Please explain Entunes

Note that Entune contains two parts: the car software and the smartphone app.
As an advance user, you actually get some useful things regarding the charging status. most people have the base models, and as you mention, most features are pretty useless.
note that the buttons in the app do not require you to be connected to your car – they just provide access to the same functionality that the car apps have but from your phone.
the first five apps you mention are imho the most useful and only available on the advance model.
Bing is supposed to let you find businesses on the map so that you can then find directions to them. only problem, bing sucks, the built-in POI database in the nav system is much better and more complete.
iHeartRadio and Pandora both let you stream internet radio into your car's audio system. For people who are into that, this could be very useful. Me personally, not so much, but that might change once I start getting reliable 3G connections around here.
OpenTable is supposed to make it easy to make restaurant reservations while driving. For people with an iPhone 4S or newer, you can do the same with Siri via the Bluetooth in the car, so this is pretty redundant (or useful for Android users)
Saved destinations are for entering destinations into your nav system. However, I can't imagine how many destinations you'd need to enter for this to be worthwhile – might as well just enter them directly on the car.
Hope that helps! And it's Entune, without the s.

 

The only way I can think of is if your wireless provider supports an email to SMS gateway. By that I mean, they provide an email address that goes to your SMS, usually, it's something like {phone_number}@{wireless_provider}.com.

There are no electric heaters in the Prius Plug-in, so remote climate will not heat the car.

Saved Destinations is useful if you want to search for something on your phone using the Entunes Bing/MovieTickets/OpenTable before you get in the car, save it to Saved Destinations, then pull it up on the Prius Plug-in without having to re-enter the POI name or address. The usefulness is reduced a little bit b/c it takes a while to sync, since Entunes takes forever to open in the car.

 

Entune in the Advanced Prius offers at least a few useful features, such as the Remote Climate. On my Basic model, I have to activate the remote AC using my key fob remote control, which has a very low range compared to other cars I've had. So I can't sit at my desk and turn on the AC ten minutes before lunch, I can turn it on when I'm twenty feet away from the car. So there's +1 for the Advanced model.

Seeing charging status seemed very useful when I heard about it, but now that I own the car, I realize that it's not too useful. I know it takes 3 hours to charge the car, and I don't adjust my life around when my battery is fully charged. What's more, the two commercial car charging networks in the US, Blink and ChargePoint, offer charging status via Smartphone apps and text messages. So when I'm charging in public, I know when my car has finished charging.

The Vehicle Tracker could be useful, especially if your car is stolen. My car doesn't have this feature.

But the other Entune features, especially on my Basic model, are painfully bad, and I can use apps on my smartphone that are far better than what the car offers. I tried pulling down baseball scores with Entune one day, and it was incredibly slow -- I have to plug my phone into USB, then start the Entune app, then start Entune in the car, and navigate to MLB, and then it slowly updates baseball scores one screen at a time. Every time I tap for a different score, it slowly downloads more data. Instead, I just tap "MLB Scores" or "MLB standings" into Google on my smartphone, and I get fully detailed summaries in a few seconds. So it makes no sense to me at all to use Entune to view sports scores, and pretty much all of the apps are just as bad. I can always get a better result using the Smartphone than I can by plugging the smartphone into my car, starting an app, and waiting for the car to slowly download data.

I know that your Advanced Prius can use Bluetooth instead of USB to enable Entune connectivity, which is a big plus. Why's that? It's because smartphones charge best with 1 Amp of charging power, but the USB connection in the Prius provides only half an Amp. So if you hold a long Bluetooth conversation with your phone plugged into the Prius USB connection, the battery will be at a lower charge than when you started driving. The solution is to use a cigarette lighter-style charger with a full 1 Amp charging power, but this loses the Entune connection in the Basic model.

 

BT connectivity is phone and carrier-specific and has nothing to do with the trim level. Also, the Advance model doesn't need a connection at all, since it has its own cellular radio.

 

(The comments in this post apply to the Advanced model.)

The SafetyConnect cell phone in the Advanced is only associated with the Advanced apps (charge level, car locator, remote A/C, and now Eco Dashboard). Those particular apps do not connect directly with the car; they contact a Web site that places a call to the SafetyConnect phone to do its functionality. Also, the Advanced uses Sirius/XM data for traffic and stock data.

OTOH, the media apps such as OpenTable and Pandora use the Internet connectivity of your Smart Phone. Particularly with iOS devices, there have been Bluetooth limitations, particularly with the Base model.

Phone/messaging Bluetooth functionality does not use the Entune application in any form; what you get depends on what Bluetooth profiles are supported by the core OS functionality of your phone. And it need not be even a smartphone; the handsfree functionality works fine with my wife's simple dumb flip phone.

 

No, the Basic model cannot support Entune via Bluetooth. If you want to download data to the car, you have to plug the phone into USB.

 

Rebond, I am sorry to disagree with you but this must be incorrect. I just used bluetooth in my base model to listen to pandora both ways. And I have used the bing to get to places many times. I also look up sports scores. All BT. display and reply to text messages etc...

My ipod is in the USB port so I do use a 12v charger for my phone, but today I did not leave it on the charger, just used the bluetooth. Thanks for the tip about the charging speed.

I can make a video or something if I am a rare case, but I doubt it. I have a galaxy S3 running ICS 4.04

 

And just a pointer. If you set your phone up as a "phone" when pairing it, that could limit you. You have to connect it as internet device or something along those lines, I forgot the label, and that will automatically pair it as a phone as well.

 

I use my iPhone 4S via BT with no problem. The only thing that requires the cable is transfer of saved destinations.
For the Internet connection, your phone needs to support PAN/DUN profiles (commonly known as personal hotspot). That's all.

 

As I recall the discussions on this, the limitations on Bluetooth are an iOS issue. Android (and even Blackberrry) work just fine over Bluetooth for all functionality.

 

Like I said, I'm using it just fine with iOS. The issue is whether you have a data plan that includes personal hotspot. If you do, it works fine. If you jailbreak and install a mod to enable hotspot even without the appropriate data plan, it's fine. If you're using your phone with an unofficial carrier, it's fine.
You just need to properly set things up, but that's all.

 

I'm what? Mistaken? Gasp! How can it be?

I tried it some more. I see that the menus on the Entune unit let me set up a Bluetooth data connection. It won't work with my iPhone, but I have a corporate account that doesn't permit personal hotspot, although it does include unlimited data, including unlimited international roaming, which is pretty sweet.

 

Oh yes, the iPhone. I don't have hotspot either.

My main question about Entunes is what do I get for $5 a month? Instead of plugging my phone's audio into the aux port, I get to control it through the MFD. Really, we are supposed to pay for that?

 

Yeah, it makes no sense on the Base model. You can get the same functionality by just running pandora on your phone and using BT audio streaming completely for free.

 

Of course, we do get it for free for three years. So maybe they'll make it more compelling in a year or two? Not that I'm holding my breath.

 

I have an android phone (HTC) and seems to work fine with Bing, Stocks and Sports over the BT. I haven't tried the pandora and other apps that need linking. I am planning to buy a 1A car charger, there is no way I can work with the built in USB charger.

One thing I really feel Toyota should work on is to have a desktop app that can transfer data to the entune app. Main thing I would say is ability to transfer the address into the car. I used to use the "send to car" with my BMW, which was very convenient with the google maps.

All I could find with Entune was searching in bing on phone and then saving it. That is too many steps that too on the mobile screen. Not sure if advanced model has better way to communicate from desktop to car (because of cellular option).

 

Base model navigation question: Is there a way to get the maps to color code the traffic condition? As such it is a very low resolution map, so not sure if it already color codes the info. But, I do see that it can bring in traffic info through the entune data, but not sure if it overlaps the data on the actual map.

 

Do not get ME started.