Tesla made the headlines when it announced the introduction of over the air updates for its cars. With this new feature, the cars could be updated in real time, making the infotainment system better, but also introducing new features altogether. However, the American company isn’t the only one that offers over the air updates, BMW also being one of the early innovators in the field.
The Germans have been fiddling with such solutions for quite some time now and starting this year customers can even buy certain features on their cars, not just use over the air updates for security updates. Depending on the car you own, these updates could include a variety of case uses, they will be highly dependent on what you have installed on it though. The range of features that can be purchased is available in the iDrive menu.
As you can see in the video below, if your car has the hardware installed but the software isn’t activated, you’ll receive a message on the iDrive screen letting you know you can actually enable a specific function. In this case it’s the high-beam assistant, which automatically dips the beam whenever you approach a car on the other side of the road. Once you’ve been warned that the function is not enabled but can be activated you can do so by following the steps listed below.
Video: What can you ask your BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant?
Basically, in order to buy anything you have to access the Remote Software Upgrade sub-menu and check out whatever is available. To order a specific function, go to the ConnectedDrive Store by pressing “Apps”, “Bookable” and select the feature. After accepting the general terms, press “Purchase now”. You will get a confirmation of your purchase and you can start the installation after your next ride.
Let’s take a look at this demo:
although it is very cool that this is available as a easy after manufacturing retrofit of systems, i can’t help but feel that if the sensors and computing power is in the vehicle it should be a no cost upgrade to the customer.
High Beam Assistant is a “subscription service” ???
In some markets
This is wrong. High beam assistant is a one time purchase. Nevertheless, the business model might change in the future and you will have more options.
You chose not to buy the feature when deciding your configuration. Now you have the possibility to add something afterwards that you would not be able without this new functionality. Sounds good to me. By the way, E.g. the high beam requieres preinstalled hardware, it‘s not just software.
Great, does that mean the over the air software update will finally work on my 2020 Z4????
It was never not working, what kind of update do you expect for a brand new car?
Manufactured April 2019, at least 2 sw upgrades since then I am aware of. Haven’t checked what the latest sow version is in the last couple of months, but didn’t feel the need to since the updates fixed the bugs I experienced. I am in the US. I know it works / worked in other countries, but at least until late summer 2019, software update over the air did not work for the US for Z4.
It would be nice if they could release Android Auto as an Over the air update to my 2020 M240i I just bought.
Not sure if it works that way