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Newbie questions

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 11:18 pm
by Woolfboy
Hi everyone

I’ve just joined the forum in readiness for my R-design Pro D4 arriving next week. Not bad as I ordered in March.....

I’ve done quite a lot of reading on the XC40 over the 9 months waiting, but have a couple of questions I hope you guys can help me on

1. I’m looking to get a detachable tow-bar fitted family soon (couldn’t justify the £1000 for the factory fitted). Are the any recommendations on what sort/make of bar I should be looking for? I’m not a big “tower”, but want to have the option as I have a trailer and bike rack

2. Is the screen able to playback videos? I read somewhere that this is possible via a USB stick and MP4 file. Did I read this correctly?

3. Can the car be used as a Wi-Fi spot? If so, how does this work? Again, I read somewhere this can be done by buying a data SIM card, but where is this placed and is it any use?

Hope you can help

Many thanks

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2018 10:37 am
by kirsty_s2k
On point 1 - although it seems alot of money, the ease of use with the volvo one really is fantastic. My last car I had a manually detachable one which meant always getting dirty. Also had issues with it getting 'stuck' if it was left in for more than a week and I had to go back to the fitter to have it sorted. My previous one did cost half the money, but then the car it was on was a quarter of the cost of the XC.

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:53 pm
by hdasmith
Haven’t they changed the rules for towbars? I tried a third party with one of my previous cars, but because it had to fit with the car’s wiring looms now, rather than cutting into the existing wiring, the third party was the same and the OEM’s.

Car can be used as a WiFi hotspot, I have a 3 SIM card - goes in the boot under the lower cargo floor - and it works fine for that. There are lots of links on this site to Amazon for the 3 card - 24 month validity for £40 in my case. As a warning though, the car does seem to use quite a lot of data itself.

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 2:52 pm
by Woolfboy
Hi

Thanks for the replies

I picked-up my D4 R-Design Pro and am loving it so far

I am struggling with the wi-fi though, as my car fails to detect either my wi-fi network at home or at work. I would have expected the car to pick both up in the same way as you would connect to wi-fi when using a phone. Am I missing something here??

Thanks

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 2:59 pm
by hdasmith
What’s the range of the car to your WiFi router? What’s your house built out of?

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:17 pm
by Woolfboy
Hi

Rough guess would be 15 meters both at home and work

Both buildings are brick built with modems on 1st floor and 2 walls to reach the car

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 5:41 pm
by NKXC40
Initially I had difficulty with the car connecting to my home wi-fi. I then asked my neighbour if I could park my car on his drive just to see if it would connect to my router and it connected fine although the signal was weak. Interestingly when I subsequently parked the car on my drive it was happy to connect automatically but the signal was very weak. The distance to the car on my drive from the router is perhaps 9-10 metres but through 4 walls.

To improve reliability of the connection I purchased a cheap wi-fi range extender and placed it in a room close to my drive (around 4 metres and one brick wall) and I now have maximum signal strength shown in the car)

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:10 pm
by hdasmith
I think range might be the problem. I would guess the range is quite low in the car to save power.

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:44 pm
by johnd
hdasmith wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:10 pm I would guess the range is quite low in the car to save power.
Doubt it - the amount of power WiFi uses is minuscule. More likely that the WiFi antenna is not well-positioned to receive external WiFi plus there's a lot of metal around in a car to block the signal. You could try parking the car differently, eg the reverse of whatever you normally do to see if this makes any difference - if you can reduce the amount of metal in the signal path (ie more glass, less metal) then it might conceivably help.

Re: Newbie questions

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:03 pm
by hdasmith
No, WiFi really isn’t a small user of power, especially when being powered off a battery. You can reduce power consumption to acceptable levels using certain methods, for example, by limiting range. Router to router has much better range than to a mobile for example.

This is why most functions use Bluetooth first, and WiFi for higher output - longer range, or more data.