Silent death of Prime apps on the 2020

Just picked up my 2020 Prius prime limited yesterday. It looks like Toyota killed off the prime apps from entune 3.0. The entune website says that it is supported, but you cannot register for an entune account. It's a bummer. Also havent been able to get Alexa to work. Anyone doing any better than me?

 

As a follow-up the 'Toyota+Alexa' application is what is available on the 2020 Primes. It isn't the Toyota skill with Alexa. Thus, you can use Alexa inside the car to do various things (check the weather, ask alexa questions, I'm assuming control your smart home), but not the other way around. It does not allow you to start the car/adjust temp/lock or unlock the vehicle using Alexa. I love the car, but they absolutely gutted all the remote functionality from it and from what I can tell, did so without really mentioning it was going to happen. You can also still go to the entune site and click on 2020 Prius Prime 11.6 with JBL and still see support for all those Prime apps even though they don't exist dor the newer models. It's disappointing to say the least.

 

I think what kills me the most is that I can't set the charge schedule without being in the car. I don't have a very stable schedule and I have to be at the car to make changes to it. Going to suck five times as much when winter hits. Ha!

 

Remote cabin control is what I was talking about, which use to come on the advanced model. I think I thought it was getting unlock/lock because that is what the normal Toyota Alexa connectivity does, but it doesn't get that. Yes, the limited is the new tol model. Anyways, my biggest gripe is missing the remote scheduler for charging. Oh well, still drives much better than my 2010 prius. Cheers!

 

Oh for sure. And I dont think they explained it would be a dumb down version either. KBB was reporting that it would have the ability to do what Alexa with remote connect can do, but that isn't the case.

Nope. That one hurts the most.

 

I have a tiny sliver of hope they might add it in at a later date. The limited still must have some sort of cell receiver that they use for safety connect. Although I wouldn't hold my breath on this.

 

I thought as such. I'd gladly pay to keep the safety connect active if it would allow me to use the cell receiver for some of the remote apps. I'm just not counting on Toyota doing this. That'll be a game time decision when the free trial expires... in three years...

 

Alexa hasn't been very helpful.It would be a little more usable if it worked both ways, I.E. if you could say "Alexa, Charge my Prius now!". But it doesn't work like that because the 2020 Prime doesn't have Toyota Remote Connect (again, I have no idea why). You can use Alexa to turn on your smart devices at home, which might be useful if you had a porch light set up or your garage door set up. One of the biggest pluses is she can be set to play Pandora or Amazon Music, something Entune can't do. I tried using her to call, but when I say "Alexa, call so-and-so" It replies "Dialing so-and-so" but it doesn't actually do anything. I think if they just gave us android auto instead it would have been an almost even trade-off to lose the remote functionality of entune. Turns out we lost that and still have a half-a$$ed version of the Alexa feature.

I'm kicking myself for not just picking up a 2019 or 2018 when they had massive rebates earlier in the year.

 

It certainly isn't an advertised feature, so I'm assuming not. I'm hoping they'll add the 2020s to Toyota Remote Connect at a later date. That would resolve some of the issues of remote functionality being gutted.