On a lark I decided to call the Bluelink support line [on the phone, not via the car] to ask a question. Their autoresponder makes excuses about how the wait time is OVER 30 MINUTES. What can they be so hosed up with, to create conditions like that? Do they have like 1 person working the phones? I put the phone down and just let it sit, and finally got someone. She was deliberately obtuse about my question: what information any car, subscribed or not, is sending upstream to Bluelink's infrastructure, and what functionality is still present at that layer [diagnostics, stolen-vehicle intervention, etc]. The non-answer kept being that without an established customer account, they don't "go looking into" a vehicle. But along the way it was obvious that given a particular cellular ID [via IMEI, assigned number, something] they could still see the make/model/VIN and probably a bunch of other stuff. They wouldn't actually let me talk to someone supervisory, but the rep put me on hold for a while and said she'd "asked someone else" about my concerns, reiterating that they don't collect any info without an active account. But here's the kicker: if you set up an account and give them the VIN, they can instantly find the car. Meaning that the pipeline is always in place, and always ready to send enough info that the backend link can be tied together any time. Customer accounts are generally indexed by a phone number, so that when someone calls in the account particulars can get auto-populated unless they're calling from someone else's phone. I got the distinct impression I was at least partially being lied to about what information the car is sending upstream by default. Which is why mine, both the "then" and the "now", simply isn't. Hearing of the app/connectivity problems so many users seem to have does nothing to instill any reassurance either; it baffles me why anyone would pay subscription fees for something so flakey. Maybe if they actually cared about such things and made them work right, their callcenters wouldn't be so slammed. _H*
I just hope you appreciate that you called a customer service hotline, quite possibly operated by a third party contractor, and started asking engineering-level questions to some lady whose primary job is to help reset people's passwords and the like... only to get upset when she didn't have the answer or resources to get you an answer. It's kind of like walking into a fast food restaurant and getting pissed at the cashier when they can't answer your questions about the ethical treatment of animals in the factory farms that supply their meat. "Sir, this is an Arby's..."
I couldn't charge. At a free public charger, I connected, the plug icon showed, but no charge! I had deleted Blue Kink for fear it would report my charging to 100%. I re-downloaded it, sent a charge request, and full charging began.
Have the Kona here in Spain and use Blue Link all the time to monitor charge and start the Aircon as we walk back to the car, which is a godsend here! It's occasionally a little flakey but works fine most of the time. I think a decent control app is basically an essential feature for any modern EV.
The real problem with BlueLink and AutoLink (the Oz equivalent) is that it tracks your top speed for a journey - and the exact route you took. If they were asked to hand over their data to the constabulary for some reason...
Seems pretty good lately on turning on the car so it's cool when I get it. Failed a lot in the winter, warming the car. Again, no out of pocket cost, it was included with the car for the first 3 years.
I just pre-cooled my car and BlueLink is super fast! Faster than it ever was for the last 2.5 years! You guys have the same? It actually was a pleasure to use.
I have said it before,under extreme weather, I want to pre condition. The Bluelink app.cannot connect to the kona electric to initiate hvac. I don't trust using it to lock the vehicle either. Don't need to be standing in a snow storm trying to unlock. It's 2021, how can a company not have programmers to fix an app. that has been operational for 3 years? Favorite Bluelink event to date. The app. actually starts HVAC ,once in winter 2020.Get into the car,nothing came on for the 10 minutes it "stays on." Something Hyundai still hasn't addressed. It must be a Hyundai employee prerequisite to be obtuse,and at best devoid of knowledge. For the .05 % that might be helpful,I seriously think many legacy OEM don't want them to be informative.
When you call a "technical" number, Bluelink is "technical." One should expect an ability to answer the connectivity related , data transfer questions. I understand if they can't get into the WPA2 , firewall to LTE ,firewall to the ECU ...
@hobbit Is there space for inserting a breakout board between the LTE modem and the daughterboard, or, could a ribbon cable be attached to the daughterboard and brought out to attach to a breakout board or the LTE modem? Then, a logic analyser or databus protocol analyzer can be attached to analyze what your vehicle is sending/receiving, along the lines of Wireshark for ethernet. Or, for the fun of it, one could add a dumb-box whose function is simply to send any data you wanted to the LTE modem. is this the LTE modem? https://fccid.io/LHJ-CASAN If you want, I have access to circuitboard design programs and could put together a 2-layer board in no time, that feeds to a ribbon or other cable that could be accessible on the dashboard.
