rccoleman

I've been using the nav system in my 2018 S5 more lately, and I've found Online Destination via Audi Connect to be really, really slow to start up. I usually want to start entering a destination right away when I get in the car, so when I can't find what I want in the built-in database, I try Online Destinations. Here's what happens for me:

• The nav system itself takes 15s or so to boot up
• I hit the left button from the destination screen to get to the menu that has Online Destination in it
• The Online Destination menu item starts grayed out, and becomes active in 30-45s
• When I select it, it goes to "Checking subscription" for 90 seconds (I timed it)
• I write out a search term on the MMI dial
• Another 90 seconds passes while the activity indicator spins around before any search results show up

All told, I'm waiting for 3-4 minutes after starting the car before I can start navigating to a destination. I have good cell signal at the time, even better than my iPhone when both using AT&T, so I don't think that's a factor. The Google Earth overlay also takes a while to come up, but it was fully up at the 90s mark, while the search results took about twice as long to show up. That tells me that the car was already able to talk to the server, verify me, and send data long before I got any search results.

Is that delay typical? It's much faster to use the built-in database, but it's more fickle about wording and it'll always be out-of-date compared to real-time online results.

superswiss

That sounds excessively slow. In particular checking for the subscription. Something is not right there. That shouldn't take as long. There's a bit of a delay to establish the cell connection, but in the newer cars they should maintain the cell connection even if the car is turned off, so that the MMI connect app can check the car status and remotely lock/unlock. So, that also doesn't sound right that Online Destinations is grayed out for up to 45s. That is the case on older cars as they have to establish cell connection first every time the car is started. I usually start driving and a couple of blocks later the Online Destinations become available.

Beyond that you are pretty much using the slowest possible user interaction to do this. Voice is much much faster. Just press the voice button and say "Google search <search term>". Done, it will start searching immediately. Then pick from the list and you are done.

rccoleman

superswiss

That's further indication that something isn't quite right with your system.

OneOfOne

try the mmi connect app. its much easier to select a destination and then send it to your car. then in audi connect select my contacts and then destinations. very nice.

rccoleman

I've done that, but it still takes a long time for the menu option to show up, and then for it to check my subscription, and finally to get to the item that I just sent. It basically follows the same sequence as Online Destinations, without the need to enter the address from the car. Incidentally, I wish that the MyAudi destinations were more integrated into the nav system - it takes a while to drill down into the menus and find the address that I just sent, rather than just having it show up on the "enter destination" screen, and I couldn't figure it out the first time without consulting the manual. It feels like it was just tacked on, rather than being smoothly integrated.

PowerStroke

Did you ever get this sorted out @rccoleman? Having the same issue in my 2018 RS3. Entering destinations is frustrating, and if i use the MMI app to send destinations to my car, it takes ~5 minutes for the car to actually be able to retrieve that destination from the online 'myaudi contacts'.

rccoleman

PowerStroke

Thanks for your input. Disappointing, considering my wife's 2014 A4 has a pretty much unusable nav system as well. Thought they would have made it better in the last four years. Crazy how unusable it is. I'll be moving to Waze/CarPlay when iOS 12 is released next month. 0% chance I will purchase the Audi Connect subscription.

rccoleman

It's an value-added feature that they tacked on without really trying to integrate it, and I don't think they expect the vast majority of folks to continue paying for it after the trial. If they wanted to do a better job of integrating it and tied it to a longer free period (like the 3 years that BMW offers), it would probably deserve more effort on their part. I'm curious to see how well it's tied into the new A6/A7/A8 system.