How is the owner paying for the wireless connection? Agree on the support for older vehicles. Ten years is overly optimistic. Likely the chipset(s) won’t be supported in 10 years by the carriers. 3G does quickly and N-2 support window is narrowing.
If it uses a mobile 4G/5G network, you pay for that. By that I mean, Ford's not going to give your vehicle a phone number without charging you (a la OnStar) and wanting to make money off that arrangement.
I don’t pay the vehicle wireless…on any of my cars. Are you saying you pay a separate monthly bill for the truck’s cellular link?
It's probably using your phone. If you drive away from your wifi networks and turn off your cell phone, do you still have it? If it does, you'd have to have a phone number, and maybe you're getting a free intro, but eventually that will be a charge. It doesn't make any sense otherwise, Ford isn't a mobile carrier and would have to partner with a carrier to access their 4G/5G network somehow. Which means they'd want to charge you.
It’s not using your phone cellular for updates. Think about it. It has a cellular chipset in the vehicle. It does updates when you’re not in the vehicle - even when not connected to Wi-Fi. They partner with carriers to access the vehicle.
Well, since I only got one update while connected to my local Wifi, I had reason to think otherwise, and nothing since, but perhaps there is one. Interesting. I suspect the reference to driving and vehicle data out-of-band is probably the bigger incentive for Ford, data wise.
Ok, ran out real quick to try to see if it sees the 4.2.2.2 update (
) and it told me I had to plug in my phone. Then it told me my 4.2.1.2. is the latest and greatest, no update available. Don't know what's going on with that, but that's what happened.
Or realizing my husband's phone is not in the car and hasn't been for several days (and it's not even his car)
Just tested mine with no phones or Wi-Fi connected and the truck checked with Ford for the update. No message about not having a phone connected. Not sure what your system is doing.Ok, ran out real quick to try to see if it sees the 4.2.2.2 update (
The truck absolutely has a cellular modem in it. The tin-foil crowd early on were looking for ways to disable it. It's a pre-paid arrangement with Ford and I think AT&T. That same modem can become a paid thing if you choose to light up the cellular hot-spot feature, though it is only 4G so the speeds are just okay. A mechanic friend of mine was able to ping my truck with just my VIN number through Ford's tools and retrieve a bunch of live data from it.
wish I could sayAnyone else get this notice or know what’s included besides “easy listening updates”. What’s really odd is that 4.2.2.1 was the same version of the last update from months ago.
Hopefully my bronco plays more than smooth jazz now.
Exactly.
