Google Earth Thread
 

Anyone know what 5f unit is required for google earth with Sim slot

if you have google earth working on 3G whats your h/w and s/w revisions for 5f

or does anyone have it working on the older units with 2G, Does it work well?

No idea, but can you introduce the new 'lady' please? :)

of course how rude of me

Tillie in white about to go for a skinny dip

Rosa left and Rachelle Right

I had Google maps working fine on my original MMI unit, which had a maps and firmware update from the dealer when I bought the car. It had a built in SIM slot, but I used RSAP to connect via the SIM in my phone.

It only connected as 2G (GPRS) speeds, but for maps it worked just fine.

VCDS Scan of that unit is here:
Audi changed the 5F unit to a newer one (at great expense it seems), which now connects a 3G speeds, maps works just the same (maybe loads faster, not really so as you would notice) but they forgot to do a maps update - which they will do when they next see the car :)

Scan of the "new" 5F module here:
If you don't have a SIM slot, I believe that you can re-code and use WiFi to connect via your mobile or alternatively you can plug a USB dongle in via the AMI. Have a read on the A5OC, lot's of detail on there +++

If you do have a SIM slot, it is as simple as firmware update and a bit of coding +++

Thanks Paul that's great advice

I do have the sim slot so looks like I need the firmware update.

Good to know. I have it booked in to be done in a couple of weeks

No problem at all, the 2G vs 3G speed thing was more of a niggle than anything, but they agreed to fix it as part of a number of things they had to sort out, it was an approved used car but it wasn't warranty work - they did it as good will.

If it was my own money I'd already spoken with Hazzydayz, they would have replaced the components within my original 5F unit for a few hundred quid which would have been much more palatable, but as a main dealer they didn't have that option so had to swap the full unit - the rough cost of the new 5F unit was over £3k :ROFL:

Forgot to mention, the only thing I don't have working is Google Traffic, I coded it in but because my car VIN wasn't on the Audi servers it wouldn't sync. You can change the VIN in software in the 5F to get around this (clone a car that is eligible) but as I still get traffic info via TMC and as they still need to do a software update for me, I haven't bothered.

thats great info

Will try the firmware update and see how it goes, if Google earth works as well on 2G its good enough for me. if not will visit Hazzydays, they seem to know their stuff there, and can unbrick mmi's too

What do you mean 2G ? No D4 has 2G they have 3G+ high and low... you will have a 3G+ low prep. In that case you will need the same as me K900 software +++

If you need help let me know. I have all the maps and new software and can update it for you if you wish +++

The early D4's have 2G Mobile service, not 2G MMI.....

This thread is about upgrading the radio gear to 3G mobile service which is needed for the google maps 3G+ MMI update to be truly useful...

Thanks for the offer guy, I have it booked in tommorow to do the update to 900, though by the looks of the firmware the GEMMI was introduced around the 614? ish mark. as IT says i was reffering to the radio 2g rather than mmi 2g. others have led me to believe that it will work ok on the 2g mobile network so will see how it goes.

Ah I see so the internal telephone module itself I did not realise they had 2G in terms of data ... shame there locked to 3G .. you would think with 4G service now Audi would use the 4G network. .. would make on board WiFi ect much more useful.

I think there is a way to change the modem to allow 4G but can't remember how.... might make that my next mission to convert to 4G :D

I see no reason why it would not work +++

I'd imagine it will just be a tad slower to load than 3G ... but then the 3G is not all that fast anyway... when using online services or Google Street view it could be much faster

if we wait a while i imagine the next 5f unit will have 4g if it hasnt already. there is a firm down south near hemel which can change parts of your 5f to upgrade it to 3g for a few hundred quid ive heard.they also specialise in bricked units.

Depends where you live or drive. We don't have 4G signal either where I live or work but in the nearby towns which I have tested 4G is much slower either because signal is poor or because it's overcrowded. Every time I tested I was getting 1-2Mbps if phone left on auto and connecting to 4G and 5-14Mbps if forced to only use 3G. And it seems battery lasts longer as well when forced not to use 4G.

I used to get a faster 4G mobile connection on the Brighton mainline trains than I had through my cable broadband! Connection can be flaky but when I lose 4G I usually lose all connectivity including for voice calls....

The A7 I have at the moment supports LTE (4G), the latest 5F for the A8 does not.

You can update the mobile chipset within the 5F unit, but the later chips use a different form factor so it get's more complex than just soldering!

The good news for you is that google maps will work fine on 2G mobile connections +++

All done, just back from Audi - updated to 0770 - couldnt wait for them to do the 0900 - can do that myself if i want to just didnt want to go through all the updates to get to it.

Can confirm they went from 0065 to 0770 in 1 hit, no problems - google earth came up as soon as i put in the sim and connected

google maps worked instantly no loading or lagging - the street scene picture thingy takes about 8 seconds to fully load, seems fine to me on 2g

have yet to look around at any other changes, i ncan now see the google connect icon on the main screen, can choose google maps from the nav settings, and now have a menu for wlan

Great news +++

Great news.... How long would you say it took end to end ?

2 and a half hours i reckon, the car went straight in when i arrived but no doubt there was also some dithering about time before they started. they then spent some time seeing if they could enable google earth, they then asked if i was ok with just the update because they couldnt or wernt allowed to put google earth on themselves. the tech had previously told me he had doubts that if i didnt have it from new it wouldnt work even after the update

i said yes no probs, they did liven up the engineer hidden menu so that i could do it.

Went to the car, pushed in the sim card in the slot, told the nav to use google maps, and it just worked. doesnt appear to be any probs using 2g.

Dam, I'm so tempted to do it on mine, but knowing my luck, something will go wrong, then someone will ring wanting to buy it ;)

It would be most satisfying to get "something for nothing"....

I'm particularly interested if the Wifi hotspot works. I don't *need* speed, but just for my phone to be able to tick away and suck down emails at 2G while I'm driving would be a bonus so they're there when I'm at a standstill etc.

i know , so tempting, could be done in a couple of hours.

it does seem that it has a few failsafe mechanisms in it, doing checks first to test whether its a viable update for whats already there.

It will +++

wifi worked really well, i took my laptop out and used the wifi, and was suprised at how fast it was

Dam it couldn't resist.

Already regretting it. I've been sat in the car in the sun for an hour now.

At least when watching paint dry its a little easier to predict how far along you've got.... +++

good luck, i thought you would

its doing the same number of updates as mine

after about an hour and a half it got to number 4, the rest went much quicker probably an hour more.

Zipped ahead now, it's on 10 of 16..... +++

did you remember to do it manually ie not doing the bose update

Yes, but the engineering menu absolutely would not come up.

But, having looked at the 'auto' update, it didn't include a Bose firmware update anyway, so I went for it....

All updated, now running 0770.

But no sign of wifi or google maps ?

What have I missed out..... ?

what version was that then, i thought you were doing 770

i told them that after the update i was expecting to see the Audi connect icon on the main menu, when he came back to me he said "we managed to get the icon you wanted we have put the engineer menu on for you we cant get google earth to work"

it did however work as soon as i got in the car, so i think they did enable something in the hidden menu, they just didnt know it.

first thing to check if its still not there is hidden menu under GEMMI, make sure its activated.

have a look in nav/settings - see if you have the google earth option under map types

Yup, 770.

Audi Connect icon has been there since the update, and is greyed out until my rsap connects, then its happily selectable.

There is no 'map type' in the sat nav settings.

Wonder if I need a newer map ??.

Doesn't explain where wifi went though.

So, no down sides to doing the upgrades, but no upsides yet either !

took me a wile to find the wlan, its somewhere stupid like in the media sources or bluetooth

so def need to liven up the gemmi then , that will give you the extra menus

I had already tried starting it, but no joy..... (green menu worked fine after the update to 770, but not before)

I've run out of time for today, might have to be a weekend play....

ok will check out my notes on hidden menu and see what else i can find

Ta... +++

If it helps my coding is:

heres a couple of things to try

The WLAN settings are / should be in Telephone settings, also under media as an option to connect to


Green menu
/diagnose/settings/wlan_settings
WLAN activation can be enabled here

/diagnose/settings/tel_settings
Nad Activation (puts google logo on menu)
may also allow you to choose what to use as phone and which for data,

/diagnose/settings/ami_aux
set AMI and AMI BT to enable if they arent already

i also think you may need something from menucaroperation but lets see if the others do it first

Sorry for late reply.... Busy weekend.

I got WLAN working +++

I had to go to the media section first, and enable wifi from there, which then caused the telephone menu to activate meaning I could control it +++

Really, really unintuitive, but works fine. Paired up my laptop to the hotspot no probs.

Still no google maps though. Started it through the green screen, and restarted it, disabled, re-enabled, but nothing.....

Still. I have wifi, and that's a big rSap bonus...+++