idrive or car play?

[Nemophilist]

I recently bought a new to me BMW with idrive.

The connected services map updates are currently out of date and no longer subscribed to.

I can either pay around £70 for OTA map updates with live traffic for a year, or I can upgrade the system to apple car play for around £50 doing it DIY.

I have never had a car with carplay before and although its cheaper, I assume there would be larger data usage on my mobile.

I also wonder how reliable it is using carplay for maps when you end up somewhere remotely?

Does anyone here pay for connected services updates or would you change over to carplay?

Thanks

[toasty]

I went for a Mr12Volt Carplay adaptor for my F10 M5. It works well most of the time but I've had a couple of freezes. It is still controlled through iDrive.

I use Waze and Tidal most of the time. Waze seems fine if no reception but Tidal does stop is not playing a downloaded song.

[Dannbodge]

I only use google maps (carplay/android auto)

The built in sat nav has never been very good IMO and no where near as easy as using CP/AA (just being able to search on your phone and sync makes a massive difference)

[JQ]

I have a new BMW with iDrive and Carplay and always use Waze via Carplay - just such a better sat nav than anything a manufacturer will provide.

[MrBen.911]

I use Waze all the time, but my daily is slightly too old for CarPlay so I just have a wireless charging magnetic phone mount and use it from the phone screen. Done many many thousands of miles like that and not had any issues.

CarPlay is slightly nicer, and saves having your phone on a mount, but it's no big deal without.

[bobthemonkey]

The only reason really to use the inbuilt nav over Waze is if you have a hybrid and you want to use the adaptive mode to plan what mode the car is in to optimise efficiency.

[Jamescrs]

I barely touch the iDrive in my car at all it just goes straight to Car Play when I get in and I use that, Waze is my app of choice for satnav. I wouldn't buy a daily car without car play now, it's a must have for me in any car

[LordGrover]

BMW maps routing is little off, compared to google maps/waze.
My commute is 9 miles / 22 minutes via my usual route which matches google/waze. BMW invariably routes 12 miles / 23 minutes - no idea why, though it sticks primarily to A roads.

I'd not bother and use carplay if it's an option.

[Pica-Pica]

bobthemonkey said:

The only reason really to use the inbuilt nav over Waze is if you have a hybrid and you want to use the adaptive mode to plan what mode the car is in to optimise efficiency.

Explain. Surely the car optimizes all that?

[MrBen.911]

Pica-Pica said:

bobthemonkey said:

The only reason really to use the inbuilt nav over Waze is if you have a hybrid and you want to use the adaptive mode to plan what mode the car is in to optimise efficiency.

Explain. Surely the car optimizes all that?

Presumably, the car knows where you are going if you use the inbuilt nav, so it can optimise power usage based on the route, but it doesn't know where you are going if you use your phone - it's just displaying the CarPlay image from the phone.

[bobthemonkey]

MrBen.911 said:

Pica-Pica said:

bobthemonkey said:

The only reason really to use the inbuilt nav over Waze is if you have a hybrid and you want to use the adaptive mode to plan what mode the car is in to optimise efficiency.

Explain. Surely the car optimizes all that?

Presumably, the car knows where you are going if you use the inbuilt nav, so it can optimise power usage based on the route, but it doesn't know where you are going if you use your phone - it's just displaying the CarPlay image from the phone.

Correct. It will optimistically the deployment strategy based on the end to end journey; so if the last 5 miles of a80 mile journey are in a city centre it will deep sufficient charge in reserve to use at the point where the ICE would be operating at the bottom end of the efficiency curve.