[northernmonkey]

now that I am signed up for connecteddrive I decided to try the "BMW Routes" site http://www.bmw-routes.com/de/en/index.jsp thinking it was some sat nav pre-programmed sightseeing download gimmic.

how wrong.

its bloody fantastic. great feature.

so basically when i drive from home to my parents place its a 300 mile trip that I can do a number of ways depending on what time of day it is and what i expect the UK motorway network to be like.

one of the routes that I favour is not one a sat nav would normally suggest as at the half way stage you traverse from one motorway to the other (M42 -> M1) by a stretch of A-Road (dual carriageway for none UK readers).

ok so the Sat Nav's do adjust the route as you ignore their "Please turn round" pleas but they don't learn as their route criteria are constrained.

...so BMW Routes is great. basically punch in the start post code, end post code and then hit calculate and the map gives you a sat nav style route on the web page (google maps style) BUT (and I hadn't realised this) you can then drag and drop the suggested route around so that the route is now the exact route you want to drive. neat!!!!!!

you can then send it to the car online or via USB and hey presto next time you want to go back to that place the route will load and you know the route is the route you will be driving end to end....just like in the good old days before we pledged our lives to sat nav.

why bother? well for me, ok I know where I am going on this route but I like to know before I go and as I'm driving what traffic is like on my preferred route and also the ETA. This was not really possible before as some "legs" of the route wouldn't be considered by the sat nav until it figured out I was ignoring its route and eventually threw the towel in and re-calculated itself.

not sure why I wanted to post this...but it was one of those things that I expected to be a gimmic but actually is brilliant

[james d]

What number did you phone to set up connected drive or can you do it on line? Bought mine through BMW Private Sales so don't have a dealer i can call.Thanks in advance.
Southern Primate

[sicce]

How do you sign up for BMW connected drive, I cant find any registration links for it.

Thanks
Sicce

[northernmonkey]

in the UK all new cars come with 3 yr subscription to connect. not sure about other countries.

simply fill in the online application link off page below and within a couple of days you will be sent your username and password.

http://www.bmw.co.uk/bmwuk/connected...ml?siteID=1312

[ftorres]

Interesting

I am going to try this.

btw, I usually go M40/A46/M69/M1 and like you get bored with sat nav telling me to turn round for half the journey.

When you "pre-programme" like this, how does the system re-route you in the case of accidents/congestion?

[northernmonkey]

guess it re-routes as normal. key selling point for me is at start of the journey at least it will now asses conditions on route I want to take rather than its suggested routes.

[james d]

Thanks for info,signed up and waiting for password etc