No more Entune for 2020 Prius Prime, but...

I purchased my Prius Prime LE early this year. Having had 2015 Gen3 Two and 2017 Prius Prime Premium prior to this car, I knew how bad the Toyota's implementation of Entune is and I was not expecting any improvement when I bought the car. After the purchase, I did check out all the car's infotainment and connectivity features by installing the app and registering the car, etc. They did function as intended but nothing great or impressive, except maybe Alexa +Toyota was far better than Toyota's previous iteration of the voice commands.

Then I noticed that the Safety Connect which is now standard for all trims of Prius models including PRIME was already active. Indeed the searching on the web, I found this from the Toyota's own privacy notice.

When you lease or buy a vehicle equipped with Connected Services, data collection is active. You may deactivate Connected Services at any time by contacting us; and we will no longer collect your Personal Information, Location Data, Driving Data and Vehicle Health Data.

If you do not deactivate Connected Services, you specifically consent to our electronic collection and use of your personal information and vehicle data and our storage of such data wherever we designate.

• Safety Connect. Your vehicle’s Safety Connect feature provides roadside and emergency assistance, automatic collision notifications, stolen vehicle assistance and accident advisory services. Safety Connect uses your vehicle’s Location Data, or “vehicle location” (your vehicle’s latitude and longitude) to determine where your vehicle needs assistance, your Personal Information (such as your name, address, phone number, email address, etc.) to verify your account, and your Voice Recordings (when you call our Response Center) for quality assurance.

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This means that the car as I drove off the dealer's lot was collecting my personal information, location data, driving data and vehicle health data without me activating the service. That seemed bit too much, and I really had no interest in paying fee for the service after free trial period ends, so I promptly used my registered Toyota App to opt-out the Safety Connect service.



Well, that was only a few days after I purchased my car early in the spring. Then the COVID-19 restriction came and the car just sat on my driveway. I only had very short infrequent around town drives since then. I never had reason to use any of the Apps or Map functionality on my brand new 2020 Prius Prime LE. A few weeks after the deactivation of the Safety Connect, I did receive a courtesy post card from Toyota urging me to re-activate the Connected Service on my new 2020 Prius Prime, but I ignored.



Fast forward almost 7 months, I just had the first opportunity to take my PP on a longer trip over 500 miles. While I was on the road and away from my home town, I tried to use APPS and MAP functions on my PP. I initially had the ScoutGPS working without map, but during the trip, the HU called for the software update, and after the update, I found out that the ScoutGPS and all the Entune Apps are now not accessible and function is disabled.


Quick check on my phone Toyota App revealed that I no longer have my PP registered to the Toyota App. And attempting to register again called up this page.


So, I did make a phone call to Toyota this morning and found out that since I disabled Safety Connect, I no longer have any on board Apps that was supplied by the head unit. As it turns out, Toyota App on the smart phone is the single software package that controls all the Entune App Suites including Toyota +Alexa, Scout GPS, and Safety Connect (and WiFi Connect on LE). There is no longer Entune for 2020 Prius Prime. And in order to use the Toyota App, I have to agree to Toyota's handling of vehicle data according to the Connected Services Terms of Use and Connected Services Privacy Notice, which is a broad blanket agreement to let Toyota extract any and all personal information any way they choose to collect off from the car's telematics. By disabling Safety Connect, I have opted out of all of those other features. Yeah, I knew I could not get the WiFi Connect without the telematics but I was not going to sign up for Toyota Wi-Fi Connect by Verizon plans at $35/month for 2GB or $50/month for 4GB or $70/month for 8GB. That's way too expensive. The thing is that who would thought I have to have the telematics enabled and allow the data collection by Toyota in order to listen to music on iHartRadio or check news on NPR One or ask Alexa to perform skills or use already lousy Scout GPS navi app which BTW is free for the first three years but will require paid subscription after trial period ends.

Since I have no plan to turn back on the telematics in my car to let Toyota collect free information they can sell or hackers can steal from them, I now have no reason to keep this head unit. The smaller 7" display in PP LE model has very little hybrid specific information that I may want to see. Therefore, I am now in search of different head unit with better UI and apps as well as navigation for less cost.

 

After lengthy conversation with the Toyota case manager Derek, I now know that the transition from Entune to all in one integrated Toyota App took place very recently. The company that operate ScoutGPS is now taking the all the telematic data collection functionality or something like that as he explained. I was not interested in listening all the details, but found out that there maybe a way to turn back on the just APPS and ScoutGPS part without turning the telematics back on. His suggestion was to uninstall the Toyota App and re-install and sign in with the credential Toyota has in their system. Apparently, the older Toyota Owner App is also now integrated into the single Toyota App.

I have not gone through everything but I did re-install the Toyota App and signed into the account. I will see how that works on my car later. But as far as GPS need is concerned, I am not going to count on ScountGPS to function for my next trip. I was set to buy a Garmin DriveSmart 65, but if I am to purchase a new head unit with a usable GPS, then I may not need it. Either way, I don't have intimidate travel plans for now, I can wait to see if the holiday sale will make the either purchase more affordable.

 

OK, update on using connected Apps without Saftey Connect. As directed by the Toyota Case manager, I uninstalled the ToyotaApp from my phone and reinstalled it. Then signing in to the app using the Toyota Owner credential, I was able to sign into the ScoutGPS, Toyota+Alexa, NPROne, and iHeartRadio. For some unknown reason, the LiveXLive app would not take my log-in credential. After setting the phone to connect via Bluetooth in the HU setting, I regained the functional apps in the Entune App Suite including Toyota+Alexa and ScoutGPS without reinstating the SafetyConnect telematics. It is still not the best UI, but at least all of the apps, except the LiveXLive, work now. The only thing is that the USB connection for the ScoutGPS map display is very finicky, it kept dropping the connection on and off. This was all while I had the car sitting on my driveway with the phone connected with very strong WiFi from my router, not via cellular data. With cellular signal being so patchy around here, the chance of ToyotaApp and all integrated apps to be usable on the road is slim. I think I will look for different HU.

 

AFAIK, all the Entune App Suites are now integrated into the Toyota App. Yeah, their multimedia manual is very bad. Almost as bad as some I have seen that comes with electronics sold on Amazon from China. LOL

Since the head units used in the XLE and Ltd are manufactured by a different company and not used in other models of Toyota line-ups, more commonly used 7" HU on LE model and many other Toyotas have more developed software.

No engine (ICE) can be started by the OEM app. A third-party engine stater can work, but only if the car is not plugged in and there is no charge left in the traction battery. BTW, climate control uses the traction battery charge not the power from the wall. You will find reduced EV range or longer charge time as a result.

Not likely. But who knows maybe if we complain enough. The older pre-2019 PP's received App update to include the Toyota +Alexa which is a huge improvement over the OEM voice command.