Audi Wi-Fi disables mobile internet on my phone

[essooil]

Hi,

Sorry this is a long post. Today’s cars are just getting more and more complex. When my mates asked me how my new S3 was, my initial reply was “it’s great, but I’m having difficulty connecting it to the internet”.

This post relates to connecting my Samsung S7 to my vehicles Wi-Fi but then losing mobile internet connectivity on my phone for as long as the Wi-Fi is connected.

I have a 2017 Audi S3. This has the tech pack which comes with 3 years subscription to Audi connect. After quite a faff setting up the Audi Connect service, I now have it all working. My Google maps work and when I go into the Audi Connect menu I can read news articles, see the weather, check fuel prices etc. I have successfully paired my Samsung S7 and can see my phone contacts, emails and text messages on the MMI screen. The MMI says I am using the internal SIM for Audi Connect Services and my Phone for phone calls, emails and text messages.

So far so good.

The issue I have now is with my S3's Wi-Fi. I have given my S3 Wi-Fi a name (SSID) and created a password. I can connect my Samsung Galaxy S7 to my Audi S3 Wi-Fi no problem. I need to connect my phone to the S3 Wi-Fi because the Audi Connect app which I have installed on my phone needs a Wi-Fi connection to use some of the features. For example, the car finder feature on the Audi Connect app on my phone says you need a Wi-Fi connection from the phone to the vehicle so the App on the phone can store the vehicles location. This is true, because before I connected the Wi-Fi the Audi app on my phone didn’t remember where I had parked. You also need Wi-Fi for calendar appointments on the phone to show up on the Audi MMI screen. Both the car finder and my calendar appointments work when the Wi-Fi is connected.


The Problem

Connecting my phone to my vehicle’s Wi-Fi disables mobile internet on my phone. I don’t browse the web while I’m driving, but I do use the Google assistant a lot. This is voice controlled so I can use it while I'm driving. I just say "okay Google" and then ask my question. No internet on my phone means no Google Assistant. No new emails arrive either while I'm driving.

The deal I have with my UK network provider (three.co.uk) means I can’t use my phone as a Wireless Hot Spot. But I don’t think that’s the issue. The issue is that my car is the mobile hot spot, but the built in SIM used for Audi Connect Services only allow those services to use the built in SIM. This means the news and weather work but other devices that are connected to the vehicles Wi-Fi are unable to use the vehicles data connection to connect to the internet.

Upon further investigation it appears the company who provide the in-car data for Audi vehicles (a company called Cubic Telecom www.datainside.com) sell data plans. For £132 per year you get 25GB of data. I’ve registered with www.datainside.com. I had to enter some details, including my vehicles VIN. The portal found my car which is now registered. I posted a question to their technical support to find out more. Apparently if I pay the £132 my Audi S3 will have a “data plan”. This means mobile devices can connect to my vehicles Wi-Fi and in turn can access the internet. This means my phone will be able to access the internet via my S3’s Wi-Fi. My kids could also connect their iPads to my S3 Wi-Fi. This will be pretty useful, although 25GB per YEAR isn’t that much data.

My S3 also has a SIM card slot in the glove box. I’m now looking to see if I can get a pay-as-you-go SIM card that will allow my phone to connect to the Wi-Fi via another SIM card. I don’t use much data so a pay-as-you-go SIM card might only cost me £5 per month in data charges which would be half the cost of the datainside inside plan.

I suppose I can understand why Audi prevent additional devices from connecting to the built in SIM and eating up data.

If only I didn’t need to connect my phone to the Wi-Fi this wouldn’t be an issue. My Google Assistant and emails work but car finder on my phone and calendar appointments wouldn’t.

Do any Audi owners with Audi Connect have all of this fully configured and working? E.g.

• Phone contacts, emails and text messages working
• Google Maps with Street view working
• Audi Connect services working (news and weather)
• Audi Connect app (on iOS or Android) connected to vehicle via Wi-Fi

Thanks for reading (if you got this far ! : -)

 

[DJAlix]

This is a pain, so much so that I don't connect my phones to the cars wifi anymore. What I do have is an active rear seat mounted iPad and a 3 Data sim so my daughter can which her peppa pig rubbish. The sim is 24GB or 2 Years, whichever expires first. My phones would eat this data in a week so I never use it but the MMI services use it with no issues.

Edit: My Thinkware F800 Pro connects to the wifi also.

 

[allanmb]

I don't connect the phone to the in-car wi-fi for this reason. What is happening is that your phone sees that is connected to wi-fi so assumes that has internet connectivity, but it doesn't. You can get a sim-card and put that in the car which will then allow you to get connection via the phone. I looked for this a while ago and I think it was about £30 for a sim loaded with 100GB, or you can go with data inside if you don't want your money ;-)

 

[kevpuk]

I have a SIM plugged in.....12GB/month, lets kids connect devices etc.....trouble is, they burned through this limit last month, so had to take SIM out and go back to built-in one for stuff I actually use, like Audi connect and so forth. Back in now, new billing period, and I will be keeping a closer eye on their usage

 

[mikep99]

Hi,
If you're on Android, have you tried the attached setting in Developer Options (the top one)?
Not sure if it works as I've not got MMI but it might be worth trying....
Cheers
Mike

 

[Robert997]

Thanks for bringing this up, I have exactly the same issue. I naively thought the full package (3 years Audi connect) brought with it some element of general internet access for the connected devices - phone, ipad etc.
It clearly doesn't.
Allanmb is bang-on in his summary - the phone assumes WiFi connection brings internet access, which we now understand is blocked by Cubic Telecom until a further subscription is paid.
I've gone the data-sim route, a 3 network 12gb/12 month sim only from ebay for about £25. I can see the benefit with Cubic is that the sim will be Irish and thus 'roaming' whilst within the UK, which means in theory it can use the cellular network of any/the strongest local provider. But it seems quite a premium to pay for that privilege.

 

[Lehn]

I will take a look at this when I get into the car again. I expect it can be solved by making some changes to the setup of the wi-fi, making the phone using 4g for data and not wi-fi while still streaming music through wi-fi.

 

[Lawrence Ellul]

What is you set up a hotspot on your mobile and connect the car to the hotspot of the mobile phone. In this way the mobile phone will have both the wifi connection and data connection active

 

[Lehn]

Now try this:

(iPhone version, sorry)

1. Connect to your cars wi-fi
2. Open settings and choose to modify your wi-fi by pressing the "i" next to it's name
3. Make sure Auto-Join is set to on and Auto-Login to off
4. Write down the IP-address or take a screenshot
5. Press Configure IP and select Manual
6. Fill in the IP-address with the one you wrote down and set Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0 the rest should be left blank
7. When going back you should see "No Internet Connection" beneath the name of the wi-fi network which enables the phone to use it's own network for internet while still being connected to the car through its wi-fi network

I have only tried it once this morning where I was able to see my calendar under Audi Connect and browse on my phone at the same time. (If you can't get it to work on your Android phone I'll try to get it to work on my Android tablet and return).

 

[richard skilbeck]

Hi,
If you're on Android, have you tried the attached setting in Developer Options (the top one)?
Not sure if it works as I've not got MMI but it might be worth trying....
Cheers
Mike

This worked for me

 

[scoobysnax_99]

I have this issue with my Android phone in my facelift S3 and I can't find a way around it. I tried the Developer Options but this did not resolve it for me as each time my phone connects to the car's wifi it prompts to sign in and then as it can't get a network connection it times out.
So frustrating

 

[scoobysnax_99]

I managed to resolve this issue on my Android Galaxy S8 by enabling "Smart network switch" which seems to detect that the WiFi in the car is unusable for internet access and remain connected and then use the phone's mobile data for internet access instead.
To enable this go to Settings > Connections > Long Press on Wi-Fi > Advanced > Smart network switch.

Hope it works for someone else.