Hyundai Bluelink App blues

Discussion in 'Hyundai Kona Electric' started by Jgood, Oct 17, 2019.

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  1. We've probably all had the experience of purchasing a product that comes with a phone App. As much as I love my new Kona, the App is making my experience far less enjoyable than it could be. Disconnects, freezes, loss of service, and just plain ol' glitchiness is a tarnish on what could be really great. Every time I launch the App it takes 30 to 45 seconds just to connect to my car. Even then it displays data from hours previously and takes a refresh (another 30 second wait) before it shows current status. It tells me it can't complete my request and then confirms that it completed my request moments later.

    Hyundai really needs to do better on this App. It's simply not good enough. I don't need it to be "world-class" software...but I do need it to be functional and efficient. Currently it is neither. It reminds me of an App from a telecom like Verizon or AT&T...full of wonderful ideas that don't work at all or are half-baked. If you agree put your thoughts and experiences here. I'm sure the software engineers at Hyundai will appreciate your feedback.
     
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  3. Mine is very slow, and does need a refresh after first launching. But if I am very patient it does work, and have not any freezes or other glitches. I don't use it that often, but does the job when I need it.

    Not sure if the problem is the networks, car, website, handshaking, or what, but I agree it sure is slow.
     
  4. ericy

    ericy Well-Known Member

    My sense is that the slow part is the cellular link to the car more than anything else.


    Sent from my SM-G930V using Inside EVs mobile app
     
  5. Robbert

    Robbert Active Member

    Fundamentally, though, the car must be waking up every now and then to connect to the cellular link to see if there is anything new. How big of a problem would it have been if that wake-up contained a packet with the latest stats (charging, etc), so we immediately have the latest info without having to refresh? As a software engineer myself, that sounds like a major missed opportunity which causes lots of frustration...
     
    ehatch and Sebastien Sénéchal like this.
  6. ericy

    ericy Well-Known Member

    It was probably designed before there was an EV. If you had an ICE car, how often would you really use the thing?

    The other bit of this is that it isn't obvious to me that the car is polling. The car must have some sort of cellphone-like capability built in for the various SOS services to work, and my guess is that it is more like an SMS being sent to the car with a request of some sort.




    Sent from my SM-G930V using Inside EVs mobile app
     
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  8. The thing that annoys me most is when I'm standing in my living room 20 ft. away from the car in the garage and the App still takes forever to connect. Shouldn't there be a way to have the car connect to the wifi network when the car is sitting within wifi range and not use the cell network? My iPhone does this automatically with T-Mobile all the time and it's absolutely transparent. I can make a call in my house on wifi, walk out the door a drive away and the phone switches to cell network without a any issue. My guess is the bulk of the problems with the App are a result of the way it communicates with the Hyundai service.
     
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  9. ericy

    ericy Well-Known Member

    The wifi thing I agree with. It surprises me that they don't do this, really.


    Sent from my SM-G930V using Inside EVs mobile app
     
  10. My experience is that the app is slow by itself without contacting the car. The app can't be slow, so what actually is slow is the servers. I assume they are overwhelmed.

    Just the login into the app, and it's not contacting the car at that point is ridiculously slow. That's why I'm suspecting server issues.

    I am guessing you could be right with SMS communication but I highly doubt it. First, there is the LTE symbols in the car. Why would it have that if they only utilize SMS. Also, I've done SMS applications in the past and the data is limited as well as speed are so slow that I almost doubt you could do that in the time it takes to refresh. Yes, even though it takes so long, I believe SMS would be a lot slower!

    Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
     
  11. The cars have either WiFi or cell. Not both. The US/Canada version doesn't have WiFi but cell. The European version has WiFi but no cell.

    Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
     
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  13. ericy

    ericy Well-Known Member

    That's a good point - there must be some server side issue of some sort.

    But it seems like some of the time the issue is talking to the car. SMS was a bad example - I am wondering if the car keeps a persistent TCP connection open, much like a lot of smartphone apps. Add a heartbeat to verify the connection once in a while.

    Sent from my SM-G930V using Inside EVs mobile app
     
  14. Bugblndr

    Bugblndr Member

    Occasionally it seems to take a while to log in or refresh on my phone. Generally speaking though, it works fine to me. Just tried out a refresh of the Vehicle Status, it took 7 seconds. That's not bad IMO considering it has to contact Hyundai's servers, Hyundai's servers have to contact the car, the car has to send the info back to the server, then the server has to send it to me. This over the public internet and LTE cell service.

    When it is slow, I also assume it's Hyundai's servers or bandwidth being overloaded.
     
  15. Francois

    Francois Active Member

    If it is a case of their servers being overloaded, then they are nuts to use their own servers and they should be using Azure, Aws or another cloud provider so they can scale up or down as needed at any moment. These cloud services are not even expensive, often much cheaper than hosting your own data centers.
     
  16. You would be correct and any sane person would think so but their are institutions such as my employer( I work for the government )who willing to pour 10's of millions of taxpayer cash into their own thing and still manage to screw it up. I am curious if any lurking Niro EV owners have any issue with their Uvo service?
     
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  17. ericy

    ericy Well-Known Member

  18. OK, we need some objective data here. I timed how long it took my app to load and then to refresh. 20 seconds to load, and then 50 seconds to refresh. Is that what you all are seeing? Is that really too slow? I mean, I hit the button, I put on my socks and shoes, and hey, its ready. I personally like the app, especially with the latest update. It was driving me crazy that every time I started it, the app would ask me to "enable biometric verification" which I would then have to deny. That doesn't happen anymore. Plus, I can now not just preheat the cabin, I can also choose to start the front defrost and the rear defrost. Overall, I'm impressed with it and will certainly pay for the functions once it's no longer free.
     
  19. I already have my socks and shoes on. ;) Hell, yes that's too slow. Would you accept a phone that takes 70 seconds to place a call? Clearly for you and your demands it works but I have rarely had it work out for me. A couple of times I've tried to pre-heat the car. It took so long that was dressed and out the door and into the (cold) car before it connected - or it just failed to connect completely. Once I tried to use the horn to find my car in the lot. It took so long to connect I wandered the lot and found the car before the horn even went off. It also bugs me that when it fails (when, not if) it locks you out from trying again for 90 seconds. So that's 70 seconds plus 90 seconds plus 70 seconds for a retry. I can get a lot done in 4 minutes. Even the remote status is crazy slow. And why should you have to refresh every time it loads? It's terrible and a real disappointment. I can't believe that Hyundai promotes it so much in its advertising. I've often wondered if it works better on other models. Maybe the EV isn't a priority?
     
    ehatch, robxb, Francois and 1 other person like this.
  20. Well then, you would have loved this device, not slow at all, but you had to be within 30 yards of the car because it communicated directly. It even had a little antenna to extend its range. But it was quick, once you figured out all the buttons (1 button did like 5 different things depending on what mode you were in!)
    [​IMG]
    http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2780
     
  21. XtsKonaTrooper

    XtsKonaTrooper Well-Known Member

    In Canada, blue link uses Bells cellular service. So if your in an area, where bell cellular is crappy, so will your blue link.
     
  22. I have 20 seconds for the login and 45 seconds for a refresh.

    Although I have to say that the login itself is probably only about 5 seconds, the rest of the login seems to be the initial contact to the server.

    Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
     
    Francois likes this.
  23. ericy

    ericy Well-Known Member

    In the U.S. it is apparently Sprint. So if you are in a Sprint dead zone, I imagine that you get nothing. I don't have Sprint on my cellphone, so I have no experience.
     

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