No iRemote

Though I already posted my problem in the Regional/Belgium thread, it has been suggested to me to repost here in order to assess the extension of the problem. And I think that this is a good idea indeed.

Problem : in order to be able to use your iRemote app with your car, you first have to register your car on your local ConnectedDrive portal. The registration process is not complicated but implies that, at one point, the system sends a security code to the car, and the owner has to recover this security code in order to finalise the registration process. In my case, no security code is sent to the car and I cannot register it => no iRemote.

What I've been told by BMWi Belgium : the issue is known and only affects some cars in some regions. They have no control over it since the problem comes from the BMW servers in Munich. They have been working on it for the past 2 months!

What I've read here and there : it seems that for some people registration could be done without any problem. For others (mainly in the UK), the registration process had to be finalised "over the phone" with the help of their local BMWi team.

I really don't have any idea of what the situation is. As any company, BMW is reluctant to communicate about IT malfunctions.

But what makes me mad is that iRemote is presented as an important sales argument. And it definitely was one of the reasons why I chose this car (among a million others, right). And BMW not delivering on a "standard equipment" is just not good.

How many of you managed/did not manage/had difficulties to register their car and get the iRemote to working?

Agj - Thank you - a great post and it will be interesting to see if there are any geographical factors to this problem.

As a complement, maybe this can be useful to other users :

From what I am seeing and experiencing, the ConnectedDrive services (CDS) are a complex mishmash of heterogeneous data and functionalities put together in a more or less coherent package.
When it works, it works but ... it turns out that there are very few people inside BMW who know how they really work.

This is what I think I know for the moment.
There are at least 3 different kinds of CDS in the case of the i3 :
- default standard CDS that are free and activated before the car is delivered (range assistant and Eco-route)
- optional CDS that are activated before the car is delivered provided the customer specced them (ConnectedDrive as an option and RTTI)
- standard CDS that are free but require a registration on the ConnectedDrive portal for security reasons (remote services and iRemote capability).

First 2 seem to work fine for me.
The third one is giving me a hard time.

Expertise from long-time BMW owners may result handy

Update : when firing up the car this morning, the security code was waiting for me.
Car is now duly registered on the ConnectedDrive portal and iRemote is fully operational.
I wonder if the email I sent to [email protected] has something to do with it

My "ticket is closed".

I suggest that this thread is kept alive in case other users have similar problems.

Hi,

Just made my first Km's in the i3. The dealer made an account for me, but i do not even receive the email with the login details.
I try to figure it out myself and so i found "connected drive services" in the menu of the car. I can run a connection wizard. It even recognizes my ipad, then the message "start the i remote app" appears. I have it installed but without login details i cannot proceed.
Where is the button for "create account" so i can get this running?

Hi Simon,
The procedure is as follows :
- go to the the ConnectedDrive portal from your computer. In Belgium, url is http://www.bmw-connecteddrive.be Don't know in which country you are.
- there, you must create a user account. Typically with your email address and a password. From what you say in your post, it seems that you dealer already did it for you. Make sure he gives you the user name and password he created for you.
- You must now register your car. To do this you must go to "add a car" (or whatever it says in your language), put the VIN number of your car (= the last 7 characters of the chassis number).
- When you are done with this, a security number (5 or 6 digits) will be sent by BMW servers to your car. You'll recover this security number from car's main menu, ConncectedDrive menu, messages.
- Then you have to go back to your computer and use the security number to finalise the registration process.

If everything goes how it should go, your car will be registered and you'll be able to use the same username and password to enter the iRemote app on your smartphone.

In some countries, for some individual vehicles, the process cannot be done automatically. If this is the case for you, don't worry. Your local BMWi department should know what to do. But ... be patient

Hope this was useful.

In the mean time this was solved. I had to make some calls for the login. There is no button to create an account myself if i wanted to anyway.
But after i finally got the login details, i did not have to "add a car", did not need no security code and so on. Only thing was i had to activate remote services on the website, to get the app working. Thanks anyway