WiFi in your car anybody?

[Trebdp83]

I wanted to get some feedback from anybody using WiFi in a car so equipped. If using it, in what kind of car are you using it? What is your service provider? Is there any improvement in signal quality over simply using your Smart device's cell service?

 

[Trebdp83]

I activated a free trial from AT&T last night to see how I like it. I can use the car as a hotspot and connect up to five devices. We’ll see how it goes.

 

[highfigh]

I activated a free trial from AT&T last night to see how I like it. I can use the car as a hotspot and connect up to five devices. We’ll see how it goes.

Make sure it's very well secured.

 

[Eppie]

Anyone else been following the privacy and data collection issues within the auto industry? It's absolutely horrendous what they can get away with in North America. I wish we had stricter privacy laws like the EU. The video title is click-batey but Naomi Brockwell has some interesting videos on this topic. It's bad enough that I would seriously be wary of connecting any device to a modern car.

 

[Trebdp83]

Changed name and password of WiFi and hid it. It is not functional when car and acc. are off. I'd bet anybody listening in on my car would tune out fairly quickly. I'm not that interesting.

I'll see how quickly I go through the trial data. I already prepaid for the first month of service at a discount and it will actually be charged at the point the trial data is used up or times out.

 

[Eppie]

I don't see any advantage to using in car WiFi with a mobile phone unless the provider offers a cheaper data package. The one use that makes sense to me is for tablets, laptops and other devices without sim cards. Having WiFi in the car saves the trouble of having to turn mobile hotspots on and off on your cell. The tablet would connect automatically like in your home.

 

[Trebdp83]

Right, I do have wifi only devices that I will be able to use with the car’s unlimited data wifi and not use up the limited hotspot data available in my phones. I don’t want to have to even think about usage amounts.

 

[Eppie]

Right, I do have wifi only devices that I will be able to use with the car’s unlimited data wifi and not use up the limited hotspot data available in my phones. I don’t want to have to even think about usage amounts.

Yes, if it's unlimited data with the car then wifi makes sense.

 

[lovinthehd]

My vehicle is too old to have wifi and where I live it wouldn't yield a lot of use as I'd be out of range a lot (majority of time easily). I get many hours of music by creating a good selection on a thumb drive. No security concerns at all Good luck, curious how it works out....what are the details of the trial package?

 

[Trebdp83]

The trial is 4GB of data or 90 days, whichever gets used up first. I used it this afternoon with a couple of iPhones. Works beautifully. I had my iPhone connected to USB for CarPlay and turned ON SharePlay so that the other iPhone could act like the remote controller for Apple Music instead of using the car’s track pad to make selections.

With a press of a button on the steering wheel, I can also bring up Siri and tell it to play anything from Apple Music. If it isn’t downloaded to my iPhone library, it is simply streamed from the Apple Music service over the car’s WiFi. No hesitation, no buffering. It just worked.

 

[lovinthehd]

The trial is 4GB of data or 90 days, whichever gets used up first. I used it this afternoon with a couple of iPhones. Works beautifully. I had my iPhone connected to USB for CarPlay and turned ON SharePlay so that the other iPhone could act like the remote controller for Apple Music instead of using the car’s track pad to make selections.

With a press of a button on the steering wheel, I can also bring up Siri and tell it to play anything from Apple Music. If it isn’t downloaded to my iPhone library, it is simply streamed from the Apple Music service over the car’s WiFi. No hesitation, no buffering. It just worked.

If you continue to use it how much will it cost? Audio only in your case? Sounds pretty good tho.

 

[Trebdp83]

Twenty bucks per month unlimited.

 

[highfigh]

The trial is 4GB of data or 90 days, whichever gets used up first. I used it this afternoon with a couple of iPhones. Works beautifully. I had my iPhone connected to USB for CarPlay and turned ON SharePlay so that the other iPhone could act like the remote controller for Apple Music instead of using the car’s track pad to make selections.

With a press of a button on the steering wheel, I can also bring up Siri and tell it to play anything from Apple Music. If it isn’t downloaded to my iPhone library, it is simply streamed from the Apple Music service over the car’s WiFi. No hesitation, no buffering. It just worked.

With the close spacing of the 5G cells, there's no reason you should have buffering unless a very large number of users are connected and using a lot of data throughput at the same time.

However, knowing that Alexa is known to have recorded private conversations in homes, offices, etc, I wouldn't want to make a sound while driving......it knows your location down to the resolution of the 5G system, which is ~4 feet. It can't know the real meaning of what is said, just the words that make the system perceive something in peoples' comments.

No tin foil hat, here- I just like to be a bit more anonymous.

 

[Trebdp83]

Alexa is disabled in every device of mine that features her and Siri is an idiot so no worries there.

 

[Trebdp83]

Ok, got out on the open road today and connected a WiFi only iPad and two iPhones to the car’s WiFi with mine in CarPlay mode.

Apple Music automatically picked up where I left off in the Mac mini at home. There was no buffering or cutting out when pulling away from the house and switching automatically to the car’s WiFi.

A game was played on the iPad while using CarPlay on my iPhone. Everything worked perfectly. I asked Siri to play something else and it played almost instantly. I’m sold on this s#%t. Results will vary of course.

 

[lovinthehd]

Twenty bucks per month unlimited.

Is it a 5G thing only?

 

[Trebdp83]

I could swear my trial said 4G LTE.

 

[lovinthehd]

I could swear my trial said 4G LTE.

Just curious as we have no 5G here. Seems most phone features to "expand" need it. Even if we had 5G probably only good for a coupla miles outside of town....let alone the rest of the forest.

 

[highfigh]

Just curious as we have no 5G here. Seems most phone features to "expand" need it. Even if we had 5G probably only good for a coupla miles outside of town....let alone the rest of the forest.

Your speed may be lower, but 4G range is better, which is the reason 5G needs cells every four inches. OK, so it's not four inches, but like all high frequency systems, more power or closer proximity are needed for equal signal strength.

 

[lovinthehd]

Your speed may be lower, but 4G range is better, which is the reason 5G needs cells every four inches. OK, so it's not four inches, but like all high frequency systems, more power or closer proximity are needed for equal signal strength.

Still wouldn't matter much, still be out of range quickly and only recover if you go to a bigger metro area, which isn't always a destination.