Friday, June 27, 2014

Summer Mainenance Tip: Check Your Tires

Summer is just around the corner, and it's time to get your car prepared for the heat of the next few months. The first place to start is your tires. Did you know that only 1 out of ever 10 drivers regularly check their tire pressure? This is important to do as tire pressure changes one to two PSI for every 10-degree increase in outside air temperature. Be sure to check your owner's manual to maintain proper inflation, because the only thing worse than having to stop and change a blown-out tire is having to do so in the heat. While you're at it, it's probably also a good idea to check your tire's tread, as well as alignment, as this can affect stop time and gas mileage. Be sure you've got a properly inflated spare in your trunk as well!

Stay tuned for future summer car maintenance tips!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

BMW Mobile Office


BMW Mobile Office is a feature that allows you to see text messages and emails from your smartphone while it is connected through Bluetooth. Since this function is designed to maximize the amount of time that your eyes stay on the road while driving, Office has a built-in capability of reading and responding to emails and texts using voice controls. Once you have it set up, you will be able to continue working or keeping an active social life even while you are driving. 

In this guide, we will cover setup and usage of BMW Mobile Office, but you should start by reading Tips & Tricks #4: Bluetooth. You will want your phone to be connected to the car via Bluetooth before you start. 

Note: Since the setup and operation of BMW Mobile Office is very different between Android and iPhone, this guide will have a section for each, starting with Android. You can click here to skip ahead to the iPhone section.

While BMW officially supports certain Windows Phone and Blackberry devices, this guide will focus on Android and iPhone, as they make up the vast majority of smartphones.

Android Guide 

Note: This guide was tested with a Nexus 5 running Android 4.4 (KitKat) and the latest version of iDrive with the touchpad controller (most 2013 and later models). If you want to verify that your phone is supported by BMW, you can go to bmwusa.com/ bluetooth and look at the currently available phones.
As usual, in this guide, blue text indicates items on your phone and red text indicates items in the iDrive system of your BMW.


     
  1. Pair and connect your Android phone with the Bluetooth in the car, as described in Tips & Tricks #4: Bluetooth. Make sure to answer ‘ Yes to all the questions in the pop-up windows on your phone. Pay special attention to steps 1 & 2 of the Troubleshooting section, as these show you how to enable Office in the iDrive settings.
  2.  If you have followed the pairing and troubleshooting tips correctly, you should be connected and have Office enabled. From the main iDrive menu, you can then select Office.
     

    From the Office menu, there are a number of options:

    A.Current Office will show you any unread emails or text messages (SMS). When you click on a message, it automatically takes you to the main messages list.
    B. New Message is where you go to compose a new text or email


                                                                   

    C. Contacts will show you all of the contacts that are on your phone. These sync every time you connect your phone, so it should always be up-to-date.

    Note: This is different than your Phone book in the Telephone menu: the Phone book will only show you the name and phone number in your phone’s contact list, whereas Contacts will show you names, phone numbers, emails, and mailing addresses as well.
    D. Messages is the list of all the text messages and emails that you already have received. If you need to respond to an email or text message that you have already seen, Messages is where you would go to do that.
                                                                       
    E. Notes is where you go to create voice notes for yourself while you are driving. These notes can be saved on a USB flash drive, but they are in a BMW proprietary format, so you won’t be able to listen to them on anything other than a BMW.


There are many options and functions from this point, and all of your options will appear on the screen for each menu. For instance, if you go to Messages and click on a text message, you will see a menu of possible options along the left side of the message, including Text-to-speech, Call sender, Reply, Forward, and Delete. Whatever you choose to do from there, you will use your voice as the input method, so as to help you keep your eyes on the road.

iPhone Guide

If you visit bmwusa.com/bluetooth and look at the list of available devices, you will notice that iPhones are on the list, but they are not supported with BMW Mobile Office. This guide is an unofficial way to get this function to partially work, but there may be a better option for you, depending on which iPhone you have.

Any iPhone 4S (Fall 2011) or later will have Siri built into the phone, which will be able to read and respond to emails and text messages through voice commands. You can hold down the Home button (the round button on the front of the phone) or the Voice Control button on your BMW steering wheel and Siri will pop up to start listening to your voice commands. You can then ask Siri to read and respond to your most recent emails and text messages.

You could also follow this guide to get BMW Mobile Office set up to show and read your text messages and emails, but it cannot take any other actions with your messages. You cannot call the phone number, respond to the message, or even delete it. Still, for many people, being able to see and hear the message is very valuable, and you could have Siri respond or call the person if the matter cannot wait until you park.

Note: In this guide, blue text indicates items on your phone and red text indicates items in the iDrive system of your BMW

This guide was tested using the latest iDrive system with the touchpad controller and iPhones running iOS 7

1. Pair and connect your iPhone with the Bluetooth in the car, as described in Tips & Tricks #4: Bluetooth. Pay special attention to steps 1 & 2 of the Troubleshooting section, as these steps show you how to enable Office in the iDrive settings.



Note: If your BMW does not have the Connections menu within Settings, your BMW has an older iDrive system and these instructions will not work in your vehicle. Thus far, I have not found a workaround for these older vehicles. 

Again, at this point the easiest way to access and reply to emails and text messages is to use Siri, if your iPhone has it. Just hold down the Voice Control button on the steering wheel or the Home button in the iPhone for 1-2 seconds, then Siri will start listening to your voice commands. You can say all sorts of things to Siri, but you might want to try asking, “Can you read my most recent email?” or “Do I have any new text messages?” You can also ask Siri to create new emails or text messages by saying something like, “Send a text to [contact name].” At that point, Siri will ask all the relevant questions to complete the message and send it off.

If you would still like to get texts and emails to show up in your car, once you have paired and connected your phone, turn the car off and continue to Step 2.

2. On the iPhone, go to Settings > Notification Center and find Mail and Messages. They will probably be under the Include section, but they may be under Do Not Include


 
3. Tap on Messages. Under the Alerts section, make sure that the switches for both Show in Notification Center and Show on Lock Screen are flipped on. Then do the same for Mail.


4. Go to Settings > Bluetooth and find your BMW under Devices. Tap on the blue “i” next to your BMW, and make sure that Show Notifications is turned on.


5.Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and make sure Push is turned on.



From the same ‘Fetch New Data’ page, you should check to see which schedule is used by your different accounts. Your emails may not show up in the car if the account does not have an option for ‘Push’.



6. Double-click the Home button (the round button on the front of the phone) and find Mail. Swipe upward on the app’s screen to close it. Then do the same with Messages.

7. Manually lock your phone by briefly pressing the Lock button (the power button) on the top of your phone.

 8. Turn the car on. In iDrive, go to Settings > Connections > Bluetooth. From the Bluetooth menu, highlight your phone and either push to the right with the iDrive controller or press the Option button. Then click on Configure Bluetooth and make sure that Office is checked.




9. Press the Menu button to go back to the main iDrive menu. Click on Office > Messages. This is where new messages will show up when you receive a new email or text message while you are in the car. It will not display any messages that are in your inbox unless you have received them since you got in the car and connected your phone via Bluetooth.


If you would like help navigating the Office menu, you can take a look at Step 3 of the Android section.

Note: The menus will be lacking some of the options that the Android section describes. This is because, with an iPhone, the iDrive system can only read the messages to you, but cannot reply, forward, call the sender, delete, or take any other actions. The buttons for these functions are still visible, but they are “grayed out” and unselectable. If you would like to do these things, press and hold the Voice Control button on your steering wheel and use Siri to complete these tasks using your voice. 



Troubleshooting

  1. If you get a new text message or email and it still won’t display on the iDrive screen, try turning the car off, and make sure that both Mail and Messages are closed on your phone (Step 6) and lock your phone (Step 7) before the next time that you start up the car again.


  2. If it still doesn’t work properly, on your phone, go to Settings > Notification Center > Mail > Include and change it to something other than what it already is. If it says 5 Unread Items, change it to 10 , and vice versa. For whatever reason, this can sometimes trick it into working properly.





  3. Just a reminder: This iPhone guide is an unofficial workaround for something that is officially unsupported. BMW does not support iPhones in this manner, and if this does not work properly, there may not be anything that BMW, BMW Centers, or Apple can do to fix it. Siri may be your best and most stable option for receiving and responding to messages in the car. This guide was intended for those who would really like to get more iPhone integration into their BMW, and who don’t mind a little bit of fiddling with their technology.