Newbie MINI app question

[FrancoMINIPNW]

what phone are you using? I just got a MINI and this is happening to me (I can see the charge state of the car, but the remote features don’t work). I haven’t looked at any settings on the car yet though so maybe that’s why. I thought maybe it was this old iPhone 6s I’m using. Sometimes apps don’t work well with old phones.

side note: I was shocked it sent me the state of my battery charge to my phone because I didn’t pair the car with my phone. I had no idea the car had its own cell signal!

I have an iPhone 13 Pro

 

[Bemsha]

Update and some progress to report!
My dealer did some troubleshooting on their end today and I'm now able to use the 5 remote commands on the MINI app. The Charge and Climate timer, however, is still not available saying "Something went wrong, try again later".
I'm not 100% sure what he did on his end, but he texted asking I update services via Mini Connect in the car then leave the car alone for at least 30 minutes allowing it to enter sleep mode; I waited about 90 minutes.

did he physically do something to the car? I asked my dealer and he had never heard of this issue.

 

[insightman]

Hi DSanta,

New 2022 Mini SE owner here.

I believe that I have the same issue as the OP. The Mini App knows about my car. It sends info to the device indicating the state of charge etc. However, none of the functions that require the device to talk to the car work, e.g. "Charge and Climate Timer" and "Lock the Doors" etc.

Congrats on getting your new MINI Cooper SE! How about a photo?

Fortunately, you can have a lot of fun driving your SE without all those newfangled contrivances (not counting the motor and batteries, of course). The one newfangled contrivance I use is climatization and I was disappointed yesterday when I couldn't start it from my phone and had to go out and search through the menus to get my 2021 SE's interior warmed up.

 

[azausa]

I appreciate the suggestions but unfortunately the problem is not due to remote services not being activated. Mini; both the dealer and Mini’s central helpline have confirmed that all digital services including remote services have been activated for me. Your website suggestion is a good call @azausa. For info you can see all active services via the app too. If you click on the account tab then go to the shop, you’re taken to your account page where you can see what you have and when, in the case of things like concierge services, Mini eDrive services, RTTI etc., they expire. In the UK those particular services are included for 3 years then you need to pay an annual subscription to continue using them. In the app these services show that they’re booked until March 2025 (in my case), so just over three years. Items such as remote services and smart emergency call are included with no expiry date, so when active they have a small tick beside them as you can see in the screenshot below. There is just a problem affecting a number of cars where there’s a communication issue somewhere between the app, Mini’s servers and the car.

View attachment 14587

That link in the app in the shop under the acct tab brings me to the BMW German site.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

[SpeedyRS]

This is the guidance sent to me by the Mini Connect helpline for updating services in the car:


Can I recommend performing a ‘Service Update’ within your vehicle. This will refresh the online services and fix any bugs in the backend system. This is done using the iDrive controller inside the vehicle, please ensure you’re following the steps below:

• Press ‘Menu’ button
• Click on ‘MINI Connected’
• Click ‘Options’ button (next to your iDrive controller)
• Scroll & select ‘Update MINI services’ click to update
• Then please allow up to 24 hours for this process to complete its cycle.

If you continue to experience issues, please kindly get back in touch with photos so I can look into this further for you.

 

[SpeedyRS]

I had a call from my Mini dealer this morning to tell me he’d just received a bulletin from Mini advising them that all issues with Mini Connected services including the remote services had been resolved. The instruction was to delete the app from my phone then reinstall it and all should work. I did laugh because I’ve deleted this app more times than a teenager deleted their internet history, but I did it again as instructed and it was exactly the same. No working remote services. I tried the climate & charge timer, unlock, climatise now and all failed. I had to go to the dealer to pick up a few bits and pieces anyway so when I got there he asked me to try again. When I click on charge & climate timer all I got was the usual error message telling me it isn’t available. He did ask me to try the other remote options so I tried locking the car and wouldn’t you know it the command was sent to the car. Same for climatise now. So, more progress from Mini on fixing this issue, but still work to be done. My dealer has advised me to keep trying it over the next few days and when they’re back in on Monday if it still isn’t fully working he’ll look into whether it’s worth them plugging the car in and reinstalling the latest software to see if that fixes it.
I hope others having similar issues magically find theirs working today, just like a Christmas miracle

 

[DisgruntledSanta]

Hi DSanta,

New 2022 Mini SE owner here.

I believe that I have the same issue as the OP. The Mini App knows about my car. It sends info to the device indicating the state of charge etc. However, none of the functions that require the device to talk to the car work, e.g. "Charge and Climate Timer" and "Lock the Doors" etc.

I wanted to try your fix but I could not find the Mini Connect function in the car's display. I see "My Mini" but it does not have an "Update Service" option. Could you point me in the right direction. Thanks.

From the main menu:

1) Go to MINI Connected (far right in the Main Menu, alternatively tap the APPS icon on the left side of the screen)

2) inside the menu, click Options on your iDrive controller, and scroll down. You will see Update MINI Services, and either Login or Logout. If you see Login, well, Login (using your mini connected info, same as the app).

Let me know if that works!


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

[endquote]

I'm playing with the app some more this morning and made some discoveries... maybe old news.

Tap charging history > most recent session > total cost. There you can edit the cost for electricity. Then I think future charges will show what it cost you.

Charging history > share. This spits out an Excel file that includes charging history, including costs and total mileage. So you could get clever with that and compute mi/kwh.

 

[Carsten Haase]

I'm playing with the app some more this morning and made some discoveries... maybe old news.

Tap charging history > most recent session > total cost. There you can edit the cost for electricity. Then I think future charges will show what it cost you.

Charging history > share. This spits out an Excel file that includes charging history, including costs and total mileage. So you could get clever with that and compute mi/kwh.

Already done

https://www.insideevsforum.com/comm...ni-se-in-focus-range.11831/page-4#post-153116

Also created a graph showing long term averages

 

[David Baker]

From the main menu:

1) Go to MINI Connected (far right in the Main Menu, alternatively tap the APPS icon on the left side of the screen)

2) inside the menu, click Options on your iDrive controller, and scroll down. You will see Update MINI Services, and either Login or Logout. If you see Login, well, Login (using your mini connected info, same as the app).

Let me know if that works!


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

Thanks so much DSanta. I will try this.

 

[Bemsha]

So my remote functions work now too. But not the climate timer thing. I took the advise here and signed into mini connected in the car and updated the data. Hopefully it works soon.

I have another question though that I hope someone can help with because I’m stumped. I can “climatize” my car from the app, but I have no control over the actual climate. It just turns on the A/C. Not helpful in December. How do I control the actual temperature?

 

[azausa]

So my remote functions work now too. But not the climate timer thing. I took the advise here and signed into mini connected in the car and updated the data. Hopefully it works soon.

I have another question though that I hope someone can help with because I’m stumped. I can “climatize” my car from the app, but I have no control over the actual climate. It just turns on the A/C. Not helpful in December. How do I control the actual temperature?

I don’t think you can control the temperature through the app. You can only turn on the AC with the app; whatever is the temperature set when you leave the car, that is the temperature that the app will climitize to.


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[Bemsha]

I don’t think you can control the temperature through the app. You can only turn on the AC with the app; whatever is the temperature set when you leave the car, that is the temperature that the app will climitize to.

that’s what I figured, so I turned off the AC and set it to a pretty warm temp, then turned off the car and pressed climatize on the app. The car proceeded to blast cold air.


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[DisgruntledSanta]

I don’t think you can control the temperature through the app. You can only turn on the AC with the app; whatever is the temperature set when you leave the car, that is the temperature that the app will climitize to.


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I think it actually climatizes to a preset value. I keep my mini at 63deg here in the winter, but when I get into Vanessa in the morning, boy I can sure tell ya it feels closer to 72! Roasty toasty! Not complaining, as I don’t have to run the HVAC pretty much at all on my 42mi commute into work, even in 30s weather!


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[insightman]

MINI's designers set the HVAC climatization temperatures for both summer and winter. Perhaps they wanted to be sure you wouldn't be disappointed if you left the HVAC set to the lowest temperature by accident before activating climatization on a cold morning or left the HVAC set to the highest temperature before activating climatization on hot afternoon.

It would be nice if there was someone at MINI charged with answering such questions from customers. I'd like to know how cold the ambient temperature must be to trigger the hand-off from the heat-pump to the resistive heater.

 

[Bemsha]

MINI's designers set the HVAC climatization temperatures for both summer and winter. Perhaps they wanted to be sure you wouldn't be disappointed if you left the HVAC set to the lowest temperature by accident before activating climatization on a cold morning or left the HVAC set to the highest temperature before activating climatization on hot afternoon.

It would be nice if there was someone at MINI charged with answering such questions from customers. I'd like to know how cold the ambient temperature must be to trigger the hand-off from the heat-pump to the resistive heater.

There’s a built in thermometer which the car can use to tell the temperature outside. If they were smart, they’d program it to just have the car make its decision based on outside temp and use whichever would result in “room temperature” in the vehicle.

Honestly, I was super excited about the pre-climatization feature on the app, but now knowing that I can’t set it to a specific temp, it doesn’t seem nearly as useful.

Also kind of annoying that the app will tell me that I left my window down, but there’s no action to tell it to roll it up. So much lost potential on this app.

someone told me about a third party app called BimmerCode which gives you much more access to customizing all kinds of stuff in the car computer. Maybe it has a remote services type thing, though I think it works off Bluetooth so you’d have to be pretty close to the vehicle. I also worry about how those types of third party apps affect the manufacturer’s warranty though.

 

[ghost]

In bimmercode, you can program your remote to roll up the windows w the lock button on the key fob.

I'd like a simple start/stop charging button on the app.

 

[chrunck]

In bimmercode, you can program your remote to roll up the windows w the lock button on the key fob.

My 2022 does this out of the box. I've had to program our older MINIs for this, but they started enabling it by default at some point.

 

[Puppethead]

There’s a built in thermometer which the car can use to tell the temperature outside. If they were smart, they’d program it to just have the car make its decision based on outside temp and use whichever would result in “room temperature” in the vehicle.

I'm pretty sure that's how it works, since climatize cools down the car in the summer. It's just that "room temperature" is fixed at values kind of high (winter) or low (summer) for my liking.

 

[Bemsha]

In bimmercode, you can program your remote to roll up the windows w the lock button on the key fob.

I'd like a simple start/stop charging button on the app.

no I mean like roll up the windows from the app, remotely. Like if I go downtown and I’m a half mile from my car, I can look at the app and see I left my window down. But I can’t make it roll up via the app. If it can be done with the key fob, I can (in theory) be done with the app I’m sure. This happened to me recently and it was annoying that it told me my window was down, but without any solution to remedy the situation. I know it’s kind of nit picking (and using the key fob to lock the doors and roll up the windows would mostly solve this issue) but they have the technology, why not give more options on the app?