[2017voltowner]

Before smartphones, OnStar would have been awesome but, more and more, I am not seeing a real added value except for safety and maybe teen driver alerts (which I don't need yet).

What do you like about it?
What do you want to see improved?
What would be a wildest dream type feature?

I was really hoping for a concierge experience, sort of a Jeeves for me while I am in my car. That would be truly awesome. I'd ask if they could have the cleaners get clothes ready for me or something before I arrived. I'd ask if they could tell me what might be causing traffic downtown (game just let out maybe?). Now, maybe some customer service agents will do this but that hasn't been my experience.

The deal with Travelocity (or whomever) resulted in hotel prices that were far above what I saw on hotwire or directly. It takes too long to connect to an agent to get directions somewhere (I generally use the projector mode and my phone app anyway)

Actually, You know what would be REALLY cheap (relative to paying customer service agents) and would really go a long way towards keeping people from using their phone is if OnStar set up an automated system which we could use to not only
Get Weather (can do that now)
Get Directions (without a customer service agent)
Search for restaurants/reviews near me of a certain cuisine (using Yelp or whatever)
Connect to social media so I can dictate tweets or share my location with someone
All Without Touching your phone. CarPlay isn't there yet...there is too much interactivity
But if OnStar teamed up with Google or Microsoft to use their natural language processing (and maybe their servers), then suddenly we could get a sort of audio based connected (dare I say semantic) experience.
Save reminders for my favorite reminder app.
Heck, I could say "Hey OnStar, can you find a radio station or a satellite station which plays country for me?"

Plus, we'd still have customer service agents to help us when the automated system can't.
Yes, there would have to be agreements to let OnStar post to my accounts for me, etc. Many will be concerned about privacy but nowadays many services do this without people realizing it.

Ok. Long post but I THINK I am in the right direction with this, even if I can plug my phone in, I'd rather go direct. One easy button, with a whole world of opportunities.

I love thinking about this. I hope others do too!

 

[madmike]

Getting directions is a snap with the app....just go to download to car. To make it better make it free or a less functional free version

 

[firehawk72]

First, OnStar is OVERPRICED...

Once we get that out of the way. I have been lost before, three times now. LOST! GPS lost...(updated Garmin) Built in Nav (2012 Chevy Volt) Lost...LG G4 using google maps Lost...Call OnStar and bam, they can get me out of anywhere. I just don't get how they do that. They must have every road on the planet within plain site of their satellite or something. OnStar has NEVER been wrong about directions. The safety features are a true blessing and they should simply make that a selling point by offering the basic service as standard GM. Call it GM Safety First or something. Lower the price for the other features and you have a winner. I really enjoy OnStar for making phone calls out in the boonies too. For those that have great cell service, you just don't see this, but I can make a phone call with OnStar when NOBODY can even consider making a phone call with a cell phone.

 

[voganni]

Yup, dropped them like a hot potato after the free subscription ran out. No way I'm paying $25/mo for something I haven't used once in two years when I can have Sirius for $15/mo and I use it every day. Never been lost enough to need OnStar. There's so much they COULD do with it, but haven't.

 

[good2go]

What would you do to make OnStar that much better?

Make it optional.

 

[Jubilee]

Make it optional.

Make it disappear.

 

[good2go]

Make it disappear.

I was just trying to ease them into the concept.

 

[freshcut]

I will admit, the one point about onstar that I do like is the crash response. Aside from that, I can't see spending a couple hundred a year to get that when none of the other features are items I would ever really use. Maybe if they offered just crash response for $50/year or less, it would be cheap peace of mind in the event that I ever did need it.

 

[2017voltowner]

So it looks like not many people are big fans of onstar here. I have to therefore imagine that they are hurting for customers in general.
Nobody has any killer applications they would like?

 

[madmike]

I like onstar, I just don't think it makes sense to pay for it. This is the internet age, information and communication is free or at least super cheap. Chevy doesn't do themselves any favors with these old school business models
\

 

[llninja]

Yup, dropped them like a hot potato after the free subscription ran out. No way I'm paying $25/mo for something I haven't used once in two years when I can have Sirius for $15/mo and I use it every day. Never been lost enough to need OnStar. There's so much they COULD do with it, but haven't.

Did you know you can add 5 years of basic for free? You get remote unlock and RemoteLink app features, but no calling or turn by turn. It's enough for me, I just signed up my 2013 and a, good until 2021.

 

[llninja]

Free.

Developer API, App Store, monetize with ads or in-app purchases

Ability to buy new skins for the DIC and center console - I would pay to make the dash look like Star Trek.

Make onstar an app that gives anyone with a smartphone access to vehicular telemetry and crash detection either through the ODB connector. If the ODB connector could be wireless and partially powered when the car is off, that would make it possible to remotely unlock the doors. Or if they could do all this through Bluetooth...then you'd just need to be in the vicinity of the vehicle to unlock, or remote start.

Not necessarily an onstar feature, but center console should serve as a media server that can stream to kids tablets in the back seats.

 

[supchrgamx]

make their 4g network work better than my cell that's in the car

 

[llninja]

Free cloud-based music streaming with ads (pay a little for ad-free) - no data charges to stream this through 4g/5g.

 

[kns]

I like onstar, I just don't think it makes sense to pay for it. This is the internet age, information and communication is free or at least super cheap. Chevy doesn't do themselves any favors with these old school business models
\

TINSTAAFL. I prefer to pay for service with cash rather than with personal information. I hate the Google/Apple/M$ business model.

KNS

 

[imanjunk1963]

Make the basic turn by turn part of the 5 year basic freeby package permanently but more so stop sending what on star thinks is the best route when one takes the time to plan a route, sends it to the car and finds out on star just sends what it wants as the most efficient route! What the hell on star. Found this out the hard way. And who wants to use mapquest to do this anymore which is why the android app of sending is much better but not sure if the android app behaves the same way for the incident desribed above. In all the use of our phones displayed on the new sized lcd the best. So all that is left is the occasional use of the remote app functions that for door locking was the only thing I have used a few times.

 

[canehdian]

First off - working as designed would be great.

None of my volt specific features have worked for well over a year now. (e.g. charging stats, efficiency, etc on the myvolt page)

With that out of the way - they need to open up their system to be a service level system and not a carrier level system.
Part of why they charge so much is you're basically subscribing for a full cell phone plan.
They should have it so that you can use your own cell/data provider (they're kinda there with the data sharing plan if you're AT&T, but that's hardly the same thing) and subscribe to their service on top.
If you go out of your carriers service range, that's on you, but whenever you have service on your provider of choice, on your plan that you're paying separately, you then pay onstar $5/month (or whatever their rate is) to give you service through that line.

Many cell providers are now offering "family plan" bundles, where every SIM gets access to the same pool of minutes and data. So you could essentially add your car SIM for "free" (to a plan you're already paying for), and then just pay onstar for the services you need from them (crash detection, directions, etc).

 

[Ztirffritz]

I'd add the option to change the charge rate remotely from 8A to 12A. I HATE when I forget to change it before getting out of the car and wake up in the morning with a partial charge, or remembering and then having to go out the car in the cold and turning on the radio to get to the recharge screen so that I can change the charge rate.

 

[Norton]

How about Onstar techs go into the back rooms and reboot/replace the servers that have not been sending out "Charge Complete" SMS txt msgs for over a month now.
I own a Chevy BEV. I really need the car to communicate to me.
But it's still a free trial period, so can I bitch about this bad service?

 

[Bacardi]

Native notifications, no reason to send texts...