Updated Toyota App - Now no Data Flow!

I'm on iOS and the Toyota App updated as you said.
In my case the look and feel of the app has changed but it still works.
Amazingly the ECO features have partially returned. No Sheep and Clouds
but I can again see my ECO History and Ranking.
You now get to that info by tapping the ">" to the right of the "% Charged".
I haven't tried it yet but from the pull down tab to the right of Vehicle Name there is
a "App Suite" card with the "Connect Button". You might try that when in your vehicle.
That same Card had the Destination Finder aka Saved Locations function and
Available Apps linking.
If you have multiple vehicles like me you switch between by pressing and holding the
Red Car button at the bottom and it activates the Vehicle Switcher.
There is probably more stuff I haven't tried but appears to be there like Remote Start etc.
ymmv
J

 

It's somehow even more useless than before. Now it doesn't display current charge status, and freezes when selecting Eco History.

 

But still no Vehicle Finder (AKA Last Parked Location). The help text for the previous version mentioned that, but the actual information was not there. Now there is no mention of it at all . This was the primary reason I paid for this subscription, but I suspect that it has been decommissioned. It's not like the telematics don't work on the 2017 Advanced any more; the other functions that require remote communication with the car, such as climate control and charge management and now eco history, work fine. Just not the car locator functionality. And it can't be that the locator functionality is broken; this is the same functionality that is used by Safety Connect to report the location of the car in the case of an accident.

 

Hmmm. I just checked on my 2017 Prime Advanced from the Entune app on my phone and it shows it's in my garage as of 3:19PM today, April 1, 2022.

Earlier today I was out to run some local errands, driving about 8 miles total, and returned at about that time.

So, the system appears to be working. Possibly your problem is local, transient and temporary.

Being the first of the month, the ECO dashboard also updated and I have FINALLY achieved GOLD status with multiple clumps of flowers appearing for the dining enjoyment of my sheep. (I had just earned GOLD status when I tried to renew my Safety Connect contract at the end of my first year in 2018. The Toyota's customer service rep could not figure out how to do that so he opened a new contract which re-set everything. I had not seen GOLD since!)

 

The Entune App was "updated" on both my Android and iPhone to a non-functional placeholder that said to install the Toyota App instead. As long as I had the Entune app, the vehicle location functionality worked just fine. It is on the Toyota App that it is MIA. If someone has an .apx (Android app file) for the Entune App, I would be tempted to side-load it, even though as a personal policy i avoid side-loading apps.

That the finder functionality still works on your Entune app is just further proof that the lack of the vehicle finder functionality on the Toyota App is an app issue, not an issue with the equipment on the car or the telematics infrastructure.

 

I suspect you are correct. I am using a very old version of the Entune app and had to turn off Android's automatic updates because it kept installing a newer version which would not work with my somewhat unusual Android phone.

The old version I am running shows a number of functions which won't work because they are no longer supported on Toyota's end: Charge Station Locator Map, Pandora, Slacker, Movie Tickets, Open Table, Facebook and Yelp.

The "important" functions (Charge Management, ECO dashboard, Remote Climate, and Vehicle Finder) still work. Also, the reasonably useful Fuel Guide (local gas prices), Weather, Sports, and Stocks.

I believe that the Destination Search functions still works and is helpful to find addresses not in the Prime's GPS database.

Note that the discontinued functions are all more easily accomplished using a basic web browser for such services as Plug Share, Yelp, etc. anyway.

The Entune app version I am running is very very old. It is 1.18.463.181 and there is an APK available. As with all APKs, be careful because the first version I found online flooded my phone with unwanted pop-up ads. I had to use an anti-malware program to remove it before finding and installing the clean copy which I am using with automatic updates shut off.

 

Our second car is a 2021 Toyota Venza. With the same latest version of the iOS Toyota App it shows last placed parked/vehicle finder. So the app is capable just not for the Prime for some reason.

 

Where does the last place parked show up? Is this the new version which came out on April 1, with the update user interface? Do you have to enable any account data privacy options other than Connected Services Master Data Consent (like the Service Connect Communication or Insure Connect)?

It is entirely possible that the Prime just fell through the cracks, and a bug report simply hasn't gotten back to the required group.Since other models support the functionality, it isn't like they intentionally don't support vehicle finder any more.

 

I’m on iOS app version 2.0.0 which came out 3/30/22.
On the Venza last place parked shows up with the FIND button on the lower right of the main screen menu bar.

 

I've had the same problem with this new app update. Nothing works.

The reporting of vehicle charging is constantly in error and when I get to that screen the app freezes completely, so the only answer is to close the app. Current economy has disappeared and it perpetually shows 0 EV miles for me. The thing is an absolute disaster and I really wish toyota would roll the thing back to the prior version or at least allow that option. Completely non-functional, useless, and extremely obnoxious are the adjectives coming to mind. I have complained to toyota support directly.

The prior version, while not brilliant at least did what it purported to do more or less without error or glitch.

This update is clearly not ready for prime time and I really wish they'd "upgrade" somebody else with it.

 

WAG: It's almost as if the updated App doesn't know the year of the car and is presenting only features common to all car years. Hence no tire pressure but battery level, Eco stuff and remote start are shown as those are common to all years. It also explains why my second Toyota has all features available as there are only two model years and features are common for those two models. If my guess is true it's just a matter of Toyota realizing the error of their ways and presenting features based on actual car's model year. I hope so.

 

I added a comment about the "privacy settings" in What happened to the Prime app?? | PriusChat

 

I think that there is some real confusion about how Toyota defines the telematics (remote) features, especially with regard to the Prime. The Toyota App talks about Remote Connect features. But actually, only the 2020 and newer Prime has "Remote Connect", which is part of "Entune 3.0". This includes things like tire pressure and door lock/unlock and such, which our older (2017-2019) Primes, (and the 2012-2015 Prius Plug-in) do not support.

Our older Prime Advanced have remote features, but under the Entune 2.0 Advanced Apps label. There were two very different kinds of Entune 2.0 applications. There are the media apps which use the user's cell phone for Internet connectivity to talk to some web service (like Pandora) and use the car's display. And there are the Advanced Apps, available only on the Prime Advanced, which provide remote functions such as remote climate and vehicle location, and were accessed only via the Entune app on the user's cell phone. The Entune 2.0 Advanced Apps use the Safety Connect cell phone that was built into only the Advanced trim to send information to a Toyota server, and the app on the phone queries information from that server and displays it to the user. Now with Entune 3.0, all trims have the built-in cell phone and can offer remote services, but now under the Entune 3.0 label. It seems that Toyota decided to bundle all of the telematics and service functions for all Toyota models into one phone app: Toyota App. In the process, they deprecated the Entune 2.0 "Entune App". They have made an effort to port the old Entune 2.0 Advanced Apps into the Toyota App, but with limited success. They likely changed the data protocols and servers and so on when they went to Entune 3.0, but haven't yet got the back-compatibility issues sorted out in the app. The 2017-2019 Prime Advanced remote services protocol is different from what is used in the 2020-current models, so the Toyota app has to know what it is dealing with, talk to different servers to get the information in a different format, and so on. People who still have the old Entune App (and have avoided the update which disables it) still have full functionality, including the beloved sheep, which tells us that the telematics software in the car and the Toyota servers they talk to are still fully functional; it is only the Toyota app that is confused.

And FWIW, the shutdown of the 3G services will not effect the 2017 and newer Prime Advanced, since they use a 4G (LTE) module. It WILL kill off remote services in the 2012-2015 Prius Plug-in Advanced, which has a 3G module.

 

In the new App my 2018 has two features of interest. Safety Connect and EV Remote Connect. I believe EV Remote Connect gave me Remote Climate Control. That no longer functions. I am paying the annual fee for Safety Connect which is the only paid option I am aware of for my model year.

 

I purchased my 2017 Advanced after they shut down the entune app. I’ve tried finding a way to download an old version of the app for iPhone, no luck…..I want the little sheep…and all the features from the prime apps.

 

I have tried getting customer service involved in fixing this app or at least rolling it back to the prior version which was at least usable. After uninstalling and reinstalling the app at their behest and getting the same result as before (a broken app that doesn't work), they say they have no estimated timeline for repair. I get the impression they just don't care.

Getting traffic information? I'd be happy if the thing didn't just freeze when I hit "ranking" under the "charge info" tab & did something other than show an EV Miles of 0 perpetually on a car I run 90% on electric alone. The app is a piece of junk.

When my freebie subscription to this POS rolls off, I'm deleting my payment information and quitting it. It's not fit for human consumption.

 

I sense you don’t like the App?