Traffic Info From Internet

hansaplast26 · March 1, 2015

I've my new IS300h since about three weeks. It is a nice car, and my third Lexus (used to have 2nd gen IS250 and 3rd gen GS430).

My IS300h is equipped with the premium navigation system, but I am struggling with the traffic information (via Internet, not TMC).

My phone (Iphone 6+) is paired to my car and it works flawless. For traffic information I need to put the phone in hotspot mode, then the car gets then all the information it needs. I also have a MiFi router in the car (not the one from Lexus, but in essence the same). For those who don't know what it is: a MiFi router is a wifi access point with a 3g/4g cellular connection).

So basically my car has two ways to connect to the Internet; but unfortunately the MiFi connection, with the better cellular network, is never used.

I would like to configure the car that the phone is not used and only the wifi connection is used for traffic information & Internet. As said the MiFi router connects to a network with better coverage. I tried switching off the hotspot mode on the phone, hoping that the car would recognize that the connection is 'dead' but thats not happening, no traffic information is coming thru.

I have browsed through the menu's of the car, but nowhere I see an option of a preferred communication method or a priority setting.

The problem is probably partly related to the Iphone, which likely advertised tethering as a service while pairing to the car via Bluetooth.

Oh btw. the firmware installed is VC03101D, somebody was friendly enough to share version F with me, but there is no way that my car would accept this new version, even not via the special diagnostics menu

Blisteringblue · March 2, 2015

D is fine for internet traffic. What happens if you just turn your phone off altogether before starting the car? Then surely it must attach to the MIFI?

I used to use my Iphone as the hotspot but it didn't like to be connected by both wifi and Bluetooth. The wifi was fine but the phone ended up terrible. I swapped to a MIFI running a giffgaff data sim. This works brilliantly all the time, uses about 50mb a month for traffic, the kids use the rest with ipads etc. However all I did was not turn on the hotspot on the phone? Then all it did was connect to the MIFI.

Steve44 · March 2, 2015

I use a Motorola Moto G LTE (Android) connected by Bluetooth and also acting as a wifi hotspot, which the car connects to, to get the traffic data. I'm on version F and it has been rock solid. Service is EE and the data coverage is excellent.

I use a small app called AutomateIT, which on Bluetooth connect to the car, disables wifi and enables the wifi hotspot. On disconnect, after a few minutes delay, it turns off the hotspot and wifi back on again.....simples.

The previous Samsung GS3 did not like being joined to both at once, and data over Bluetooth was hit and miss.

hansaplast26 · March 3, 2015

Oops. started to investigate more after your tips and found that I had misconfigured my mifi router. before connecting to the internet it wants every device connecting to go through a login screen. I had not encountered this with my laptop because the login is not necessary on the computer you configure the device.

So the behavior of the premium navigation is that it will try to connect to the internet via either connection, the one that is succesful it will work with.

the firmware version D is may be not so stable with regards to connectivity. I witnessed a reboot of the system after forcing it to connect to the wifi network.