[cVolt2013]

It reminds me of a joke... a guy is asked by an angel to choose between heaven and hell. He gets to see a little of each. He thinks heaven looks nice, but too tame and boring. He chooses hell because everyone was partying and having tons of fun. After he chooses, he steps into hell and discovers it's nothing like what he had seen... fire, brimstone, etc. He asks the angel what happened and the angel replies: "What you saw before was just the demo".

That's what OnStar's RemoteLink seems like to me: just a great demo. It's implementation falls very short.

Yes, I understand it takes time to connect to a c-a-r, but on my iPhone, why does it:

a) take so long to connect initially to the OnStar server
b) and then essentially lock me out of doing anything else while it connects to my car
(again, I understand it takes time to connect with my car, but the app should let me switch to another app while it does it's thing. And when I come back, it can tell me the status of what it's done... or better yet, use the notification system to tell me... something, anything rather than make me sit there and w-a-i-t)
c) and recently, the entire system (and/or servers) are having major connectivity issues

I love to show people how cool it all works. Unfortunately, it doesn't most of the time. And when it does, it is painfully slow.

(Apologies for starting up yet another thread on this)

 

[Ron in Omaha]

Welcome to the club.

 

[JamesMcQuaid]

I love to show people how cool it all works. Unfortunately, it doesn't most of the time.

Three men died, and were taken by God to the top of a cliff. God said to them that since they had been such outstanding human beings, they would be given one chance to become anything they desired.

The first man ran to the edge of the cliff and jumped into the air shouting, "I want to be an eagle." Instantly he was changed into an eagle and soared off into the sunset.

The second man ran to the edge of the cliff and jumped into the air shouting, "I want to be a falcon." Instantly he was changed into a falcon and soared off into the sunset.

The third man ran towards the edge of the cliff, tripped on a rock and shouted, "Oh sh*t."

 

[Ron C]

I feel you.

Part of the reason I'm frustrated with OnStar is that while I consider it a key feature of the car, the people in charge decided it was another one of those things that seems to be left on the "just use the old crap, it's good enough" part of the project because (I'm projecting, so take this with a grain of salt) it wasn't a "key feature" of the car. Super-cool TMS, ..., that's important stuff. That OnStar stuff, whatever, just throw it in.

Turns out that super-cool vehicles need to have super-cool connectivity solutions. OnStar vintage 1995 ain't it.

I work in a related industry, and one of my colleagues has recently left our company to join OnStar to help with their transition to LTE. I'm familiar with the kinds of required capabilities to make sure that the LTE version doesn't suck, but a) I don't work there and b) he's more of a cat herder than visionary. I'm hopeful they have visionaries, but based on what I've seen so far with the API work and other stuff I'm not holding my breath. I just expect it to be SSDD.

 

[CB-Oregon]

Three guys were stuck in a life boat. A bottle floated buy and they grabbed it and rubbed it and a genie appeared. "Normally" the genie said "I give three wishes and since there are three of you, you each get 1" the first guy said "I miss my mom's home cooking, I want to be home". **Poff** he disappeared. The next said he missed his wife and kids and want to go to them. **Poff** he disappeared. The third guy said " I have no one who ever liked me, but I sure like the two guys I was stuck with in this boat" **pooff** there back.
Always wish Last!!

Nothing workes well unles you pay for it in one way or the other!

 

[ewiggins]

It would have been really nice if the Volt/OnStar had wifi. Stats could have been downloaded when one is at home. I am not sure I would keep OnStar. It would also be nice to have just one app to do all the functions/stats instead of 3 apps.

 

[SharkVolt]

Wow... Do you suppose Onstar was programmed by the same people who did Obamacare?
That would explain a lot...

 

[ari_c]

Wow... Do you suppose Onstar was programmed by the same people who did Obamacare?
That would explain a lot...

I think you have it backwards .

 

[Nick D]

on my iPhone

I found the problem....

I have never had any issues connecting to the car with my Android Samsung Illusion, or with my Android Motorola RAZR MAXX.

With the iphone 5 i had nothing but issues with the bluetooth and the onstar

 

[khearon]

I actually have had no issues at all with RemoteLink. If I'm in an area with poor cellular coverage, I just use my key fob to start the car. If I need to send directions to the nav unit, I just do it from the car...I know we all don't have navigation. Don't shoot me. Other than those 2 situations, I hardly see a use for it. Maybe a quick check for EV range...

I am happy that Onstar is "free" for 3 years and should be on EVERY car GM sells. I still can't believe they don't do the same with he new Stingray.

I do like the new layout, but I think the software is mature for what we'll see.

What other features can they add?


Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App

 

[deekster_caddy]

The RemoteLink app on my iphone worked reasonably well until the most recent update. The newest version of the app takes _F O R E V E R_ (read this very slowly) to connect when you open it. Refreshing the data from the car takes about the same amount of time as always, but whatever they did recently to the iOS app changed it from tolerable to laughable. I sure hope they listen to feedback.

The feature I use most is the remote start. I can't reach the car from my office and it's nice to warm it up a few minutes before I start to work my way out of the building. It's usually the first thing I do once I'm sure I'm done for the day and starting to pack up. By the time I get out the car it's been about 10 minutes and sometimes it just shut down. Perfect. If it works...

 

[cVolt2013]

On my iphone, I've stared using the MyVolt.com website to remote start in the morning (too far from the car to do it w/ the keyfob).
Website seems to operate fine even though the iphone RemoteLink app sucks. It's a shame such a well engineered car gets a poorly engineered remotelink app (at least on the iphone).

 

[focher]

What I fundamentally can't understand with the iOS RemoteLink app is how it passes even a moderate set of testing. One version pretty much is functionally useless (almost always connected to the authentication process). Then they seem to stabilize and fix it to make it tolerable, then they turn around and release another version that breaks it again.

I know there's an OnStar rep on these forums, and I hope she has a mechanism to communicate the total displeasure some of have with the iOS app's quality. There's no way the developer couldn't see what I see...constant login attempts that timeout / fail. Even if it eventually does work, the next time it doesn't work you have to reenter all login details again. It's damn painful.