Seat Connect

Educated Scruff

Active Member
Nov 19, 2020
48
10
Well I hope Seat improve the connect service, mine keeps going to limited connection (grey globe) on the infotainment.
And I read somewhere it’s 130 euro to renew after the first free year!!!........sorry seat not until things improve.
I have also been in touch with SEAT UK for help to no avail.
 

Philk

Active Member
Nov 19, 2020
117
47
100% Agree. Thus far, I have seen little that is going to tempt me to pay out given the intermittent connectivity. It's also pretty difficult to work out what would no longer be included and how that would affect the use of the car. There's very poor marketing around all of this. If the operation of the car is the same as the "grey globe" scenario then, as far as we're concerned, we would lose little by not renewing.
 

Philk

Active Member
Nov 19, 2020
117
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Just been looking at this £125 for 1 year £205 for 2 years according to the online store.
Really? Who are they kidding? Most of us have spent several months acting as beta testers (sorry, I meant to say customers), for their flaky, bug-ridden software and they want to now charge us to carry on with the experience. I hope no one signs up for this and to therefore send a message to Seat. Out of interest, what specifically gets switched off if you don’t fork out?
 
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adrian001

Active Member
Apr 19, 2016
43
9
Really? Who are they kidding? Most of us have spent several months acting as beta testers (sorry, I meant to say customers), for their flaky, bug-ridden software and they want to now charge us to carry on with the experience. I hope no one signs up for this and to therefore send a message to Seat. Out of interest, what specifically gets switched off if you don’t fork out?
Would have to have a look it was a long list. Map updates, online radio, natural voice control and text, remote services like lock and unlock spring to mind. Basically anything that uses the esim would be my guess. Some things could be done via a mobile hot spot others I think will be locked out as the are on seat servers.
 

Tell

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That's what I want to know whether they come with life time maps that you update via the USB as VW and Skoda have in mib2 or whether Seat will do the same on mib3 and say sorry you got to pay doing the same dirty. This was the question to be resolved once year 1 freebie runs out.

Well we know mib2 FeCs can be changed so will only be a matter of time if they continue their map nonsense.
 

adrian001

Active Member
Apr 19, 2016
43
9
That's what I want to know whether they come with life time maps that you update via the USB as VW and Skoda have in mib2 or whether Seat will do the same on mib3 and say sorry you got to pay doing the same dirty. This was the question to be resolved once year 1 freebie runs out.

Well we know mib2 FeCs can be changed so will only be a matter of time if they continue their map nonsense.
I will grab some screen shots tomorrow.
 
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adrian001

Active Member
Apr 19, 2016
43
9
Diving a bit off topic any one got a list of what the FeC and Swap codes relate to if the were to be activated from the engineering menu or is that a whole new thread.
 

Tell

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Diving a bit off topic any one got a list of what the FeC and Swap codes relate to if the were to be activated from the engineering menu or is that a whole new thread.
Probably a whole new thread but a photograph of the installed against the supported but not installed. Wonder if the M.I.B. collective as I call the have identified them yet @MIB-Wiki ... I have got some photos in a mib 3 Seat but don't know the decode for them as yet. May be it's easy to work them out from mib2. You start off with photos of the brands, cross out the common ones and then that leaves the specific ones by brand.

Mib2 ones here thanks to the Mib guys. Some common others specific to brand.

Unbeknown to me someone had sent me a photo I'd request of Skoda FeCs a few years back and it had thd lifetime navigation FeCs on it... I'd hypothesized whether that was it, and it was.

Suspect it's how unreasonable Seat have been this time round on user map updates via USB will temper custom software. The total package cost to what it gives you... throw in services etc.
 

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Philk

Active Member
Nov 19, 2020
117
47
Would have to have a look it was a long list. Map updates, online radio, natural voice control and text, remote services like lock and unlock spring to mind. Basically anything that uses the esim would be my guess. Some things could be done via a mobile hot spot others I think will be locked out as the are on seat servers.
Of these, only online map updates is really useful and, then, it would take quite some time for you to notice that the maps are out of date in your area. I would be more interested in the renewal if it was a "pick and mix" approach. Even so, for those of us who've had the early cars with all their glitches, you would have thought that SEAT would have provided an extra year free as a goodwill gesture.
 

adrian001

Active Member
Apr 19, 2016
43
9
OK after a wait to load these are the contents
 

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Tell

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Now we need someone to discontinue the service and see how it goes. Can you indeed update maps via the USB and that website or have they locked that down taking the Seat approach of not really being interested in providing up-to-date maps. I wonder whether they might have relented on that and fallen inline with VW and Skoda providing life time map updates via USB (SD on the old Mib2 high).

I think in anycase there is a limited number of destinations that can be stored from my reading unless that is increased from what I read - max 20 ?. Poi import will be discontinued since they need connect services.

I wasn't impressed that last destinations don't have a name except x,y coordinates from what I read ?.

Will stick to mib2 high legacy system for the time being with the liberated life time FeCs 😍. Going to sit out Mib3....
 

BoomerBoom

Active Member
Jun 1, 2018
745
271
Other than a radio, Android Auto and the actual vehicle settings what use is the whole infotainment system anyway? The satnav is basic and clunky, the online bits are useless fluff and the phone app is a joke - I've seen Chinese knock-off iPhones with better software installed than Seat cars have at the moment.

It's about time that manufacturers started copying the best bits of everyone else's software, like smart phones did ten years ago, instead of reinventing the wheel and ending up with a square block.
 

Tell

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I see they are discussing the x,y coordinate thing here


Destinations entered as postcodes get translated to x,y coordinates and stored as such. Think UK postcodes are a bolt on by the German company that prepares the Here Maps data for VAG (postcodes being a UK creation, the "postman's walk" with the letter drop off). Here Maps doesn't really store 7/8 character postcodes in it by road attribute, chumped shorter. Always better on the mib2 high which uses Here Maps to tap the address in then you get told whether it's on the left or right of the road based on the house number if digitised. Greater precision if you get a house number in if digitised. Postcodes are allocated "centroids" by the post office and if a bendy road they will be off the road. (Good for off road driving) Probably the UK liking for postcodes produces the idiosyncratic behaviour of showing x,y coordinates in the history and those off road destinations. That's for normal roads where the postcode is shared between addresses for business POIs they may well be stored with full postcode, since that"s a POI. That bar searches both. Here ends the lesson on GIS 😉.
 

Philk

Active Member
Nov 19, 2020
117
47
I see they are discussing the x,y coordinate thing here


Destinations entered as postcodes get translated to x,y coordinates and stored as such. Think UK postcodes are a bolt on by the German company that prepares the Here Maps data for VAG (postcodes being a UK creation, the "postman's walk" with the letter drop off). Here Maps doesn't really store 7/8 character postcodes in it by road attribute, chumped shorter. Always better on the mib2 high which uses Here Maps to tap the address in then you get told whether it's on the left or right of the road based on the house number if digitised. Greater precision if you get a house number in if digitised. Postcodes are allocated "centroids" by the post office and if a bendy road they will be off the road. (Good for off road driving) Probably the UK liking for postcodes produces the idiosyncratic behaviour of showing x,y coordinates in the history and those off road destinations. That's for normal roads where the postcode is shared between addresses for business POIs they may well be stored with full postcode, since that"s a POI. That bar searches both. Here ends the lesson on GIS 😉.
This is interesting. If UK postcodes are such an oddity, why can BMW's work perfectly on their Sat Nav here (I've never had any of the issues that other people have posted about for SEAT) and VAG group cars don't?
 

Tell

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This is interesting. If UK postcodes are such an oddity, why can BMW's work perfectly on their Sat Nav here (I've never had any of the issues that other people have posted about for SEAT) and VAG group cars don't?
Probably given to the lower 6th form computer club in Germany 😉. They got it correct on the mib2 high. They just need to allocate the postcode to the appropriate road segment and that road segment is stored. Use to look after a GIS system 30 years ago and we used the postcode directory in our deprivation resource allocation work. You cant get the staff now 🤣. That's when we were getting more clever.

It will only get corrected in the firmware I'd guess rather than the map release unless it goes something like the postcode hasn't got a road against it so then goes in via coordinates e.g. the table isn't completed correctly with two attributes running off it. That would be a map update rather than programming.

We use to do a bit of gravity modelling as well... what fun. Paper maps on the wall, travel times from London transport time tables and average travel times by car. Think a fudge factor got put in so the place got sited where the manager wanted it. Heaven forbid. (Not so clever)

Here Maps do use traditional methods to get road max speeds be pouring over LA and Government traffic orders. Heartened to hear.

Going back to the issue I believe it's due to that bit of Britishness they have to apply to the use of the postcode directory which VAG hasn't used with the Here Maps material and that I believe is down to the company they have the contract with rather than Here Maps itself. Basically not user tested, poor QA.

The mapping system across all VAG cars is Mib3 now Here Maps cartography. Mib2 standard Tom Tom, Mib2 high Here Maps till they stop releasing updates. At one stage the people that do the work for Vag in creating the map uploads from other people's cartography gave the game away when Seat released a QA spreadsheet on it with the author's company shown. Was a German tech automobile software company. IT people not understanding GIS are the people to blame and poor QA of their work.

Anybody who wants to play with mib3 against postcode can get the centroids off

www.checkmypostcode.uk

These should tally with the ones the unit is plastering up as destinations which are off road.
 
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DanMn

Active Member
Nov 26, 2020
19
6
Other than a radio, Android Auto and the actual vehicle settings what use is the whole infotainment system anyway? The satnav is basic and clunky, the online bits are useless fluff and the phone app is a joke - I've seen Chinese knock-off iPhones with better software installed than Seat cars have at the moment.

It's about time that manufacturers started copying the best bits of everyone else's software, like smart phones did ten years ago, instead of reinventing the wheel and ending up with a square block.
The pricing on seat connect is crazy, almost every feature is duplicating what is already done better in android auto/apple carplay;
  • Parking position
  • Natural voice control
  • Fuel search
  • Parking search
  • Route calculation/traffic
  • Internet radio
The built in navigation is actually unusable in my experience, searching for parking or fuel takes a good 20 seconds to load results, and has to load again after viewing details of each search result. Also sending a destination to the Car from the app simply doesn’t work.
So unique features are limited to;
  • Vehicle status report
  • Speed alert
  • Area alert
  • Theft alert
  • Honk & Flash
Probably worth no more than £40 a year IMO, also features such as remote Lock/Unlock arent supported by early vehicles like mine, meaning it’s even worse value for money.
 

Tell

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I'm going to wait for Mib5 circa 2030 with my electric replacement :footysup:. I'm hoping by then they might make the navigation like Mib2 with connected services bolted on with a decent memory store of destinations, POI import etc. All the things that Mib1 / 2 did but now dropped. Worst of all worlds now so it appears. I got 300 destinations stored in Mib2... I wouldn't want to be trying to find those again sitting in the car as it forgets your entries as I understand it and you can't get them in.
 

Kernow13

Active Member
May 22, 2021
50
4
Seat Connect ? Issues

At the moment "Seat Connect: is useful as a tool to check on my phone when the car outside has finished charging and not much else. I certainly do not see added value that would be worth paying for. Payment is not made explicit when you install the free-app. Anyhow my latest issues I need help with and Seat have not helped me, despite asking -

AirCon - whenever I get in the car - the AirCon has already kicked in at 16-degrees. I've switched it off, repetitively, Seat Customer Services said 'switch it off while charging' which I did - but nothing stops it ! I want to know how I can wrestle control of my AirCon/Heating from the seat Connect app - switching it on and off at MY will? Any ideas gratefully received.

ON/OFF (START button) - is it me or is the ON/OFF button glitchy ? One press nothing, two press nothing? Three press sometimes ON, etc - hopeless as a get away car! (joking) and not a good advert for my passengers to the world of seat. Do others have this issue? Am I doing something wrong? or is there something wrong?
 

Swedemike

Active Member
Apr 4, 2021
78
22
Seat app was great today. Started aircon 5 minutes before I arrived to the car and 20 instead of 50 C in the cabin. Outside temp today 32 C
 
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