Ormond2004

I had a rushed delivery and Mbrace was never set up on my car. I did receive lots of annoying letters to activate and buy the service. It was as if I owed them a debt.

The connectivity was far better with my Audi. Mercedes has really done nothing to make me feel special or valued as a customer. I do love my S550, but not the treatment from corporate or the local dealership.

cmpcpro

I've owned a handful of S classes I just bought a 2006 S55 and am going to be setting up the Mbrace on it. Why? Because one night I had just filled my gas tank and was driving home when a young punk ran a stop sign with no headlights on and t boned me as I was going through the intersection (only stop signs on his side, not mine). The whole reason I keep buying S classes was because of that night. He hit me so hard right where the front drivers side door meets the front fender I felt like I was in a NASCAR. Driving along, BOOM! Tires locked and skidding sounds as I go into the parked cars (hardly hit them because the car locked the brakes). I was stunned and out of it, but it was the first time I had been in a car with airbags deployed so I smelt a burning smell and it seemed like smoke was filling the car but I believe it was the airbags after the fact. Anyway I sat there stunned until I heard someone calling my name. It was Mbrace! They were calling for me over and over and that snapped me out of it and I spoke something I don't remember. They said we have detected air bag deployment we have help on the way. Smelling and seeing what I thought was smoke I mumbled the cars on fire. They called me by my name again and asked me if I was okay. I told them I was. They said I needed to get out of the car right away and they were now routing the fire dept to me also. I crawled out of the car and realized it wasn't on fire so I sat on the street and talked to them from there. After I started coming to I got up and realized I was okay. I thought my legs were going to be gone but I was okay because the car kept its form. The car that hit me was a late model Toyota Camry and it was completely gone up until the windshield. The front was smashed up to the windshield and parts and fluid were scattered everywhere and that guy was still in his car. By then people were coming from all over and rescue came and had to help the guy but I was completely fine besides a little sore the next day. That night I had an epiphany. I was always so obsessed with my cars but it didn't matter anymore. I was alive when I shouldn't be. I wasn't a bit sad about the car because it saved my life. I became happy and told my family who rushed over it was okay. The car saved me, I'll just buy another one. A few days later I got a check from Geico for almost 4K more than I paid for the car and a week later was driving a two year newer W221. Sorry for the long story but I have seen what that service can do. Had that car have been on fire I could have been gone if it wasn't for them calling my name and snapping me out of that shock. Well worth it for me.

RSouthern

Technically I think 3G is early 2000s technology

However to your point and question, I tried mbrace when I got my CPO 2015 S550 back in October 2016. I got a trial subscription (3 months) and gave up and canceled before they switched to automatic billing. All it can really do is remote lock and unlock for a 2015 car. You need the 2016 model or later to do remote start.

The reason I canceled is the service coverage was poor in my area (San Jose, CA) and the options offered by mbrace are pretty limited. They seem to have 3 tiers for the service, the lowest is just the emergency calling from the overhead panel and automatic emergency notification in the event of airbag deployment. Not that useful I guess until you need it. The next tier (basic?) allows you to lock/unlock the doors, send addresses to the car from your phone and receive notifications when your car is started or unlocked (e.g. by a valet). You have to reset the notification each time it's triggered (which is pretty dumb), so it's not too useful and since many valets for hotels park the cars in underground garages (in LA, San Jose and SFO), the phone/data coverage from the Verizon 3G network won't work (unless the car is parked close the the entrance or exit). The 3rd mbrace tier (highest) allows you to Geo-fence the car and receive a notification when it goes outside the area, and I think set speed limit alarms, and have concierge service but this is also pretty pricey and again, of limited use (in my opinion). The value of these options probably depends how you use the car. It wasn't worth the $1/day to me to have the middle tier to remotely lock/unlock and to constantly set/reset the notifications when I valet the car. I don't think MB did much usability testing when they contracted to have the application written and I imagine the app creator doesn't have context for how s-class users use the car.

The app you use (mbrace) isn't too bad overall, but it's not a modern design, it's an old/outdated design reflecting design standards from 10 years ago and time and design language for apps has moved on. Alternately, you can use the Mercedes Me app to connect to mbrace features, but it's not really any better design wise and has a bunch of extra junk you may not use like finance information if you are financing the car through Mercedes.

You can also pay for the mbrace applications on top of the mbrace service. This allows you to have traffic via mbrace, have some Internet Radio options and stocks, news and weather, however given how slow the 3G (Edge) wireless experience is, you may decide that asking Google or Siri will get you a better answer, faster, and not limit you to having the car in park to get that information.

It's too bad Mercedes doesn't have a good app team (with an update/refresh plan) and good application integration with new web applications. Mercedes should also have designed a modular wireless radio system so they can upgrade as new technology becomes available. The wireless link could have easily been modular to improve data transfer rates as costs came down and 4G and 4G LTE (and soon 5G) became available. They didn't, so I personally think that mbrace and the Mercedes wifi design in general, is like having a DVD based navigation system, or a pager, or a Laser Disc player, or a DAT player or an 8-track... an obsolete technology, superseded by cheaper and better options. My advice, just use the data plan on your phone and ask Siri,Google.

-Richard

Steinhart

Almost the exact same story happened to me, which is why I drive an S class.