[De Clarke]

I'm totally confused (maybe I'm supposed to be?) by the several layers of Chevy data/wireless plans for the Bolt.

I get the basic idea: the car is a 4G device. The car is a cell phone with wheels. The car is also a hotspot. It has an internal wifi hub. So far so good. What I don't get is how all these layers of wireless service plan interact, what features depend on which plans, and what they really cost! Chevy web site coyly does not mention pricing (grrrr) at least nowhere that I have yet discovered. I think the plans are tiered from basic "send only" (OnStar SOS) to deluxe 4G data plan, but not sure how the feature lists stack up. I think they even charge extra for VR hands-free calling? which seems pretty silly given that every smart phone in the world now features "Hey Siri" or "OK Google" right out of the box.

Anyway... my free 30 day trial is ending soon and I need to decide whether or not to keep any or all features. So far the only useful wireless feature is the ability to use an iPad or smartphone to check on the car status... although even this is a bit confusing, since the iPad app tells me my tyres are underinflated but the car tells me they are OK (which to believe? I think I'll believe my tyre gauge and the label on the door column!).... I am lazy enough to find it moderately kewl to check on charging status from inside my nice warm house, or to get an email telling me when charge is complete. Mild interest there.

Apart from that, the rest of the services are of no interest:

• Reception is not that great here (cell phones mostly don't work) and the car antenna works only slightly better than smartphone. Meh.
• I am two ferries from any roadside assistance network, so OnStar roadside help is meaningless.
• I have zero interest in a wifi network inside my car
• I have a cell phone anyway, so why would I need another cell phone that is car shaped?
• If I need to make a phone call while travelling, I'll pull over and use my real cell phone; hands-free calling is not interesting.
• Sirius digital radio is of little interest, most of the channels are stuff I would pay not to have inflicted on me and the DJs are really annoying.
• Besides, even if I discovered a great channel, the signal drops out all the time... I'm too far from urban civilisation.
• If I can plug in a thumbdrive and play my own music library that will be just fine.

When I tried out the wifi network in car (while in town with 4G signal) it didn't work anyway -- my Android phone detected it and connected just once for a few seconds, then lost the connection and never saw the network again as connectable (even though a wifi analyzer app sees the signal just fine). Obviously I can't test it unless I'm in the "city" (Campbell River, nearest town with reliable cell phone service) and my next trip may be after my trial expires, so... meh.

I notice the car is also a wifi signal detector: I can see a list of live wifi networks on its Wifi Management screen.
Can it join other networks as a client, as well as being a hotspot? Would this let me check on its status from my iPad, if the car joined one of my house wifi nets?

Anyway, what's left that I actually could use?
1) ability to plug my smartphone in to the USB port and use Google Maps to navigate when driving far from home. That's the most important thing, GPS nav.
2) semi-kewl ability to do remote surveillance on the car from my iPad or smartphone.

Does either of those depend on a subscription fee?
And what are these fees really, does anyone have the URL for an accurate and complete fee schedule?

 

[ArizonaJon]

I'm totally confused (maybe I'm supposed to be?) by the several layers of Chevy data/wireless plans for the Bolt.

I notice the car is also a wifi signal detector: I can see a list of live wifi networks on its Wifi Management screen.
Can it join other networks as a client, as well as being a hotspot? Would this let me check on its status from my iPad, if the car joined one of my house wifi nets?

Anyway, what's left that I actually could use?
1) ability to plug my smartphone in to the USB port and use Google Maps to navigate when driving far from home. That's the most important thing, GPS nav.
2) semi-kewl ability to do remote surveillance on the car from my iPad or smartphone.

Does either of those depend on a subscription fee?
And what are these fees really, does anyone have the URL for an accurate and complete fee schedule?

You only need the free plan from OnStar and to connect the car to your WiFi network. This is what I have. The free plan should be for 10 years if your car is a 2019. If earlier it will be for 5 years. (This is true for the US, however since you have a tyre, I assume you are from Canada, and it may be different there.) If you lose your OnStar connection via the cell phone network - and from you writing it may be iffy at your home location - I think the WiFi connection will give you everything you need. I can't verify that as I have a reasonable cell connection to OnStar (here it is via AT&T).

Re you tire pressure not matching what the car says, the MyChevrolet app needs to be refreshed to have it show the current info. When I do this the app and the dash readout match.

I always listen to music using the USB port. So no problem here.

Hope this helps.

 

[GregBrew]

I'm totally confused (maybe I'm supposed to be?) by the several layers of Chevy data/wireless plans for the Bolt.

I get the basic idea: the car is a 4G device. The car is a cell phone with wheels. The car is also a hotspot. It has an internal wifi hub. So far so good. What I don't get is how all these layers of wireless service plan interact, what features depend on which plans, and what they really cost! Chevy web site coyly does not mention pricing (grrrr) at least nowhere that I have yet discovered. I think the plans are tiered from basic "send only" (OnStar SOS) to deluxe 4G data plan, but not sure how the feature lists stack up. I think they even charge extra for VR hands-free calling? which seems pretty silly given that every smart phone in the world now features "Hey Siri" or "OK Google" right out of the box.

Anyway... my free 30 day trial is ending soon and I need to decide whether or not to keep any or all features. So far the only useful wireless feature is the ability to use an iPad or smartphone to check on the car status... although even this is a bit confusing, since the iPad app tells me my tyres are underinflated but the car tells me they are OK (which to believe? I think I'll believe my tyre gauge and the label on the door column!).... I am lazy enough to find it moderately kewl to check on charging status from inside my nice warm house, or to get an email telling me when charge is complete. Mild interest there.

Apart from that, the rest of the services are of no interest:

• Reception is not that great here (cell phones mostly don't work) and the car antenna works only slightly better than smartphone. Meh.
• I am two ferries from any roadside assistance network, so OnStar roadside help is meaningless.
• I have zero interest in a wifi network inside my car
• I have a cell phone anyway, so why would I need another cell phone that is car shaped?
• If I need to make a phone call while travelling, I'll pull over and use my real cell phone; hands-free calling is not interesting.
• Sirius digital radio is of little interest, most of the channels are stuff I would pay not to have inflicted on me and the DJs are really annoying.
• Besides, even if I discovered a great channel, the signal drops out all the time... I'm too far from urban civilisation.
• If I can plug in a thumbdrive and play my own music library that will be just fine.

When I tried out the wifi network in car (while in town with 4G signal) it didn't work anyway -- my Android phone detected it and connected just once for a few seconds, then lost the connection and never saw the network again as connectable (even though a wifi analyzer app sees the signal just fine). Obviously I can't test it unless I'm in the "city" (Campbell River, nearest town with reliable cell phone service) and my next trip may be after my trial expires, so... meh.

I notice the car is also a wifi signal detector: I can see a list of live wifi networks on its Wifi Management screen.
Can it join other networks as a client, as well as being a hotspot? Would this let me check on its status from my iPad, if the car joined one of my house wifi nets?

Anyway, what's left that I actually could use?
1) ability to plug my smartphone in to the USB port and use Google Maps to navigate when driving far from home. That's the most important thing, GPS nav.
2) semi-kewl ability to do remote surveillance on the car from my iPad or smartphone.

Does either of those depend on a subscription fee?
And what are these fees really, does anyone have the URL for an accurate and complete fee schedule?

The only connection I opted for was minutes for the on-board cellphone. The rate for them is somewhat reasonable. We never come close to using the minutes in a year, and they don't carry over. We use it as cheap backup "insurance".

The other "data" plans (OnStar, a digital data plan for WiFi and Sirius/XM) are outrageously expensive, and I've found them to be completely unnecessary if one has a cell phone. Google maps allows one to download maps to your phone for out-of-cell-range navigation. Just travel prepared. The free multi-year access to OnStar Basic will allow you to remotely control the Key Fob commands. No paid subscription is necessary.

The on-board WiFi will connect to your house, but it's really not good for much except maybe OTA firmware updates of the Infotainment system.

I use a thumb drive for music, and it has worked flawlessly. Do note that there is a 5000 file indexing limit for the thumb drive, so you'll need to break up your music collection, if you have more tracks than that. I have three thumb drives, broken up by alpha.

 

[De Clarke]

I refreshed my MyChevrolet app several times and the tyre readouts still did not match... hmmm... "more studies needed".

Many thanks for very illuminating answers! I figured the wireless plans must be a rip because the sell was so hard...

I will let them all lapse with no regrets. Hooray, soon I won't have to turn off Sirius radio every time I start the car

Thanks for the note on file count. My music lib is sensibly organised by folder (not iTunes!) so I hope the folder structure
will be maintained by the car player. If not, oh well. I never drive far enough to want more than one album anyway.

 

[NY-Rob]

If you don't have a data plan on your cell (yes...some of us don't ), the $20/month unlimited data plan from Chevy is a pretty good deal compared to most cell carriers unlimited data plans.

 

[De Clarke]

I have a limited cell plan, because of the very limited windows during which a cell phone works for me (i.e. only when I'm travelling).

I pay about $120 a year, with no free data allowance, and have no difficulty staying within budget. It's one of those pay-before-use plans. I top it up if I expect to be travelling, and leave an "emergency use" balance all the time. I can see that $20/mo for unlimited data is not a bad deal actually, but only if you get to use it! I would only be able to use it maybe a week -- 2 weeks at most -- out of the average year.

But if I lived in a city and had a serious commute, I'd certainly go for the data plan. If I car-pooled with others, I'd go for the wifi too, so that my passengers could get stuff done while driving to work.

OTOH... if I still lived in a city and had a daily commute, I'd probably use public transit it usually comes with free wifi and no parking nightmares.

 

[dmausner]

Folder structure ... Oh well

My music lib is sensibly organised by folder (not iTunes!) so I hope the folder structure
will be maintained by the car player. If not, oh well. I never drive far enough to want more than one album anyway.

My 2017 LT does NOT preserve the USB folder structure and there are no options to do so. The music seems to be arranged alpha by title.

Not so awful, the result is pleasingly random. One COULD rename the files to begin with the performer's name, but meh !

 

[De Clarke]

I see what you mean dmausner. My elegantly organised USB drive appears on the Bolt screen as just an alpha list of titles, with (ahem!) an agonisingly slow scroll speed. It's painful trying to scroll through that library. There's no "inertial" scroll as on any normal tablet (Android or iOS) so you can't flick, you actually have to drag the titles past, one page at a time... Ugh. RSI here we come.

I notice that there is an option to open "Playlists" but so far I have not found the mechanism for creating a playlist. I'm used to audio players that pop up a menu if I long-press on a folder, and the menu allows me to add the entire folder to the playlist. Do I need to pre-create playlists on the USB drive (what kind of file format is that?) if I want to use them on the Bolt player?

It all makes me wonder... if that flat screen is actually Android under the hood, why didn't they just include one of the many excellent free or low cost media players for Android? 'cos theirs frankly seems sub-par.

OTOH I have to admit that the Premium's sound system is pretty sweet. Almost as good as my livingroom setup!

Alternatively, can I play audio directly from my iPad or iPhone with the screen "projection" feature using Android Auto? that might be a better alternative. I could populate a uSD card with audio files and stuff it in an Android smart phone, then play tunes with a more reasonable player like BubbleUPnP or VLC or whatever...

 

[cwerdna]

Alternatively, can I play audio directly from my iPad or iPhone with the screen "projection" feature using Android Auto?

Android Auto is for Android. For iPhone, you'd use CarPlay. From some quick Google searches for carplay site:apple.com ipad, it doesn't look like iPads are supported by CarPlay.

I carry both an Android phone (a Pixel 3, for work) and my personal iPhone 8. I've not bothered w/Android Auto but do use CarPlay all the time.

Yes, you can play audio from Apple's music app, Spotify, Pandora, Overcast and other apps that don't support CarPlay (e.g. a very old copy of the NPR News app on my phone).

I agree all the plans were super confusing. I had the hotspot plan turned off since I never used it so it was worth $0 to me. I plan on subscribing to nothing via https://my.chevrolet.com/onstar/myservices that costs me any $ and see how that goes.

 

[De Clarke]

Sorry, got my "black mirrors" jumbled there at the end. I have Android tablets (at least 3, one so old it's on life-support) and 2 iPads and at least one old iPhone and a Chinese Android smartphone... glass rectangles everywhere. I was planning to use an Android phone for the Projection trick. So it would be Android Auto and the Android version of VLC or BubbleUPnP or whatever player works with the car.

if anyone knows more about playlists, I'd love to find out how they work!