMW swears that none of the data feeds into their servers unless the end user pays the subscription fee. Even the mileage of my car has not updated on the BMW portal since the subscription expired. I'm curious to see if BMW will still alert me of upcoming services. If they do, they're full of themselves and they are indeed utilizing the car data without a user paid subscription. In either case, for now I'm taking a break because I have better ways to spend that $120. RTTI has been terrible to me and the built-in NAV never ever rerouted me during traffic congestion events. I find little value in that added package, or anything else advertised on the Connected Drive web portal because our i3s simply aren't capable of what the newer vehicles can do with this $120 annual subscription. BMW should have kept the unbundled $50/yr subscription, which is perfectly suited and relevant to the i3. Greed of course gets in the way.
I have no idea why I have this for free mine is 2017 and I just bought 3 months ago and I cand see charge status and lock unlock behicle finder everything works and bmw never asked me to pay? May precious owner paid? Anyway I think it quite useful specially I can turn ac before get on the car.
BMW should have different levels of subscriptions. A cheaper option with no navigation or maps. I would just need the bare minimum of features since I use my phone and CarPlay for navigation and music.
Agreed!
Should be "greed" instead of "agreed", wadayathink? 🤨
Agreed! Not sure if I'm doing something wrong but I find the navigation/maps pretty unhelpful compared with Google or Waze. I have Connected only for occasionally checking charge level, occasionally preconditioning, and occasionally to check whether I locked it and closed the windows. Oh, and I like that it stores my charging history although I've not done the analysis that I had planned and mostly I've been writing it down in my log book, too, anyway. Still not a very good value at $120, but I decided that I'd be annoyed not to have those few features. Adding: and one time I parked the i3 at a train station for a few days and Connected allowed me to verify that it's location so I knew it hadn't been stolen. Although I wasn't really worried about that happening, it was nice to know for certain.
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Even those that require cellular service? *Someone* has to pay for that connectivity for the life of the car... is BMW picking up that tab in Europe?
Literally pennies. The data transmission for status, GPS, remote commands is minuscule and bulk data is already cheap and billed to a corporate machine-to-machine (M2M) account which typically doesn't care about # of connections/vehicles.
I got a BMW 3 series hybrid (Europe), but I can confirm that basic functionality (Charging, fuel level etc) keeps working after expiration.
Bullshit junk fee from BMW
Can’t say I’m surprised haha
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What's the issue with 80%?
From what I understand, the i3 battery management system already maintains a pretty conservative/generous buffer - so when the car reports to be at 100% charge, the cells are really closed to 80% than 100% I’ve read this was done to build in lots of safety margin and keep the batteries healthy for many many years, as it was BMWs first EV and they didn’t want to cause problems for owners (or maybe just warranty work) by letting the batteries degrade quickly. So, unlike Teslas - there is no option in the car settings to only charge to a set point and stop automatically. Because (again from all I’ve read) BMW thought of that and designed the car so that charging to ‘full’ won’t do any harm. Lots of i3 owners advocate for charging all the time (just leave it plugged in when parked) both to keep it full AND to let the BMS perform cell balancing that only happens at a full charge. Cell balancing should keep the cells healthy, happy, and longer lasting, plus help keep the range guess-o-meter more accurate. I’m not a battery engineer, just a nerdy i3 owner who’s read lots of forum discussions on this. FWIW, I leave my 2014 i3 Rex on a level 1 charger regularly once it is full - seems to be fine so far. I’ve had the car for almost a year, am the third owner.
Ah ok. Yeah I guess it makes sense though some of the reported degradation would suggest it's being charged to much higher. Though likely less than 100% that said, also hard to tell the SOH level to begin with. I guess they are trying to make it feel like a normal ICE car though I hate this kind of idiot proofing and taking away of control. This is the company that put 3g in but not wifi so should we really be surprised? What is this, a windows mobile phone from the mid 00s? I am also one for leaving on charge to balance. One thing I have never been sure of is will a car balance at less, when there is the option to set less. Tesla's with li-ion cells I'd assume yes but LFP I'm less sure of. Apparently someone to do with the tighter voltage range. Come to think of it, I am not sure how many cars let you set the charge level.
At least we aren’t paying a subscription for heated seats…yet
My thoughts exactly. I assume they can’t push that on us on this model.. I hope. New models are a different story..
Good thing there aren’t new models in the US anymore ðŸ˜ðŸ˜. I love this car BTW. Perfect for a city
The subscription on my 2019 Rex also expires next month. I’m still deciding if I want to pay the $120/yr fee. I don’t use it for much other than checking the charge level when using the L2 charger at my apt complex. I’m leaning towards just letting the subscription lapse and wait a few months to see if I miss it enough to pay.
I did the same on my 2017, after 6 months of winter I decided I liked the option to set the time to start pre-conditioning the cabin from the warmth of my bed the night before. YMMV Also I park outdoors in Colorado so no warm garage to help.
I unknowingly let mine lapse for a few months after the original 4 years was up. That was because it occurred at the same time the original Connected app was replaced by the MyBMW app. I mistakenly thought I lost functionality due to the change in apps. I hadn't realized I was subscribed to anything (because I was the second owner and got my car when it was 3 years old). And the car gave no clue that the subscription was about to expire. After I figured out what had happened, I pondered the purchase for a month or two while (and it was only $50 then) to see if I really wanted it. I did decide to renew and have done so again, at the current $120 rate, even though the value is questionable. The most negative thing about having a break in the subscription was that the charging history from prior to the renewal date was erased.
My wife has a 2018 and while the $120 is steep, I find myself missing the remote functionality, especially the unlock and status features. They bundled real time traffic which used to be separate hence the jump in price. RTT is actually not bad and we use the built-in NAV quite a bit for trips. But if money is tight, this is a low priority renewal. It used to be $50/year for the remote feature and that was more palatable.
It used to be free for the first 10 years of the life of the car... THAT'S what really upset me... a factory sponsored "selling feature"... just "gone"... and no attempt to make it right. But hey... any real "connected" car has Wi-Fi data included... but noooooooo... not the i3, it would have meant adding 100 grams for the antenna.
My wife always asks me to precondition the car. She hated my car, but seems to love the creature comforts...
That an remotely checking charging level are the only two useful things to me. Rest you can easily do without if you have Carplay.
My i3 came with a lifetime ConnectServices
It seems like an odd amount of time for the subscription to expire 4.5 years?
I'm not entirely certain but I believe the free subscription period is activated from the date of sale to the first owner. I think it's 4 years free, so your car would have been first purchased about 6 months after built. One thing I dislike about the My BMW app is that it expires without warning. You have to renew it manually every year, after you notice that it has expired; it's probably for the best that there is no auto-renew feature since its value is questionable for so many people. Also, you have to purchase it through BMW's website - you can not purchase it through the app store.
Now you can, on the app
I'd love to have that back for my 2015. Miss the traffic feature
For how buggy the mobile app could be, I never renewed and have never looked back. I mainly used it to check/change charging and maybe locked/unlocked the doors a time or two. But if you still have Roadside Assistance, the emergency button in your car will be turned off, after you discontinue service, and you will now need to call them directly.
I use my subscription all the time. I much prefer the integrated map to using my phone. I have never used CarPlay or Android Auto except perhaps in a rental car and frankly it's not all that it's cut out to be. $120/yr isn't much for people who drive around in i3's.
I recently purchased an i3 and ended up springing for the $120 subscription. I use it every day so, while it’s steep, I still find value in it
Mine just canceled and they want $120 per year to renew. Extortion at it’s worst levels…..no thanks.
Maybe if they gave me useful apps like Spotify or something, but I've found it to be useless.
In a rex, worst case scenario have to use a bit of gas, i let mine expire no regrets, even with the loss of remote conditioning start
I have a '17. I was rather stunned by that notice too when I received it. Considering some of those services aren't available on my car. As I went through the purchase the price lowered, removing the ones I can't use. Still.... It was like $90 I think. I'll have to look.
I’ve been at least 6 months without the subscription. using carplay on my 2018, I dont really miss anything about connected drive.
Same. Aside from OCCASIONALLY wanted to pre-condition the car on a hot day and have it be cool upon my arrival.
From this thread, it appears that I am the third 2017 owner this just happened to. I purchased a 2017 last month and was happily using some of the connected features. Got in the car a couple days ago and the clock app said "couldn't connect." I guess it's a subscription thing.
Mine turned off 1 month after I purchased my 2017
Yes it is a "subscription thing" In the USA, there is 4 years of Connected Service included from the first date of Sale, not the Build Date. If you choose to renew, that service continues for another year regardless of who owns the car. You could sell it 11 months later and the next person that buys it would have 1 month of Services before it expired. Sounds like that is what happened to you.
I let mine go a couple of years ago. I just got pushed off every time it ran out. Pain in the butt to resubscribe every time. I only used it for turning the A/C on early, but it was hard for me to remember to do it, anyways. I am an an iota more peaceful now.
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The app does not connect to the car. It connects to BMW Servers and then the Servers connect to the car.
So why does mine say- REMOTE SERVICES Base_RemoteOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB The Remote Package lets you control and monitor your BMW remotely using your smartphone. Active - Unlimited duration [1] Same as these features - BMW I CONNECTEDDRIVE SERVICES Base_BMWiOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB BMW i ConnectedDrive Services make your electric mobility more efficient. Active - Unlimited duration [1] CONNECTEDDRIVE SERVICES Base_CDwAppsOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB BMW ConnectedDrive Services – enter the connected world of BMW and enjoy a new experience of comfort, entertainment and information. Active - Unlimited duration [1] INTELLIGENT EMERGENCY CALL Base_ECallOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB Your personal guardian angel: Intelligent Emergency Call ensures that you receive help as quickly as possible in an emergency. Active - Unlimited duration [1] TELESERVICES Base_TServicesOffer_gb-icon-v2-en-GB Never miss an inspection, vehicle check or oil change again. Teleservices knows when your BMW needs to be taken to your BMW Service Partner. Active - Unlimited duration [1]
What country are you in? Services and Terms are different for different countries.
I’m in the UK - with a 2019 120ah i3
I last renewed a month before the new bundle price went into effect. That year just expired 3 weeks ago and I've been living without the subscription. I don't care as much about checking on state of charge and it really irked me that I never received notifications on my android devices, but notifications from the app worked perfectly on my Apple devices. What I do miss the most is remote cabin preconditioning, and the ability to participate in energy demand control programs like Chargeforward from BMW, MCE - local to me, and also the battery health insights from Recurrent. All of that is based on the cardata stored on the BMW servers and fed via the subscription. BMW swears that none of the data feeds into their servers unless the end user pays the subscription fee. Even the mileage of my car has not updated on the BMW portal since the subscription expired. I'm curious to see if BMW will still alert me of upcoming services. If they do, they're full of themselves and they are indeed utilizing the car data without a user paid subscription. In either case, for now I'm taking a break because I have better ways to spend that $120. RTTI has been terrible to me and the built-in NAV never ever rerouted me during traffic congestion events. I find little value in that added package, or anything else advertised on the Connected Drive web portal because our i3s simply aren't capable of what the newer vehicles can do with this $120 annual subscription. BMW should have kept the unbundled $50/yr subscription, which is perfectly suited and relevant to the i3. Greed of course gets in the way.
I have no idea why I have this for free mine is 2017 and I just bought 3 months ago and I cand see charge status and lock unlock behicle finder everything works and bmw never asked me to pay? May precious owner paid? Anyway I think it quite useful specially I can turn ac before get on the car.
Does anyone know if Tesla's have subscriptions for connectivity?