Privacy message on screen - new Golf 8

[johnsimcox]

Glad you have made progress. Yes the Golf 8 offers all the we connect features as standard so you do not need the dongle you plugged in, so take it out. Re streaming, yes you need a data connection above that provided as standard with the car (for the first 3 years). You either need to buy data from Volkswagen or use your phone as a hot spot. The map does auto zoom as it approaches points on a route that require instructions, but other than that pinching is the only option. Hope you get your phone connected ok


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[airforced]

As far as a Data Only SIM is concerned there are a number of operators who periodically offer deals. Amazon, love 'em or hate 'em, is a good place to look. I have a dual SIM phone so my life is relatively easy and I have a 3 mobile data only SIM with 24 gigabytes that lasts for 2 years bought for about £40 about 18 months ago. Now costing about £44. It depends on your phones but that sort of deal has been around for while now and every now and again they are on offer making them a very good deal. I don't know how much the VW data would cost but as with everything these days you will need to shop around.

[bfr]

Regarding using your own phone as a hotspot, I found quite a handy app on Android for this called 'Hot Spot Starter'. With a tiny bit of configuration then what this does is detect Bluetooth pairing with my car when I get in and then automatically enables the hotspot on my phone (which I have configured the car to use for WiFi). When I get out and the phone unpairs on Bluetooth from the car then it switches the hotspot off on the phone.

[JBR999]

Glad you have made progress. Yes the Golf 8 offers all the we connect features as standard so you do not need the dongle you plugged in, so take it out. Re streaming, yes you need a data connection above that provided as standard with the car (for the first 3 years). You either need to buy data from Volkswagen or use your phone as a hot spot. The map does auto zoom as it approaches points on a route that require instructions, but other than that pinching is the only option. Hope you get your phone connected ok


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well, we have and we haven't!
As I mentioned earlier, my wife has managed to connect with her Samsung 10. Unfortunately, I'm getting nowhere with my (older) Samsung 8. I've been at it for the past couple of hours. I did remove the Data Plug, as suggested, but following the instructions in the handbook and trying to connect using App Connect, all I got was 'unable to connect'.
I'm afraid that I'm now at a complete loss as to what to do next. It would be helpful if the VW showroom where we bought it could offer a connection assistance service, but I suppose with this Covid thing that's not going to happen.

[JBR999]

As far as a Data Only SIM is concerned there are a number of operators who periodically offer deals. Amazon, love 'em or hate 'em, is a good place to look. I have a dual SIM phone so my life is relatively easy and I have a 3 mobile data only SIM with 24 gigabytes that lasts for 2 years bought for about £40 about 18 months ago. Now costing about £44. It depends on your phones but that sort of deal has been around for while now and every now and again they are on offer making them a very good deal. I don't know how much the VW data would cost but as with everything these days you will need to shop around.

Thanks. My wife and I both use Three PAYG. It used to be really good value for money, charging only 1p per Mb. They've recently increased that to 5p per Mb, though. Whilst messing about using that to try to obtain a connection to our car, it cost me several £££. I'm going to take a lot more care in future!

[JBR999]

Regarding using your own phone as a hotspot, I found quite a handy app on Android for this called 'Hot Spot Starter'. With a tiny bit of configuration then what this does is detect Bluetooth pairing with my car when I get in and then automatically enables the hotspot on my phone (which I have configured the car to use for WiFi). When I get out and the phone unpairs on Bluetooth from the car then it switches the hotspot off on the phone.

Thank you.
I think, should I ever manage to connect my phone to the car, I'll switch on the WiFi only when I need it to save money!
What I'd particularly like to do is to connect they phone to the car, switch on WiFi briefly in order to download a local map using Google Maps including traffic information, then turn off WiFi and send the map to the infotainment screen.
Of course, I cannot as yet connect apps on my phone to the car, but that's what I hope to do eventually. If need be, I can turn on WiFi every now and again to update the traffic information on Google Maps without the need to keep WiFi on permanently.
I hope I can get that to work.

[johnsimcox]

Well, we have and we haven't!
As I mentioned earlier, my wife has managed to connect with her Samsung 10. Unfortunately, I'm getting nowhere with my (older) Samsung 8. I've been at it for the past couple of hours. I did remove the Data Plug, as suggested, but following the instructions in the handbook and trying to connect using App Connect, all I got was 'unable to connect'.
I'm afraid that I'm now at a complete loss as to what to do next. It would be helpful if the VW showroom where we bought it could offer a connection assistance service, but I suppose with this Covid thing that's not going to happen.

Are you able to establish a simple bluetooth connection for phone calls with your phone? This does not require App Connect. I suspect your phone may be too old to support Android Auto, see below from Google:

What Samsung phones are compatible with Android Auto?A compatible Android smartphone with an active data plan and the latest version of the Android Auto app:

• Any smartphone with Android 11.0 and 5GHz Wi-Fi. ...
• A Google or Samsung smartphone with Android 10.0.
• A Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, or Note 8, with Android 9.0.

You would also need to download Android Auto to your phone first to use App Connect

[JBR999]

Are you able to establish a simple bluetooth connection for phone calls with your phone? This does not require App Connect. I suspect your phone may be too old to support Android Auto, see below from Google:

What Samsung phones are compatible with Android Auto?A compatible Android smartphone with an active data plan and the latest version of the Android Auto app:

• Any smartphone with Android 11.0 and 5GHz Wi-Fi. ...
• A Google or Samsung smartphone with Android 10.0.
• A Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, or Note 8, with Android 9.0.

You would also need to download Android Auto to your phone first to use App Connect

Hi again.
Yes, my phone is a Galaxy S8 running Android 9.0, so it should be compatible.
All I can think is that something on my phone is turned off when it should be on, or the other way around. I also downloaded the latest version of the Android Auto app.

[johnsimcox]

As I am an iPhone user I am sorry I cannot help you any further as I know nothing about Android phones. Hopefully someone else on here is able to help you. I suspect the dealer would be of limited help as they often don't know how the car works let alone how a phone needs to be configured

[bfr]

Well, we have and we haven't!
As I mentioned earlier, my wife has managed to connect with her Samsung 10. Unfortunately, I'm getting nowhere with my (older) Samsung 8. I've been at it for the past couple of hours. I did remove the Data Plug, as suggested, but following the instructions in the handbook and trying to connect using App Connect, all I got was 'unable to connect'.
I'm afraid that I'm now at a complete loss as to what to do next. It would be helpful if the VW showroom where we bought it could offer a connection assistance service, but I suppose with this Covid thing that's not going to happen.

Have you been able to connect any other phone successfully using the exact same cable? The reason I ask is that not all USB cables are created equal and there are surprisingly large number of third-party cables out there that are fine for charging a phone with (which is all 90% of people use them for) but absolutely bobbins for transferring data (one cable I tried on my old Mk7.5 made the head unit have an absolute fit). It might entail enlisting the help of friends/relatives but trying different phones with the same cable or different cables with the same phone might identify where the issue lies.

Speaking from my own experience then I couldn't connect my phone to the car upon handover either. That turned out to be a missing digital certificate on the head unit when one of the techs ran diagnostics, although if your wife's phone works OK then its probably not that.

Thank you.
I think, should I ever manage to connect my phone to the car, I'll switch on the WiFi only when I need it to save money!
What I'd particularly like to do is to connect they phone to the car, switch on WiFi briefly in order to download a local map using Google Maps including traffic information, then turn off WiFi and send the map to the infotainment screen.
Of course, I cannot as yet connect apps on my phone to the car, but that's what I hope to do eventually. If need be, I can turn on WiFi every now and again to update the traffic information on Google Maps without the need to keep WiFi on permanently.
I hope I can get that to work.

Unless you have an extremely frugal data allowance I wouldn't be constantly turning wifi off and on, and it would be dangerous to be fiddling with your phone or your head unit settings whilst driving in any case. The amount of background data the car will try and use isn't much at all in any case. Android Auto only works over USB (only Apple CarPlay supports wireless only) so battery usage whilst hotspotting won't be a consideration as your phone will be being charged from the cable.