Honda Link Free?

The free three-month subscription is for the satellite radio (Sirius). HondaLink is free for the duration.

 

Yes, some of us are past our first year, and the HondaLink works fine. Near as we can tell it's lifetime-- or at least as long as the embedded cellular radio is still operable.

 

AFAIK, the TCU is 3G so we are good until 3G is completely supplanted by the two 5G standards. This will take years and there will be a period of both being supported before the inevitable legacy status. For those of us who keep cars 10 years or more, we’re going to find out how floppy, Zip drives, cassette tapes, 8 tracks, and video disks feel.

 

I passed 2 years in Dec 5th. Honda link silk working.

 

Not sure how much I'd miss it to be honest. It feels like I can only see the level of charge every other time... Checking up on it while charging is handy, but it only updates every 20 minutes.

 

I love being able to start the climate-control system remotely.

 

For me, this is also the most important feature. I start it ~10 minutes before I leave the office, and have a warm car by the time I get there.

I'm a bit concerned about whether the Clarity is running the old infotainment on 3G (which is shutting down in 2022) or 4G like the new infotainment. I've opened a case with Honda for some "Clarity". They announced in 2017 they had a new 4G deal with AT&T, but it's unclear whether the 2016 era infotainment can handle it...

 

In my Fusion Energi, Ford updated (replaced) the modem to 3G for free back in 2017. They pretty much had to, since Ford uses it to communicate with the car for a variety of purposes. I don’t know how the Clarity, or any other modern car for that matter, will be updated with communications tech. But as cellular tech changes, our cars will have to change too, one way or another.

 

Actually, it updates every 15% increase in the SOC based on everyone’s posted observations. If you notice, you’ll only see multiples of 15 like 55, 70, 85, 100 % after the initial starting % SOC. So I suspect Level 1 charging will update a little slower than Level 2.

 

If it's 3G that's bad. AT&T (the provider Honda uses) has stated that they are shutting it down in 2022 https://techblog.comsoc.org/2019/02/22/att-to-shut-down-3g-network-in-2022-verizon-at-end-of-2019/

Am hoping it's 4G.

 

While visiting family, i plugged into the christmas lights extension to charge. someone unplugged it at 11PM as I saw on Hondalink. So i got out of bed and plug it back in.

 

I have had HondaLink for a year now and it's been very good at keeping track of charging, location, and phone pop ups...

 

Someone on this forum posted an article (cannot find it now or I'd link) that spoke about Honda choosing ATT as their connected car provider. In the article was a reference to ATT LTE modems -- but it was still unclear which is inside the Clarity. Also ATT has a history of using '4G' to describe technology everyone else calls 3G (in the same way they sell 5G Evolution now, that isn't 5G). So anyway, it may be possible that ATT will keep their faux 4G operating longer than their older '3G.'

If I can find something specific I'll post. But I'll be happy with whatever I get. I really like Honda Link.

 

I remember the article. It talked about a deal in 2017 for them to use AT&T 4G going forward. No indication as to whether the Clarity already had the capability, alas:

https://about.att.com/story/att_american_honda_enter_connected_car_agreement.html

 

This what Toyota is doing:
https://www.toyota.com/audio-multimedia/support/3G-faq/

It was somewhat foolish and short sided for some auto manufacturers to not have used 4g on late model vehicles just to save pennies. Not only will this upset customers- it will also cut out a source of revenue for them in the future (Hondalink for example).

As for Honda- I have not found a statement similar to Toyota's. If I had to guess, I would say the Clarity has a 3G unit. Though it is possible its 2016 circa unit was updated in 2017 for 4g.