Starting the engine from a distance?

8-track · May 26, 2015

goldenfooler said:
You do not have to have the senus connect service to use the phone app.

That's great news - Volvo needs to do a better job of articulating what functions are enabled with the two services. Based on what I can gather from the volvo website, this is my best guess...can somebody correct me?

ON CALL (~$10/mo)
- Remote Start from App
- Remote Lock/Unlock from App
- Driving Journal
- Check your Car's Status (engine lights, odometer, fuel gauge, etc)

Sensus Connect: ($??/mo)
- Data Services for updating/downloading apps, etc
- Wifi Hotspot for other devices in your car

The biggest question I have is whether those two items under "Sensus Connect" can be handled by using the data plan on my personal smartphone. This line on the Sensus Connect webpage makes me think you can, "You can use your smartphone (via Bluetooth or wifi) to enable all the connected functionality of Sensus Connect."

In which case there's no reason to pay for Sensus Connect. But maybe I'm missing something?

andy603 · May 27, 2015

This is what I'm still trying to figure out- in the context of the title of this thread which attempts to answer the question "what will it cost for me to start my XC90 remotely" The On Call prices seems clear and are published but it remains unclear how Sensus Connect fits it, if needed, why, etc.

citivas · May 27, 2015

goldenfooler said:
You do not have to have the senus connect service to use the phone app.

Yes you do to use any of the remote car features. Without the Sensus connect service you will not be able to remotely lock/unlock, turn he engine on/off, remotely find the location of the car or check the status, etc. This is what Volvo of North America has said. And it's logical too -- without a data service how would Volvo's servers communicate with the car? They need the data service to do that. Of course they could use the AT&T service without charging you, but that's not what they have said is their intent.

citivas · May 27, 2015

It's not possible to figure out the full cost yet because Volvo is withholding the cost of the Sensus Connect service. They are offering it free for 6 months now and said they would announce pricing in the fall.

8-track · May 27, 2015

citivas said:
Yes you do to use any of the remote car features. .

Then what is the $10 On Call service for? I thought that $10 paid for the data services. When you look at the On Call page on Volvo's site it doesn't make any mention of needing Sensus Connect to use those features. And on the Sensus Connect page it doesn't say anything about enabling On Call, just hotspot and app updates.

Admittedly I have no idea what I'm talking about but just basing it on what the Volvo pages say, the Sensus Connect service is for people who don't have a smartphone but still want data services to do app updates and such...But I've been wrong half a dozen times already this morning so...

MDicnMan · May 27, 2015

Not to be a wet blanket, but all of this goes on the assumption that VOC works at all for you. The other discussions regarding the performance of VOC / Sensus are not very encouraging.

http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?230235
http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?227041

citivas · May 27, 2015

8-track said:
Then what is the $10 On Call service for? I thought that $10 paid for the data services. When you look at the On Call page on Volvo's site it doesn't make any mention of needing Sensus Connect to use those features. And on the Sensus Connect page it doesn't say anything about enabling On Call, just hotspot and app updates.

Admittedly I have no idea what I'm talking about but just basing it on what the Volvo pages say, the Sensus Connect service is for people who don't have a smartphone but still want data services to do app updates and such...But I've been wrong half a dozen times already this morning so...

I'm not defending it. I am just explaining what I was very told, as well as what has been posted in this forum in the past. I called and very carefully asked for clarification and was told in no uncertain terms by Volvo North America that once the 6 month free window expired that to use the remote features of Volvo on Call you would need to also subscribe to separately subscribe to their data plan. They said you could subscribe to Sensus Connect without subscribing to Volvo On Call (and not get those features), and you could use your own mobile phone instead of the AT&T Sensus Connect plan if you had tethering/mobile hotspot.. But that to use the remote car features you would have to subscribe to both services separately.

citivas · May 27, 2015

MDicnMan said:
Not to be a wet blanket, but all of this goes on the assumption that VOC works at all for you. The other discussions regarding the performance of VOC / Sensus are not very encouraging.

http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?230235
http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?227041

Yeah, so far Volvo has not been able to get the mobile app to work with my car. I can his the On Call button in the car and (usually) get a live rep but the iPhone app refuses to accept my VIN, even with both the dealer and Volvo On Call rep working on it. I assume this will get resolved soon though...

citivas · May 27, 2015

BTW, where is this $10/month coming from? None of the plans get the price to that, unless you do Volvo's nonsense math of including the 6 free months in your calculation which makes no sense. The cheapest plan, if you buy 5 years in advance gets you to $11.11/month. An annual plan costs you $16.66. And, again, this does not include the cost of the data plan which is it is similar to previous plans when announced will likely more than double this cost.

MDicnMan · May 27, 2015

citivas said:
BTW, where is this $10/month coming from? None of the plans get the price to that, unless you do Volvo's nonsense math of including the 6 free months in your calculation which makes no sense. The cheapest plan, if you buy 5 years in advance gets you to $11.11/month. An annual plan costs you $16.66. And, again, this does not include the cost of the data plan which is it is similar to previous plans when announced will likely more than double this cost.

I think the math being used is 540 for 54 months (plus the free 6) if you but the service for at time of delivery. As for the data, in my conversation with the Volvo Customer Care Team I was told that the VOC features are completely independent of the Sensus data features and that they will work without buying a data plan. This makes complete sense since the alternative it tethering your phone which would make it hard to use VOC. That said, they are still using the AT&T towers so if you have no coverage, it won't work.

8-track · May 27, 2015

citivas said:
BTW, where is this $10/month coming from?

Good question. I was including the free 6 months because that was just easier to rationalize for me as volvo is merely marking up the non free months to pay for the free months. So I view it as "I get 24 months of service for x price - however volvo wants to spread that out (free for 6 months, more expensive for 18 or lump sum or whatever, in the end it's 24 months for x price".

But I can see why you'd want to exclude that - i'm just not good at math so I keep it simple

citivas · May 27, 2015

MDicnMan said:
I think the math being used is 540 for 54 months (plus the free 6) if you but the service for at time of delivery. As for the data, in my conversation with the Volvo Customer Care Team I was told that the VOC features are completely independent of the Sensus data features and that they will work without buying a data plan. This makes complete sense since the alternative it tethering your phone which would make it hard to use VOC. That said, they are still using the AT&T towers so if you have no coverage, it won't work.

Right, but that math is an insincere marketing speak. You effectively already paid for the first 6 months as part of your car purchase. It makes no sense to double count it again when computing the monthly cost of a new plan you are separately and electively paying for after you have consumed that 6 month plan.

Let me be clear, I would be happy if Volvo North America is wrong about needing both plans. There is zero chance I misinterpreted it. I found it pretty incredulous to need both so I pretty much made a pest of myself re-clarifying it several ways and the rep was unequivocal that you couldn't use VoC without the data plan. Hopefully this rep was wrong and it's just a training issue since these are new products. That would be better.

8-track · May 27, 2015

I guess it depends on how you see the cost of that free 6 months being paid. I think it's being paid by marking up the cost of the non-free months, not as a cost of the car itself.

More importantly it's a little bit crazy that something as simple as "Do you need both services to remotely start your car" is not something Volvo can agree on....

tarrbot · May 27, 2015

citivas said:
Right, but that math is an insincere marketing speak. You effectively already paid for the first 6 months as part of your car purchase. It makes no sense to double count it again when computing the monthly cost of a new plan you are separately and electively paying for after you have consumed that 6 month plan.

Let me be clear, I would be happy if Volvo North America is wrong about needing both plans. There is zero chance I misinterpreted it. I found it pretty incredulous to need both so I pretty much made a pest of myself re-clarifying it several ways and the rep was unequivocal that you couldn't use VoC without the data plan. Hopefully this rep was wrong and it's just a training issue since these are new products. That would be better.

Looking at it from an operations POV, I can see why you need the plan Volvo is offering. Think about the scenario for a minute.

If I had a data plan on my phone and use it for Sensus and therefore for VoC, how does VoC work if I have my phone when I'm in the office or away from the vehicle? It can't.

So I think that's the thought process if I am understanding how they work correctly.

I still don't like the remote start being only on a data plan because there will be times I am in areas and can't remote start that vehicle when it makes even more sense for me to do so... out in the wilderness, for example, and not the comfort of my own garage.

I think it's a horrible design decision because of that.

tarrbot · May 27, 2015

8-track said:
I guess it depends on how you see the cost of that free 6 months being paid. I think it's being paid by marking up the cost of the non-free months, not as a cost of the car itself.

More importantly it's a little bit crazy that something as simple as "Do you need both services to remotely start your car" is not something Volvo can agree on....

Well, for costing estimates, you have to leave that 6 months free off because after 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, etc how much does it cost per month?

If you rolled in the 6 months free in your estimate, your estimate is now wrong.

8-track · May 27, 2015

tarrbot said:
Looking at it from an operations POV, I can see why you need the plan Volvo is offering. Think about the scenario for a minute.

Remember that there are two plans being used here. Here's how I view the scenario working:

1. You pay for VOC only. The $10 (or whatever) you pay to that covers the cost of the car communicating over the cell network to your phone for those functions.

2. You pay for Sensus connect in the case where you don't have a smart phone but you still want data services like updating the applications in sensus. Because there is more data being sent for an app update, the cost of this service is higher than the VOC service.

But again, I have NO idea what I'm talking about, but reading the pages on Volvo's site that's how I interpreted it.

8-track · May 27, 2015

tarrbot said:
Well, for costing estimates, you have to leave that 6 months free off because after 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, etc how much does it cost per month?

That's a valid point.

dgrayson72 · May 27, 2015

So are the owner's manuals online wrong or just really poorly written? http://esd.volvocars.com/local/us/2016-Volvo-XC90-Quick-Guide-v1.pdf

When I read about the Connecting to the Internet in the Quick Guide, I see several choices: Bluetooth, WiFi, USB or via the vehicle's modem with the footnote "2 When the modem is used to make the connection, the Volvo On Call services will use this connection." This clearly makes it sound like the VOC works with the other systems, but the preference will be to use the modem connection.

Under the remaining sections such as updating apps it says "In order to download, update or delete apps, the vehicle must be connected to the Internet" and in the connecting to the internet section above it lists 4 choices of how to do that.

citivas · May 27, 2015

dgrayson72 said:
So are the owner's manuals online wrong or just really poorly written? http://esd.volvocars.com/local/us/2016-Volvo-XC90-Quick-Guide-v1.pdf

When I read about the Connecting to the Internet in the Quick Guide, I see several choices: Bluetooth, WiFi, USB or via the vehicle's modem with the footnote "2 When the modem is used to make the connection, the Volvo On Call services will use this connection." This clearly makes it sound like the VOC works with the other systems, but the preference will be to use the modem connection.

Under the remaining sections such as updating apps it says "In order to download, update or delete apps, the vehicle must be connected to the Internet" and in the connecting to the internet section above it lists 4 choices of how to do that.

I asked Volvo about this, because I have a couple mobile devices with built-in tethering plans already that under-use my data quota, so I have no need for Sensus Connect.. When you use the remote car features of VoC your phone is not in the vehicle -- it's with you remotely. So they have to use the car modem and AT&T to connect to the car that you are not in. This was why they said you had to have a Sensus Connect subscription. There is no question that for VoC to work remotely it needs to use the car modem, the only question is whether Volvo makes you pay for the separate data subscription (as they said when I contacted them) or whether they bake the limited use of the AT&T network into their VoC costs.

goldenfooler · May 27, 2015

citivas said:
Yes you do to use any of the remote car features. Without the Sensus connect service you will not be able to remotely lock/unlock, turn he engine on/off, remotely find the location of the car or check the status, etc. This is what Volvo of North America has said. And it's logical too -- without a data service how would Volvo's servers communicate with the car? They need the data service to do that. Of course they could use the AT&T service without charging you, but that's not what they have said is their intent.

If this is the case the Volvo has changed the process and there is no internal paper work I can find to support this idea. The car has a 3g modem, the connect is a data plan and remote starting would only be sending one signal to the car, not much data used.

Again I do not agree and have found nothing to agree with you on this.

Starting the engine from a distance?

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