In car WiFi

[KM69MZX]

Hi all,

Had my F-Type over a year and about to spend all of August criss-crossing the Alps

Haven't concerned myself with the in-car WiFi Hot-spot because generally I'm not interested in doom-scrolling while I'm driving.

My car has a SIM card by "Ubigi" (left by the previous owner). I've never paid for a data package, but the Sat Nav and InControl app have always worked. I think the SIM gives 1Gb data per month free and maybe that's been enough.

Could the Sat Nav or InControl app stop working if my data runs out, or will they always work, no matter what ?

Also, my passenger wants to use her mobile for general browsing, searching for our next night's accommodation etc. She can use her own mobile data of course, but my car has the WiFi Hot-spot facility which might work better. I suspect that'll rapidly run my free 1Gb out and I need to open an account with Ubigi to get a data package ?

Any advice appreciated.

 

[MajorTom]

Can't remember now if the InControl app requires an active private SIM in the car but the built in satnav definitely works without SIM data. All it needs a SIM card for is the half rubbish live traffic data from HERE if you have an active HERE map subscription and the google maps style live satellite imagery which you get regardless of if you have a paid subscription.

The SIM card is also used to stream music to the car's built in spotify app in case you use that. It's quite good but I stopped using it last year when I installed CarPlay.

I just tried out the wifi hotspot feature the other month for the first time after years of ownership. It works fine but running a phone through the car's wifi won't work better than using mobile data directly on the phone. Above all the in car mobile data is only 4G which may be a bit slow depending on what you want to do.

 

[KM69MZX]

Hi again MajorTom,

Reassuring to know the sat nav won't die on me. Thanks

 

[scm]

... running a phone through the car's wifi won't work better than using mobile data directly on the phone.

You might find the car's antenna will get a better signal than the phone inside the car.

 

[MajorTom]

... running a phone through the car's wifi won't work better than using mobile data directly on the phone.

You might find the car's antenna will get a better signal than the phone inside the car.

Fair point. Never experienced any connectivity issues with a phone inside the car though.

What definitely can be an issue in the car is GPS reception on the phone. I run CarPlay all the time and if I put my phone in the centre cubby GPS accuracy can get a bit messy, so I usually keep it in the drink holder cubby and there's no GPS reception issue there.