Phones that are compatible/incompatible with BMW Bluetooth

[sapphire_nick]

Annoying! Does anyone know if the iphone is too wide?

[davidpfitz]

Annoying! Does anyone know if the iphone is too wide?

I'd be very surprised if it did fit - there's no a whole lot of room in there.

[davidpfitz]

sorry... you answered above!!

What software version is your iphone then?

It's 1.1.3 now, but I had it working with 1.1.1 and 1.1.2.

At what stage does it fail? Can the iPhone see the BMW - does it attempt to connect?

For what it's worth, the car comes up on the iPhone as "BMW ULF".

David.

[sapphire_nick]

Annoying! Does anyone know if the iphone is too wide?

I'd be very surprised if it did fit - there's no a whole lot of room in there.

Apparently you have to modify (dremel) the eject box to get it to fit. I understand that a few people had to do this with their Razr phones. Pain, but I will do it!!

[sapphire_nick]

sorry... you answered above!!

What software version is your iphone then?

It's 1.1.3 now, but I had it working with 1.1.1 and 1.1.2.

At what stage does it fail? Can the iPhone see the BMW - does it attempt to connect?

For what it's worth, the car comes up on the iPhone as "BMW ULF".

David.

Hi David

The iphone found the car as Handsfree, but then when I selected it on the phone, the message came up on the iphone "could not connect" and then failed. I now have 1.1.4 software. Picking the car up this weekend, so I hope it does work.

To be honest the dealer gave me no confidence that they knew what they were doing, what do I do on the car itself to get it into pairing mode. The car has the prof nav and Bluetooth with telematics if that makes a difference?

Thanks so much!

Nick

[davidpfitz]

Nick - Fingers crossed it'll work for you.

There's a stack of different bluetooth modules in the Z4. Last time I saw the list there were about 10-12 different models of it in different Z4s; I guess some are more compatible with some phone models than others.

So, if your iPhone won't work with your Z4 you could just replace the bluetooth module with one that is known to work with the iPhone.

Looking at eBay, (searched for BMW bluetooth module) it's not a horrific amount of money if that is indeed the route you'd need to take (especially since you could sell your one on eBay for the same kind of money, presumably? You might even make money!)

David.

[Andy]

definitely when ive seen the 13th gen advertised it says iphone compatible, which would make sense for those dates..

[davidpfitz]

Given my Z4 is an 03 and it works, it sounds like the first ones are compatible, later ones are not and later ones again are!

[sapphire_nick]

yes, it is all very strange. I will but a new module if necessary and Ebay mine, but I really do think that the dealer could be doing something wrong. I really thought that Bluetooth was bluetooth regardless of version!

[dgm]

That's the problem, there is no industry standard for bluetooth and it's implementation varies between phone manufacturers, hence the problems getting a version of the BMW bluetooth module that is compatible with your phone.

[davidpfitz]

That's the problem, there is no industry standard for bluetooth and it's implementation varies between phone manufacturers, hence the problems getting a version of the BMW bluetooth module that is compatible with your phone.

There most certainly is. The Bluetooth SIG sets the standards ... they define bluetooth 'profiles' which manufacturers can build into their hardware. You are right, though, when you say the implementation differs between manufacturers - this seems to be the case far too often.

[dgm]

Yes exactly, no industry standard when it comes to implementation.

[gannet]

this bugs me as it seems even the manufacturers of phones change their own implementation - SonyEricsson for example, their T630 (old phone now) works perfectly with my car, but my w880i doesn't work seemlessly

[davidpfitz]

Yes exactly, no industry standard when it comes to implementation.

Is is that, or is it just that they don't follow the standards?! Either way, it's damn annoying.

Believe me, LG are the worst. My wife briefly had an LG Prada phone... with the BMW, it would pair up and appear to work fine. Great. Then the next morning she left for work and woke my up at 5.50am by calling me. Happened the next day too. Turns out, for some unknown reason when you start the BMW and it connects to the LG Prada it will redial the last called number, which at 5.50am doesn't make you popular with whoever you happened to call last the night before!!

For what it's worth, most kits are extensively tested with Nokia phones so they generally work with all kits.

[sapphire_nick]

I am really pleased to say that it worked!!! Amazing... Took a while - to start with the phone would find the car as "Handsfree" but kept saying "could not connect" - then eventually it asked me for the passcode and worked just fine. Thanks for your help! For the record, my iphone is on software 1.1.4