I can confirm (based on advice here on the forum) that there is an easy way to bypass Hondalink's odd behavior. Many have noted that Hondalink is not often properly updated and the dashboard can state an incorrect time and charge. You can refresh Hondalink again and again and it will still give readings that are often an hour old. The only way to fix it is to go to "locate my vehicle" and actually locate your vehicle. Once done, you go back to dashboard and you will now see the correct time and charge. I called Hondalink tech support about this and they acted as if they didn't know what I was taking about. It works every time.
Thank you for sharing this. I just realized that "Find my car" is not an option for my CRV. Clarity only. The only two options in the "Vehicle" page for the CRV are "Schedule Service" and "Vehicle Profile".
Here’s what I’ve noticed... The app only updates every 15% of charge while it’s charging. I believe the intervals are at 100%, 85%, 70%, 55%, 40%, 25%, 10%. It also updates when the Clarity is first started, followed by every 5-minutes while driving, and again when it’s turned off. And of course manually when you use the Find My Car feature in the app or when you activate the remote climate control.
Correct. This has been discussed in several threads and your observations are well supported. It’s understandable since Honda is paying for the cellular bandwidth and server upkeep and would naturally want to keep the bandwidth as reasonable as possible to hold down costs. It’s fine with me that it’s not 100% real-time since it’s FREE!!! The real question is how much user identifiable data is being sent and stored by Honda and how secure is it?
What's interesting is that if you actually take the time to call them, as I did, they act as if this is a remarkable find and it's never been mentioned before. The tech I spoke to told me that she "couldn't' understand why it wasn't updating in real time" or "a screen refresh should give you accurate numbers" or "locate car should have nothing to do with seeing an accurate charge". I think that if my only job was taking calls for Hondalink tech support I should have known something like this (took me 15 minutes of browsing through this forum).
Even using the locate vehicle feature, Hondalink doesn't consistently update the odometer reading on my Clarity. The odometer reading for our Pilot in the app doesn't update consistently either. I've deleted/reinstalled, logged out/in with no change in behavior.
My HondaLink has not activated since I purchased my Clarity about a week ago. I called them and they said give it until Monday. Tuesday came around and it still wasn’t working so I called back and they said “You need to create an account on Honda.ca first for it to work.” To which I replied that I created my account within the app (following its instructions). The rep told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to create a SEPARATE AND UNIQUE login on Honda.ca (but not use that login for the app, just for the website) in order for the app to work. This is absolutely not how the system works though and I tried to explain to the rep that that makes no sense but they insisted that, despite it making no sense and despite there being no indication anywhere that this is what needs to be done, that that will fix it. I thanked them, hung up, called back, and got someone else who checked my credentials and VIN, said it was very strange that it wasn’t working, and said they were forwarding the ticket to their IT support for investigation because everything checks out and it should work. Tl;dr: The people at HondaLink support don’t always know how HondaLink works.
When I called Honda in car tech they confirmed to me that the cellular service they use is AT&T. I dont know if the telemetry in the car uses a sim card. Since I am away from my car for 3 months I have had to call Honda in car tech multiple time with losing my ability to get updates with the HL. It seems they can't figure out why it's happening. After 6-8 days of inactivity of the car the HL can't ping the car. I theorize that the programming of the telemetrics shuts it self off to save 12v battery life (because there is some phantom juice being used for the telemetrics)(even though I have a battery tender on the 12v volt battery). Had a neighbor start my car and, wa la, had immediate update on the HL. Pc'ing the car every 3-4 days does not count as "activity". @lanb and I are are trying to get data points to see if we can get anecdotal evidence verification that the above theory is true. Please, if anybody else has been away from their car for more than 7 days: did you lose your ability to get updates on your HL. And yes, I've tried "locate car", sign out-sign in, uninstall app-reinstall app, etc. to no avail. Sent from my SM-G955U using Inside EVs mobile app
I went on a cruise last month. I didn't touch my Clarity for 9 days. No issues with HL the entire time. I checked daily as I had a daughter who said she might borrow it. The mileage never changed over the 9 days. Sent from my SM-N960U using Inside EVs mobile app
I wouldn't put too much faith in the odometer reading not changing. Ours gets driven every day, but the odometer reading in HL only updates when it feels like it.
I just tried this. Under "Vehicle", I selected "Find My Car". It was already showing my car at my office (where it is). I then clicked "Locate Vehicle" and after 40 seconds, it showed car was still at my office. Going back to "Dashboard", I see time, range, and charge are correct. However, scrolling down to "Parking Reminder", it shows car is at my home as of last night at 9:39PM (which it was). Odometer is as of last night at 9:35PM. Is there a reliable way to update the "Parking Reminder"?
One more clue - under "Vehicle", "Manage Features", it lists services in the "link package". "Parking Reminder" is not listed, but "Find My Car" is. So maybe this feature is not supported on Clarity, although the car does sometimes show where I parked.
Yeah, I looked in that link package and don't see odometer either. Makes you wonder why they would show something on the dashboard that doesn't actually get updated (at least not consistently) by the app.
