Ford Premium Connectivity Trial

[rreddy3]

That’s exactly my thoughts, what you’re thinking, but like I said the first thing I did notice was if I had to leave the Wife in the car while the car was running in the parking lot, she enjoys watching YouTube and I lost that feature after the trial and I was thinking next time I’m away from a Wi-Fi Spot I’m gonna try that hotspot and see what happens on my phone not the hotspot in car.

I tend to share DoogleMac and Jerrytball’s thoughts on the usefulness of the hotspot and Premium Connecivity. While they aren’t super expensive they don’t seem to add a lot of value, at least to me. The jury is still out in the question of whether I’ll get them after the trial period.

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[RickMachE]

I think your question about the hotspot feature of the phone may be similar to but better articulated than the question I had on whether the Premium Connected features could be exploited with the phone instead of the car's AT&T hotspot.

No, they cannot.

I never use my hotspot on my phone, and I’ve never used the hotspot on the car. I’m curious when you enable the hotspot on the car is it pulling it through your telephone or is it part of the Ford connect connectivity package? That’s kind of my question.

No, it is not. The car has a modem, that's how connected features work. The hotspot feature simply uses the car's modem for your internet devices to connect, if you pay for it.

 

[rreddy3]

Here is the US link https://www.ford.com/support/how-to...d-services/what-is-ford-premium-connectivity/

Ford has their own voice feature, you don't need to ever use Alexa.

Sync, not Synch, is the name for the in-car software that runs the vehicle. FordPass Connect is basically the modem. This enables basic features like Remote Start.

No, you do not need to pay for the hotspot if you are paying for Premium Connectivity. Hotspot is simply a way for your devices to connect, via the car's modem, to the internet. Most people find their phone's hotspot works great for that. However, apparently you can't use Apple CarPlay and the phone's hotspot at the same time (I have Android).

You can use Alexa, on your phone, just fine without paying a dime for anything else.

Thanks RickMachE. It is also my understanding that vehicle hotspot and apple car play cannot operate at the same time via bluetooth. I spoke to a AT&T vehicle hotspot rep last evening. I asked him about that very issue. His response was that those two features cannot use the bluetooth at the same time. He did go on to say that if the hotspot was enabled it would be usung the bluetooth, but that IF the phone was plugged in via USB you could have apple car play also function. I haven’t tried that yet. Maybe tomorrow. I am informed there are chores to be done around the house. If that’s the case, won’t be much time for fooling around with the motorized computer in the garage.

 

[Jerrytball]

Thanks RickMachE. It is also my understanding that vehicle hotspot and apple car play cannot operate at the same time via bluetooth. I spoke to a AT&T vehicle hotspot rep last evening. I asked him about that very issue. His response was that those two features cannot use the bluetooth at the same time. He did go on to say that if the hotspot was enabled it would be usung the bluetooth, but that IF the phone was plugged in via USB you could have apple car play also function. I haven’t tried that yet. Maybe tomorrow. I am informed there are chores to be done around the house. If that’s the case, won’t be much time for fooling around with the motorized computer in the garage.

I am actually sitting in the car right now. I tried connecting to my phones hotspot after I turned off my homes Wi-Fi to see if I could get You Tube to come up and asked me to connect to a Wi-Fi network so I enable the hotspot on the phone I could see it connecting, but then after about a minute, it popped up and said sync unable to connect to my phone, so I’ll try plugging in the cable and see how that works, Ford has this figured out they’re not letting you get away without paying for their service obviously.

 

[Shepherd]

Thanks for this thread. I got notice that my connectivity was expiring and hadn't even tried it. I think Apple car play fills all my needs. I could see it if A passenger needed to do work on the road.

Me either. I don't use Alexa. Apple carplay and Siri seem to work for what I need.

 

[Jerrytball]

So I disabled CarPlay I disabled Wi-Fi. I tried to use YouTube told me I need a connection so I enabled Wi-Fi picked my phone, this time, though I had my phone plugged in with a USB cable and CarPlay came back up automatically and I could not disable it again And sink still would not connect to my phones hotspot. I’m gonna try one little other trick and see if I can get CarPlay to disabled. I’ll try one more time but pretty sure Ford is just not gonna let you do it.

 

[Jerrytball]

I was able to go in after plugging in the USB disabled CarPlay through the settings showed the car there so I disabled it but because I was plugged in CarPlay was still up and it won’t connect to the hotspot so I guess that theory is shot unless someone can figure it out?

Update: I went into the FordPass and looked at the connected services. I didn’t realize it’s only $10 a month for the premium connectivity, so it asked do you want to use the points you have right now? So I said yes, and that took it down to zero for the month, so I’ll just do $10 a month I guess, I thought it was more like 30 something dollars a month so $10 is manageable for that. Keeps the wife happy while she sits in the car ?

 

[rreddy3]

The Premium Connectivity is relatively cheap entertainment at $10 a month.

The hotspot, which currently is only available via AT&T, as confirmed to me in a chat with a FoMoCo rep last evening, is pricier but not necessarily a deal killer, if you want the hotspot in the car.

In the NoVA market at least, it is $25 per month, with a special price exercisable within two days following the hotspot trial activation of $20 per month.

BUT, wait, there's more!!

You can go prepaid annual for $200 which brings it down to $16.66 a month, not counting taxes.

Those are the rates for non-AT&T customers. presumably there are better rates if you're on AT&T already.

 

[Mike G]

Actually, what I did notice the other day after the trial ended I had to go inside the pharmacy so I left the car running with the Wife in it and I let her watch her favorite stuff on YouTube, but that would not come up unless I had a Wi-Fi connection or if I had connectivity. So now I know what I lost that I only ever used You Tube anyways since I had the car, but my question is if I turn on my hotspot on my phone, should I be able to get that You Tube? I haven’t tested it but I’m guessing maybe that’ll work?

Yes. You can tell your car to use your phone's hotspot. I think there's an issue though that you can't have the car using the hotspot functionality of the same phone it's using for Carplay. Either one or the other I think. I have a separate wi-fi hotspot on Mint that I use for that sort of thing. I ran into this problem before so that's why I decided to use the hotspot puck I had sitting around.

 

[Jerrytball]

Yes. You can tell your car to use your phone's hotspot. I think there's an issue though that you can't have the car using the hotspot functionality of the same phone it's using for Carplay. Either one or the other I think. I have a separate wi-fi hotspot on Mint that I use for that sort of thing. I ran into this problem before so that's why I decided to use the hotspot puck I had sitting around.

Here’s a question for you, Mike now since I turned on that connectivity, would that make a difference on turning on the hotspot in the car? If I did not activate the premium connectivity would the hotspot work that’s in the car not the one from your phone and now that I’ve turned it on is there any extra charge if I turn the hotspot on and let someone use it in the car?

 

[Mike G]

Here’s a question for you, Mike now since I turned on that connectivity, would that make a difference on turning on the hotspot in the car? If I did not activate the premium connectivity would the hotspot work that’s in the car not the one from your phone and now that I’ve turned it on is there any extra charge if I turn the hotspot on and let someone use it in the car?

The hotspot is billed through AT&T.

Premium connectivity is Ford trying to monetize you streaming things through their system from what I understand.

If you had your own hotspot (or phone) and wanted to use the premium connectivity I suppose you could do that but I can't think of why that would make financial sense.

 

[Jerrytball]

The hotspot is billed through AT&T.

Premium connectivity is Ford trying to monetize you streaming things through their system from what I understand.

If you had your own hotspot (or phone) and wanted to use the premium connectivity I suppose you could do that but I can't think of why that would make financial sense.

Yeah, I’ll probably never use it. I have AT&T for my phone service so I would think if I enable it and people used it I wouldn’t be charged for it. I guess I’d have to test it out one time?

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