[eddiehaug]

     Featured on BIMMERPOST.com

https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/globa...cles-worldwide



New Remote Software Upgrade available for over one million BMW vehicles worldwide.

February 22, 2021

It is the biggest over-the-air upgrade in the history of the BMW Group. The rollout of the latest version of BMW Operating System 7 (ver. 11/20) will get underway on 22.02.2021. Over one million vehicles worldwide from the premium carmaker across more than 20 models are due to receive the software update, setting another new record for the largest over-the-air upgrade campaign ever carried out by a European manufacturer. Highlight features of the latest software version include deep integration of the voice assistant Amazon Alexa for five countries, the ability to quickly and easily sign in with your driver profile once on board using the My BMW app and expansion of Active Navigation to cover additional countries. Customers will receive a push notification in their car or in the BMW app on their smartphone as soon as the upgrade is available for their vehicle.

New and extended functions.

• The deep integration of Alexa means customers can now use the voice assistant from Amazon in their car in exactly the same way they already do at home. As a result, editing shopping lists, accessing the latest news and playing music are even easier. And users can now also control compatible smart home devices from the car. Amazon Alexa is being made available for Germany, Austria, the UK1, Spain and Italy as part of this upgrade. Amazon Alexa integration will be extended to more countries in subsequent upgrades.
  
• The personal BMW driver profile can now be transferred to other BMW cars, including rental vehicles, quickly and easily by scanning a QR code using the My BMW app. Climate control and navigation settings will then be automatically imported into the vehicle along with the driver’s favourites. Personal settings for e.g. seat position, exterior mirrors and driver assistance system preferences can likewise be stored in the profile. If a customer has linked their profile with the car key, their settings will be applied on opening the vehicle.
  
• The BMW M Laptimer promises even greater driving pleasure on the track with the help of sensor data gathered directly from the vehicle (including accelerator position, rev speed, G-meter). Lap times, driving time and distance travelled can be viewed at any time, even while on the move, helping the customer to keep improving their personal track performance. Once their session is over, all the data from the BMW M Laptimer is compiled into a user-friendly format so that it can be analysed at leisure.
  
• The latest upgrade for the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant offers customers a taste of the sound made by BMW M models. A question along the lines of “Hey BMW, what does a BMW M8 sound like?” prompts the arrival of a stirring aural accompaniment to sports performance.
  
• It is important to change lane safely and in good time when driving abroad, too, of course. The Active Navigation feature offered as an extended function of the Steering and Lane Control Assistant will now also be available to aid drivers in France, Portugal and Spain. This function suggests making a lane change whenever one is required to follow the calculated route. If a gap in the traffic is detected, Active Navigation will wait until the vehicle is level with the gap before prompting the driver to change lane.

Function enhancements

• Besides the standard pictures available, a personalised profile image can also now be added to the user’s driver profile. Image and profile can be synchronised easily using the My BMW app.
• To help customers delete their personal data and My BMW app links when handing back or returning vehicles, all associations with the My BMW app or BMW ID will now be cleared when the customer resets the vehicle to the factory settings.
• This Remote Software Upgrade will also update the vehicle’s Integrated Owner’s Manual with the latest information.

Remote Software Upgrade and rollout.

Since 2018, BMW Operating System 7 and the Remote Software Upgrade facility have offered BMW drivers a quick and simple way of keeping their vehicle up to date with the latest software. New functions can be conveniently imported into the car over the air. The installation files are prepared in the vehicle in the background. Once this has been done, even major updates rarely take longer than 20 minutes to install.

Due to the coronavirus situation and the resulting impact on available support capacity, the rollout of the current upgrade may be postponed in certain markets.

Vehicles including BMW Operating System 7 that have been manufactured since November 2020 will have already been equipped with the latest version, complete with the additional functions. Customers can check the software status and search for available upgrades by going to Remote Software Upgrade in the vehicle settings. Remote Software Upgrade is now available for over 20 BMW models spanning almost the entire BMW range. Customers whose vehicle’s software predates the 07/20 version will have to download and install this intermediate version first before they are able to install the latest version. Users are only ever offered the next upgrade that it is possible to install, meaning they can never install an incorrect version.

The availability of services and functions varies depending on the vehicle’s equipment features and the country at hand. Customers can find the release notes for their market on the relevant national BMW ConnectedDrive website.

The related BMW How-To video contains instructions and handy tips on Remote Software Upgrade.

[GOLFFRR]

Amazon just touching everything these days

[sward]

When will we get apple car key support for cars produced before august 2020?

[bhe]

Meanwhile I'm still on 2019.11 (that I received OTA)
like others already checked many times, but car still says I'm on the latest version. And newer versions exists for g05...

[nicky dj]

Am I reading this correctly? All cars made post 2018 receive this upgrade

[SHARMAATL]

This is an incredibly lackluster update and just shows how absolutely useless BMW's OTA offering has been.

1. Why do I care what an M8 sounds like while I'm driving? I'll just watch a Youtube video later to see

2. If I'm already in the car, I've already made my shopping list. Alexa is useless as I already have the regular personal assistant.

3. Personalized profile images? My 2013 Acura had this.

4. M Laptimer. What percentage of BMW owners are tracking their cars?

Tesla is over there improving actual performance, allowing reading and response of text messages, adding full apps like Twitch streaming, and adding creative abilities like Camp Mode.

This is BMW tech engineering phoning it in yet again.

[Game]

For such a big update, the content is rather disappointing.

But I guess the M Laptimer will be cool to some.

[johndeere]

LOL the most useless update ever released. BMW step it up, son.

[darksilkx1]

Originally Posted by GOLFFRR

Amazon just touching everything these days

Alexa I need a new BMW.... Calling Kwinn Knight and Jimmy Bach.

[GOLFFRR]

Originally Posted by darksilkx1

Alexa I need a new BMW.... Calling Kwinn Knight and Jimmy Bach.

haha love that! those guys would both love to be part of Alexa's narrative lol

[swagon]

Originally Posted by SHARMAATL

Tesla is over there improving actual performance, allowing reading and response of text messages, adding full apps like Twitch streaming, and adding creative abilities like Camp Mode.

This is BMW tech engineering phoning it in yet again.

Tesla is so amazing that their cars have a fart mode and their consumer-grade screens don't last for more than a few years! All hail farting cars and twitch streams.

[PABrian]

Originally Posted by sward

When will we get apple car key support for cars produced before august 2020?

Probably not going to happen. There are hardware differences between the original Digital Key and the newer version. The original version was effectively a proprietary Samsung function, while the new one is industry standard.

[backslashv]

It'd be cool if the car could open/close the garage door when approaching/leaving.

[NISFAN]

I'm so excited about this I could just scream.






Not really

[hdahman]

Originally Posted by backslashv

It'd be cool if the car could open/close the garage door when approaching/leaving.

IFFT has a plug-in to close when leaving within a distance. Opening when arriving home , didn't see that one yet.

[LogicalApex]

Originally Posted by nicky dj

Am I reading this correctly? All cars made post 2018 receive this upgrade

Sloppy wording by BMW as usual. The G30 (MY2020) and G01 are excluded.

[Scrippy]

This is mostly useless stuff. All I use is the M-Laptimer and that still works on my shitty CIC so what really are they offering here? BMW needs to get some of the old development team back together and get back to driving pleasure. Just my 2 cents though.

[SHARMAATL]

Originally Posted by swagon

Tesla is so amazing that their cars have a fart mode and their consumer-grade screens don't last for more than a few years! All hail farting cars and twitch streams.

The point is that their updates actually add things their users want. You can quote the fart mode and laugh at it all you want, but they doing that PLUS adding more substantive content.

The quality of their screens wasn't really part of the conversation until you felt you needed to bring in an ancillary, un-related issue to help bolster your argument?

I suppose one could just make the argument that adding in the M8's exhaust sound is just another way of adding in a type of fart mode.

[velvet_F82]

Alexa? No thanks.

[Wild Blue]

If I'm reading this right, does this mean that the USA market will not get this update, since we don't have the specific "My BMW" app?

[eddiehaug]

Honestly, I want to think that this is kind of a milestone in their project to bring OTA software delivery at scale, one that has taken many dev hours to pull through. If successful, I hope they move quickly to scaling the effort even further.

Once that's done, I truly hope they're planning to re-align their dev resources to start bringing actual innovation to market, and not just patches and mimicky software.

For BMW, getting to this stage has probably meant a lot of organizational changes and investing a lot of resources, so I wanna give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they'll be innovating faster moving forward.

[Poochie]

Cool, Alexa; so now you can order some toilet paper replenishment, all while you're chopping it up around the apexes..