What's the point of the WiFi connection?

[DistortedEdge]

Sync crashed only once when I was connecting to my home Wifi.

 

I'm lost with this feature on the car. What's the point of connecting the car to the home's wifi network? I can't figure out what this is supposed to enable. I don't even really see the point of wifi at all if the car can't use the connection to pull data, and if it does, I can't figure out what data it pulls and how.

 

I suppose if your phone shares its internet connection via WiFi hotspot, and the car can actually use the data, it makes sense while out and about, but if you're connecting that way to share the cellular signal, there's not much point, since the other devices in the car could just tap right into the phone. Maybe if you have more than 5 devices and your phone/MyFi has a limit to connections, but it just seems very limited to me and kind of pointless at this time.

 

Are there features "coming soon" that make having the ability to connect to a WiFi hotspot that make sense, or are there current features I'm not understanding?

 

Thanks.

[HalBran]

I think right now it's pretty useless. At least I haven't found anything to do with it. From what I understand a web browser will soon be available when you're in park.

 

Once you get the car to connect to the Internet the possibilities are endless tough. We'll see what Ford has in store.

[DistortedEdge]

I think right now it's pretty useless. At least I haven't found anything to do with it. From what I understand a web browser will soon be available when you're in park.

 

Once you get the car to connect to the Internet the possibilities are endless tough. We'll see what Ford has in store.

 

 

Agreed. I've seen a few posts across the Edge and Sync forums where people say you can Sync Services over WiFi instead of voice, but if that's correct, it eludes me. I think those people are just making assumptions and haven't tried it.

[akirby]

I don't know why you would connect to your home Wi-Fi network, but I believe the feature is intended to take a 3G data interface connected via USB like you would use for a laptop and connect it to Sync. Sync then would provide a wi-fi hotspot for all other devices in the vehicle. This would work for laptops and ipod touches, etc. that have Wi-Fi but not cell data service. Or you could use it instead of your cell phone data connection.

[darkmar]

An ability of a car to connect to WIFI is an aspect that I am actually very excited about. For one in near future you will be able to browse Internet while you parked next to the coffee shops or other places with open WIFI Internet. Also, if you Android user with 2.2 release you can already connect your car to its hot spot feature.

There is plenty of information available on Internet concerning Ford’s AppLink. This is Ford’s API that will allow integrating your smartphone (Android, Blackberry and IPhones) applications with car’s mytouch and voice commands.

Ford announced releasing software development kid over a month ago. Read this announcement http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20019121-48.html. And official Ford’s news release http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=33366

Supposedly Applink is going to be released first in 2011 on Ford Fiesta followed by Edge and MKX on their 2011 models.

Edited November 21, 2010 by darkmar

[akirby]

I stand corrected - it will connect to a wi-fi hotspot too. But I don't think this would be very useful without the built-in browser. The USB mobile broadband connection can be used to get internet access and make it available via wi-fi inside the car.

[DistortedEdge]

I don't know why you would connect to your home Wi-Fi network, but I believe the feature is intended to take a 3G data interface connected via USB like you would use for a laptop and connect it to Sync. Sync then would provide a wi-fi hotspot for all other devices in the vehicle. This would work for laptops and ipod touches, etc. that have Wi-Fi but not cell data service. Or you could use it instead of your cell phone data connection.

 

Well, yes, the car already does what you're saying, but that's using BT PAN or USB stick for cellular connection, and it makes sense in that regard, and the car should broadcast as a WiFi hotspot to allow non-cellular connected devices to access the internet.

 

This doesn't at all address what I'm asking though, which is what's the point of having the car connect to a WiFi hotspot, wherever it is, at this time? None that I can see. Once connected, nothing changes in the car or the devices in the car. Internet, Services, etc aren't suddenly routed over the car's WiFi connection to bypass cellular data.

[DistortedEdge]

I stand corrected - it will connect to a wi-fi hotspot too. But I don't think this would be very useful without the built-in browser. The USB mobile broadband connection can be used to get internet access and make it available via wi-fi inside the car.

 

It would be very useful for those who have a MyFi or an Android phone that acts like a WiFi hotspot if some of the features of MFT/Sync could take advantage of it.

 

Some possibilities:

 

1) Services would be more reliable and not use voice minutes. I've gotten by for years on a 500 minute phone plan with my voice phone, but with frequent use of Services in the car, I'll have to use the phone with unlimited minutes, or at least substantially more than I have.

 

2) The car could feed data back to the traffic reporting network (like Android phones do for Google Maps, or the Traffic! app on iPhones). More use of location to get traffic on your route without having to make the effort of calling Services to as. Or report incidents, etc.

 

3) Vehicle health information reports could just upload over the net automatically at specified intervals instead of manually with a user initiated voice call.

 

4) Apps and upgrades could download, install and confirm over the air instead of screwing around with the USB stick and the SyncMyRide website.

 

5) Let me report gas prices back to the system from the car while fueling to make them more accurate (like GasBuddy app on iPhone/Android).

 

6) Let me report speed traps as a warning to other folks (like the smartphone app for that).

 

The possibilities are as endless as they are on a smartphone, which has a lot more function in may ways, with a lot less space available for screen, battery, memory, cpu, etc.

 

I had thought that MyFordTouch would end the need to use my iPhone or Android phone for all my needs in the car, but it's not close to that yet.

 

Edit: of course those without unlimited or large cellular data plans, or no data plan at all, may find this a problem and prefer the voice/modem method.

 

Since none of these features even occur with the USB dongle cellular connection, they're a long way off. Maybe that app development kit will allow for this sort of stuff in the future. Hope so.

Edited November 21, 2010 by DistortedEdge