Mobile apps: Necessary, nice-to-have, or frippery?

wouldnt it be nice if toyota had online brochures explaining all the features in detail for each particular vehicle?

 

the two words that make my head explode are 'if equipped'

 

None of those remote app functionality you mentioned would apply to LE trim anyway. Your trim have no telematix to communicate. They were only available in Advanced trim (2017-2019), and AFAIK the Toyota Safety Connect is still available in 2020 Limited trim free for 3 years but after that on subscription base.

For summoning Toyota roadside assistance during the two year window for your trim, I think you would have to make a phone call. No, you do not need a phone app for it, but there maybe some easier way to connect (place a phone call) to TOYOTA via the phone app, but I don't know for sure. I have never used the service myself. Just remember that Toyota roadside assistance will tow your car only to the nearest TOYOTA DEALER, no other place. Even if your car is broken down with flat tire a few miles from a tire shop or your home where you want to tow your car to, your choice is always the nearest TOYOTA DEALER, which may or may not be open and any repair required will cost you $$$ if not covered by the warranty such as simple flat tire.

 

One may ask the purpose of Toyota Safety Connect, given that it provides some roadside assistance services similar to, but much more limited than, those provided by AAA and other 3rd party organizations. It would seem that one could just use one's cellphone to call AAA if assistance is needed.

However, the one thing Toyota Safety Connect does is interact with your car's systems to summon assistance automatically when air bags deploy. If the driver has lost consciousness or is unable to reach a cellphone which has gone flying in the dark following an accident, the Safety Connect system is still supposed to activate -- and this could be very important to you.

Now, I agree with all the comments about the stupidity of Toyota not equipping its roadside service providers with a temporary spare tire to lend spare-less Prime owners. But that's a different matter.

 

Yes, that's all true. But OP has 2020 PRIME LE which does not have the telematics needed to communicate automatically. He has a complementary roadside assistance service that comes with Toyota Care but not Toyota Safety Connect with his car. And for using the roadside assistance, he needs any phone apps.

 

Off-topic, but kinda relevant: there was a case in Toronto recently, someone's near-new Honda Accord was stolen. The car has a built-in tracking device, but the owner hadn't kept up (or started after a trial period) the subscription for that that service. Honda could locate the vehicle, but was refusing to divulge the location lol.

Consumer SOS: Honda saw stolen car and wouldn’t help police find it, customer says | Globalnews.ca

 

Hmmm... I recall reading about some county in Texas where the Fire Department would respond to a call but would not put out the fire in someone's house until they'd written a check for past due taxes to the county. C'est la vie.

 

Ouch. I'd imagine they had more than a few checks bounce? Desperate times...

 

Safety Connect is also available in the 2020 XLE as it's in mine and dealer informed me I should activate it for a 3-year trial. Of course, Toyota being Toyota, he didn't have any written documentation to give me, the web site is just an ad for the service without much info, and everything prompts me to install an app of questionable quality/utility in order to activate/use it.

It would really be nice if they could have found just a little bit of printer ink for just a few more pages along with all my other purchase documents to give me something that clearly explains "these are the services that come with your car, here's how to activate and access them, here's what they do, here's what they'll cost as a subscription after the trial period."

 

Wow that's a news to me. I just checked Toyota site. I stand corrected that it seems for 2020 model Prius PRIME all three trims have Safety Connect standard, which means all three trims have the needed telematics for communicating with the car with apps and dispatcher. However none of trims seems to have the PRIME APP (remote climate controls, car finder, remote charge monitor, etc.) which use to be available only on Advanced model. Interesting, that this fact has not been brought up as much.

2020 Toyota Prius Prime MPG & Price

 

So for 2020, all of the trims have the built-in cell phone to support SafetyConnect, but none have the remote apps that piggy-back on that functionality in the pre-2020 Advanced trims?

Another feature of SafetyConnect is that is uses GPS to report the location of the car to the emergency dispatcher in case of an accident. This is a real advantage over just having the driver use their cell phone to call 911.

 

That seems to be the case, but I don't know for sure. There are enough 2020 Limited trim owners complaining not having the Prime App functionality. So it would be odd to expect the lower trims to have that functionality.

 

I thought it had to do with compatibility with Entune 3.0. The Limited has the 11" tablet which seems to be incompatible with the Entune 3.0 connected features.

 

I don't know for sure, but if that is the case, 2020 LE model with 7" screen Nav should be able to handle the App. I have not seen any 2020 LE owner claiming their car has PRIME App.

 

See my comment #32. Toyota Safety Connect is available for all trims, unlike previous years' models. I don't think you have to have the phone app to enable the Toyota Safety Connect, but you do have to sign up with them to open an account, and the car may require the update of Entune to allow the Toyota Safety Connect to function properly. But, since I don't have the Toyota Safety Connect on my car, this is mostly my speculation.

 

I would think that it would be real easy to determine if the other 2020 trims have Safety Connect: Do they have an SOS button? This is what you use with Safety Connect to manually place a phone call over the built-in cell phone to the Safety Connect dispatcher. It has nothing to do with the Remote Entune Apps or the user's personal smartphone. You can enable the Safety Connect functionality using this "SOS" feature, after convincing the dispatcher that this is a registration call, and not an emergency. This is probably the easiest way to do it, since all relevant account information about the car will be automatically presented to the dispatcher, and all you need to provide is some personal info like an e-mail address. This is what I did, for both my 2012 PiP and 2017 Prime.