parkwood

I decided to use the free 1gb 28 day trial offered by SFR (vodafone) to see whether it is worth buying a separate data plan for the car which has an onboard sim card thereby stopping me being able to use my phone and its data plan.....would have been nice to have the choice!
i registered via the mercedes portal and sfr have an account set up BUT it has no car details or plans and there is NO connection some 5 hrs after registration.
i have tried to connect the phone in the car and it takes me to the sfr site but does not recognise the user name or password yet i can access the account via the mercedes me portal.
do these accounts take time to set up? I would have expected an almost immediate start.
frankly i am getting a bit fed up with the whole wretched business and the complete lack of simple explanation of what the system offers and how to make it work. And at 120euro for 50gb over a year it is not cheap.

rbrylaw

The way it worked in my car, was it took a few hours for MBUSA and MBrace to get my internet service up and running, but once it was up, you go to settings, connectivity and choose Wifi. It should give you a Wifi password, which you then go to your phone and input via Wifi Settings on your phone and voila, you should be connected. Did you use the MBrace call feature button in your car to get the service set up? It was pretty easy and straight forward to do.

Egonvdv

i just checked and it seems the mercedes me website no loger links you to the sfr/vodaphone website , cos that's how i setup my account.
by doing this it automatically had the ID of my car & the internet worked immediately upon activating.

a month ago i got a new subscription which i activated directly on https://internetinthecar.sfr.vodafone.com and again internet worked immediately

i now see on the voadaphone website that the you have to connect to the car's wifi if you want to create a new account, have you tried this?

owise check your profile on vodaphone and make sure your car is registered under vehicules. (the IMSI nr)

parkwood

Firstly thank you for taking the time to respond. It is only thanks to you I found how to subscribe as I generally only use the phone not a pc or laptop to acess either the app or portal and neither have the option to organise your options

I suspect the whole mess arises because I subscribed on the laptop on the house network but the system did not give any warnings or instructions you must subscribe from the car! Now I have an account but it has no ability to let me add the car - I get the option to enter the section add a car it then says no car is recorded but thats all nothing about add the car details here grrrrrr
I telephone the SFR help no and was told someone would phone me back, that was 4 hrs ago so I have now sent an email. I want to try before I buy so am loathe to buy a pack in the hope that will let me add the car.
Mercedes really should have proper instructions on how to do this as the technology is fairly new to people and as we all know wifi usually means hassle - hate it when we have friends with apple products without wps as it always is a faff getting them on our home system which has several devolo repeaters...
will let you know how it goes and thanks again for your valuable input.

parkwood

SFR did not respond to my email or telephone call i telephoned again to be told someone would ring back.....as expected after 2 hrs no call so i sent another email and copied my sales advisor in. He telephoned almost immediately and transferred me to someone else who indicated the car is not correctly set up on their records and he would come back to me friday as of course thursday was a jour de fete.
As expected nothing has happened.....mercedes me works fine so the car is clearly in the system. I am minded to try setting it up again from the car wi fi and see what happens.
Am very frustrated by the whole issue. All it needs is some simple clear guidelines and a proper service desk. It tarnishes mercedes reputation. I do accept they are on a huge learning curve but car connectivity cannot be that difficult to administer surely.
post has just deliverd what looks like more mercedes advertising puff....
will let you know if i ever get internet in the car working.

rbrylaw

I have the exact opposite. Internet works great in my car. Mercedes Me Connect, not at all. They had me reboot the system, disconnect from the Me Connect Server, sign out the App altogether and asked me to wait until Sunday morning, to start the connect process over again.

parkwood

I thought i would try setting up an account via the car wi fi hotspot ( i am getting a little impatient now...) set up under a new user name email etc all the same. Account set up but exactly as before no vehicle associated. It is also painfully slow.
So it seems to me there are 2 elements to the cars connectivity one that identifies it to the isp provider and one that identifies it to mercedes own servers. I could be talking complete rubbish of course
That leads me to the conclusion rightly or wrongly someone somewhere at central hq wherever that maybe has to "throw a switch" or activate the correct facilities of the sim card.
What is driving me crazy is getting a response from either SFR or my garage. Mercedes need to set up a helpline or should I contact the concierge service?
is your mercedes me working now rbylaw?

rbrylaw

My internet service is still working great. Fast secure connection, no problem. But Mercedes Me Connect, still no luck. After they had me disconnect from the car on Friday and said I can reestablish the link this morning, it sill says pending activation on MBUSA servers. I called from the car again, and at least they were able to see I was calling from the car and it was me, but no success with the Me Connect app at all. They said the people who work on the backend systems don't work on the weekends, so maybe tomorrow someone can figure it out.

parkwood

An update. My garage could not resolve the issue on site but made several phonecalls and sent me away with the instruction to buy a package of data - the sfr site had fallen over at that point and it was lunchtime (they close here it being la belle france).

On returning home i managed to record a cc on an account via the car connection to sfr but it would not let me buy data and no car was recorded.

there has been a catalogue of errors in the issueing of the carte gris (registration papers) and finally a correct document arrived Saturday. So i decided to set up a new account and was successful and able to buy a data package but the car did not connect and no car was shown......i decided to wait and checked sunday and finally it is all working.

i am left unsure whether the registration papers issue was the reason or if SFR Vodafone are just rubbish...........

now i am struggling to get mercedes link to work. The phone says it is mirror linked the car says it cannot. Anyone got any advice?

wi fi and computer issues have always been a pain maybe we should never have put them in the car!

rbrylaw

I wish I could help you. Here in the US, with the new AT&T agreement for internet, connection was immediate and very strong. For me, since AT&T is my cellular provider it even makes it easier to pay for the service as it will now be added to my cell phone bill for our iPhone's and Apple Watches in one convenient monthly bill.

Egonvdv

what do u want to do exactly? control the phone via the car ? (carplay)
If so, what phone do you have and did you use the right usb port?

parkwood

i am begining to think i am extremely stupid.....
on the connection menu i have mercedes benz apps, mercedes benz link,apple carplay,android auto... see photo


i would like to link the phone so that its screen is mirrored on the car screen. I thought that mercedes benz link served that function.
My phone a samsung S9 is seen by link (connected via the usb) and my phone tells me it is linked by mirrorlink to the car but the car says link cannot work.
Having looked at the paper book it did refer to a boite de connexion mercedes benz link so do i need to pay yet more money....
i wanted to be able to use the display for photos and youtube when stationary.
i really do not like the look of android auto at all. Its ugly and clunky looking though it does work at least. Though google has grabbed the voice commands so opens up on the phone when i try to order the car to do something
still at least the 3 mercedes apps work but not tried tidal yet via android auto......will we ever get other apps to load onto the car i wonder......

rbrylaw

I don't think you can do that. It wouldn't involve spending more money, I just don't think you can mirror your phone, actually any phone to the Comand screen, with the exception of Apple Car Play/Android Auto and use the apps that are enabled for car play.

parkwood

Yep i think you are right hence my view i am stupid expecting mb to lets us have such a facility
it would have been a nice to have but in the scheme of things not at all important.
really feel for all the poor folks dealing with the horrid recent events in california.....

ua549

MirrorLink should work. Have you installed the MirrorLink app on your phone?

MirrorLink is an open source app that is similar to CarPlay and Android Auto. It is disabled in US models by default and can only be enabled via the engineering mode menu. My service manager said that MB USA prohibits enabling Mirrorlink.

Egonvdv

it's disabled in europe as well

FedM

Does anybody connected their devices to MB Link?

parkwood

No never got it working. The internet in the car is fine as is mercedes me 90% of the time. It still is off line time time to time but not as much as it was.