Embrace connected vehicle services — including the mobile app and in-vehicle services — will discontinue on December 31, 2025, and will be terminated as of January 1, 2026.

So they are just going to hang the 2018 and earlier cars out to dry?!!!

 

I was under the impression it was phased out much earlier due to the 3g network going down, but my only mbrace experience is with my 2012 where it was never capable of much to begin with. I think there was another thread about this discussing the lack of recourse, sadly I think this is the general case when these older connected cars lose support not much effort is put into a solution.

 

Yep, mentioned in other threads as well. Same thing happened to earlier models when 3g discontinued. This is a big negative of proprietary tech heavy vehicles. Manufacturers may think we will replace cars like "we" do phones. Little do they realize is most people cant afford this way of thinking and cant really even afford those phones, and some of us will run our phones until absolute death of the hardware. IF they were really into keeping people happy and wanted to add revenue from people that want an upgrade but not a car, this would be a module swappable tech. Pop out the old "modem" and pop in the new one. This is one of the greatest features of older cars that had separated car controls and radios. Hopefully the aftermarket steps in where the manufacturer fails.

 

I recall when mbrace support was discontinued on my 2012 the message from MB suggested a Verizon OBDII dongle with a subscription could offer similar functionality, but that did not seem like a good solution to me to even look into further.

 

Unfortunately, this is par for the course. Cloud services are eventually being replaced/discontinued as the technology stacks move on. It's the fundamental disconnect between a car having a longer lifecycle than the tech. Eventually it has to be addressed somehow. The writing was on the wall for mBrace when the 3G networks were discontinued, as many of the vehicles that were still using mBrace no longer had any means to connect to it.

This is an argument for things like CarPlay and Android Auto. You can easily upgrade your phone and essentially refresh the tech, although both use proprietary application layer protocols. We probably need an Infotainment standard similar to Matter for smart homes. We have standardized communication protocols such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but there's no standard for the application protocols that would allow for replacing Infotainment components in a car with newer hardware. It's all completely proprietary. Not sure how the future of this will look like, but as it stands, you have to replace the entire car if you want to upgrade the tech in it, minus things like CarPlay/AA that are kept fresh, but many of the newer features in those systems require support on the vehicle side, so you don't get those features with older hardware, but that's kinda the case for smartphones, too. While the latest iOS for example still supports hardware that goes several years back, many of the functions are not available on older hardware.

We have genuinely regressed when it comes to technology. Back when I started out in my teens with computers, I was able to upgrade my hardware. I could replace ISA cards and add capabilities later that the hardware didn't originally have when I purchased it. We could even upgrade CPUs as long as they were pin compatible with the existing sockets, add more memory etc. Nowadays, everything is sealed and can't be upgraded. Can't even easily replace a battery anymore. It's all throwaway and the western e-waste is piling up in poor countries such as India.

This is gonna be a huge issue in the age of software defined cars. The software can be upgraded. The new MB.OS now finally allows for OTA updates to every module in the car, so the software can be kept fresh, but the hardware will still age. LTE will likely be around for another 10+ years, but eventually today's LTE networks will be shut down as well, so then all those cars that are using LTE today will lose their connectivity. Can't turn an LTE radio into a 5G radio just with a software upgrade. It comes down to having standards. In your home you can easily replace your Wi-Fi router for example with a newer generation Wi-Fi router as they become available. For the hardwired network you can also easily replace the switches and you can effectively upgrade and replace every piece of technology in your house, because it's not fundamentally part of the house, but none of this is possible in cars today. There are no standards that would allow you to go out and buy a new 5G modem and replace the current one in your car. The tech in cars is part of the car and not something you buy/upgrade separate from the car.

 

not talking about connected services but the infotainment system since we are comparing to smartphones, Porsche does this actually but it is not cheap:https://www.porsche.com/internationa...ghlights/pccm/

 

SO just t be clear.

MBrace is being discontinued.... it is not due to the network.

My 18 is 4G not 3G but it is still being discontinued. They are pushing Mercedes ME as the one stop for all.

 

That's correct, mBrace itself is being shut down. It is related to the 3G shutdown, because the number of cars that can even still connect to mBrace such as yours dropped drastically after the 3G networks were shutdown, so making enough revenue from the remaining subscriptions to maintain the infrastructure is becoming a cost issue. There are basically only a couple of model years left of the pre-2019 W213, W222 etc. that have LTE, and still use mBrace. As of model year 2019 almost everything was switched to Mercedes me connect. Your 2018 W213 is one of those model years stuck in the twilight zone. It came out before Mercedes me connect was ready, but it already has LTE. The 2019 W213 no longer uses mBrace, so mBrace has essentially been end of life for almost 7 years now and some services such as Live Traffic were already shut down a few years ago as far as I know, so the platform has been on its way out for a while.

 

yep

personally i never use MBrace.. i connect Carplay and run waze and pandora or PowerAmp (for high res audio). What i will miss is the remote start but oh well.

 

I actually just let my Mercedes me connect subscription run out this month and I'm debating of whether I should renew it. I'm going to Europe for a month, so there was no point in renewing it before the trip, and my car is mostly a weekend car, so I haven't been getting much use out of the subscription. What I do miss is being able to keep the map up at all times and see traffic conditions along with the system announcing congestion over the speakers. That has saved me a few times by exiting the highway just in time and take local surface roads to get around the traffic event. CarPlay is a bit of a faff as I have to connect the phone, or I could get one of those wireless adapters, but then I have to plug the phone in to keep it charged as wireless CarPlay is quite the battery drain and the wireless charger doesn't work anymore with my new iPhone 16 Pro and even before that it was super slow, so I end up having to plug in the phone anyway, but if I just do it for when I need navigation, then it isn't that big of a deal. Making phone calls and streaming music works over Bluetooth as well, so don't have to plug in the phone most of the time, and the Bluetooth connection doesn't drain the battery like CarPlay does.

I use CarPlay mostly when I drive rental cars or service loaners as I can instantly get a personalized experience in any car w/o having to fiddle with the specific car's infotainment system. In case of service loaners, thanks to Homekit this also allows me to open/close my garage door w/o needing to carry a Homelink remote that I'll end up forgetting to take out.

 

Hello all it's been several years, I own a 2017 GLS 450 60k mikes, I received the same message about embrace app which worked on and off. The reason I purchased is because I'm totally disabled and it made it easier for myself or my care giver to start the car. So, when I received the message, I figured I would use the FOB remote to start the vehicle since the vehicle has remote start installed to find out from MB USA said that the FOB wont remote starts the vehicle. To call the dealer to see if there maybe it can program to start the car or maybe purchase an aftermarket remote. I looked around on YouTube and there are same vehicles steps which I tried, and it doesn't work. It's incredible that MB would force the app and disable the remote function on the FOB. It is a security and safety issue which should have been disclosed when they sold the cars. Shame on MB

 

Ask one of the premium forum sponsors: https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...wn-coming.html

 

I'm not quite following your train of thought. Remote Start could never be used as a way to start the car and then drive off. The moment a door was opened, the engine stopped, and it also automatically stopped after 10 minutes. So in order to actually drive off with the car, it always needed to be started from within the car using the fob or key. Remote Start was simply a convenience feature to cool/heat the car in advance before getting in. It wasn't a safety or security feature in any way. MB never had remote start capabilities from the fob, so there's nothing to enable or disclose. That's not a feature offered by MB.

There are aftermarket solutions for remote start that also work such that the car can be driven off once remote started. These systems however require one of the key fobs to be sacrificed and hidden somewhere inside the vehicle.

 

[ agree
yes you are correct it is a feature of convenience but in my case I need to cool the vehicle or heat because of my condition so the remote start is used, Or in other cases to cool the vehicle in extremely hot climate which I live in before my grandchildren are place in the vehicle ,without unlocking the car and leaving it running to cool offThe issue I have is the vehicle is equipped with remote start but they knew that the application would eventually change or discontinue due to technology, so why disconnect the start feature on the key FOB..



QUOTE=superswiss;9249874]I'm not quite following your train of thought. Remote Start could never be used as a way to start the car and then drive off. The moment a door was opened, the engine stopped, and it also automatically stopped after 10 minutes. So in order to actually drive off with the car, it always needed to be started from within the car using the fob or key. Remote Start was simply a convenience feature to cool/heat the car in advance before getting in. It wasn't a safety or security feature in any way. MB never had remote start capabilities from the fob, so there's nothing to enable or disclose. That's not a feature offered by MB.
There are aftermarket solutions for remote start that also work such that the car can be driven off once remote started. These systems however require one of the key fobs to be sacrificed and hidden somewhere inside the vehicle.[/QUOTE]

 

Again, the remote start feature on the key fob was never there to begin with, so nothing got disconnected. A Mercedes cannot be remote started from the key FOB. That was never offered ever. As for the app based remote start, it was clearly disclosed in the T&Cs that you had to agree to when subscribing to the services that MB has the right to discontinue any of the services at any point for various reasons such as required technology no longer commercially offered for example.

In the USA, the mobile carriers all shut down their 3G networks several years ago, which is the primary driver behind this. Most vehicles that were still on mBrace lost their services, because the 3G network they relied on for communication no longer exists. Some models such as the early W213 model years had LTE modems, so they were using mBrace over 4G LTE, but because most models were using 3G, it became no longer financially viable to support an entire platform for just a few models that happened to have LTE modems. Starting with model year 2019, mBrace was completely replaced with the new Mercedes me connect platform, so 2019+ model years continue to have Remote Start capability from the app and they exclusively use 4G LTE.

Unfortunately, this is how it goes with online services. They are eventually shut down as technology moves on, but as said, this is always disclosed from the beginning in the T&Cs that you have to agree to. Most people don't read them unfortunately and then complain later that they weren't told. Not reading the legal terms of the services you sign up for does not mean it wasn't disclosed. It just means you didn't read it.

 

Thank you for your detailed, response as for the legal description the dealer loaded the program and all I had to do is log on to the app. Im not complaining about the app being discontinued only that the MB putting a feature which is clearly installed in the vehicle not the app, could have put a manual button into the FOB as an alternative to offset the issue they knew would occur in the future with changing technology.
thank you

 

Out of all Germans, only bmw does remote start on the fob I think.

 

Yes, they could have. As stated above, BMW is the only German brand that offers key fob based remote start. For the most part, Remote Start is an afterthought on German cars, because it's illegal in Europe. You are not allowed to idle an unattended combustion vehicle anywhere in Europe. So the feature is fundamentally illegal in the motherland, and is only offered in markets such as the USA, and most of the time it's not fully backed as a result. BTW, Remote Start is also illegal in some US municipalities as they have adopted similar laws. So even though the feature is available, it may not be legal to use. Just something to keep in mind. There are cases of people having been ticketed for idling their unattended vehicles in their own driveways. Although in the US, these laws are primarily aimed at preventing car thefts as it seems there are still people who think it's a good idea letting their car idle in front of a store with their small children in the back and then somebody drives off with it and the children.

 

If they follow that philosophy then why install an application that provides remote start. They also advertise the remote start .It would not be legal for them to do that, also that's why the vehicle turns off when the vehicle is in remotely started part of the sequence is the doors lock automatically and the doors will only open when you approach and open with the FOB & the vehicle will turn off. It must then be started again. Safety features implemented to be able to sell the feature in the USA. Local municipal ordinance can be applied but in certain cities but but the safety features negate those issues since you can't drive off without the FOB.

 

I'm just telling you what I know and how it is. "What if" arguments aren't gonna change the outcome of this. At this point you need to focus on what you can change. If you need this feature moving forward, either trade the car for one that has it, ideally a BMW or other brand that has key fob based remote start or contact companies like Mid City Engineering (they are a sponsor on here) to install an aftermarket solution.

 

It is rather annoying that I can remote start my KIA from my Key FOB, but not my Merc. Makes zero sense.

 

There is a company in Oklahoma that had a Plug and Play product without sacrificing a key. I am sure Good Ole Mercedes didnt like it and sent a cease and desist. It worked flawlessly with the original key.