JayLibove

Moltes gràcies! 🤞

I ordered a VW "Dataplug" and after some farting around (on my principal mobile phone, neither the VW WeConnect Go app nor the Skoda Connet LITE app - which I had to get as an APK from Aptoide because it "isn't available in your country" on any of my geography-specific Google account, being Spain, Germany, and the US, *grr* - it wouldn't connect, and the apps hung) I finally got my older, backup phone to connect to the dongle via Bluetooth. At very first glance it doesn't seem to offer what I'm looking for. I'll play with it a bit further to see if it has any useful features. Thanks to everyone who helped. -Jay

Sooooo, nobody with a recent Octavia MkIII has the automatic-rain-closing feature?

Over the years there had been several threads about enabling rain closing (that the car would automatically close the windows and sunroof if they are open and it starts to rain). Back in around 2015 it seemed to be the case that the feature was no longer available due to a hardware change (RLFS, RLHS). I've found guides, OBDEleven/VCDS configurations, YouTube videos .. but no matter what I've tried (I have an OBDEleven) the option to enable rain closing never appears on the car opening and closing settings page. Does anyone with a 2019 or 2020 MkIII (mine is a 2020 Octavia Scout, manufactured April 2020, one of the last of the MkIII) have rain closing as an option in the head unit? I know that my car can sense when it's raining because it will wipe the windshield wipers automatically. The Central Electrics subsystem RLHS hardware number, per OBDEleven, is 5Q0955547C. I've followed all the configuration guides (so, particularly, the options to enable rain closing, to enable the rain closing menu, for it to be 'permanent' instead of 'once', are all set, and I've twiddled various other bits, all to no avail. The option never appears in the head unit, and the water test always leaves the windshield wet .. and the windows still open). thanks! -Jay

Old thread, I know. I have a 2020 Octavia Scout (one of the last of the MkIII, manufactured April 2020). It definitely has a rain sensor, because it automatically operates the windshield wipers. In OBDEleven in Central Electrics the RLHS subsystem has part number 5Q0955547C. In the five years ago commentary quoted below we see a distinction between 5Q0955547 and 5Q0955547A. Would someone please comment if the 5Q0955547C part supports rain closing? thanks, Jay

That would be cool. The app that the ad for this dongle refers to is branded VW. How can I check in advance that it would actually work for my VIN? - Update, it's clear from various reviews of the device that it will work (people refer to 2016 models, and to the Yeti). Aside from that, I have an OBDEleven; I'll send a request to OBDEleven asking if they are adding a way to use an OBDEleven device to connect to Skoda Connect Lite. thanks.

Fair enough @langers2k. Being a bit lazy, I'd still hope that a Skoda/VAG custom shop would be happy to take a few €/£/$ per year to check for me every few months :-)

My 2020 (last of the MkIII) Octavia Scout does not have the Skoda Connect feature (Bolero radio, Android Auto via Bluetooth+USB cable, no WiFi, no SIM card, no Internet connectivity). Is there a service with which I could register my car's VIN to be notified when software/firmware updates become available for any component of my car (especially the driving assistants such as traffic sign recognition, the occasionally and always utterly false-positive giant red screeching "you're about to hit something" warning, etc)? [Including if there's a Skoda/VAG custom shop which will do it for a fee] thanks, Jay Spain

In some tweaks guide I saw a list of settings (to be made with OBDEleven, VCDS, etc) to enable an alarm of sorts on cars without a formal alarm system. It's supposed to enable a simple alarm, using the turn signals and the horn, if the driver's door handle is pulled from the inside with the car not having been unlocked by the key fob. I made the configuration changes with OBDEleven and then tested it by leaving the driver's window down, stepping out of the car and pressing the lock button on the key fob, waiting a minute, and then reaching in and opening the door from the inside. (This is on my 2020 Octavia Scout, one of the last of the MkIII Octavias). While the car will continuously flash both turn signals (until I turn off the "alarm" by pressing the unlock button on the key fob), and the customizations did include options to enable audio signaling (see below), the horn does not sound; just the turn signal lights flash continuously. I do know that the car is able to sound the horn in relation to some of these settings, because I also configured and tested sounding the horn upon unlocking or locking the doors and that worked. (And then I immediately turned that back off after the successful test and seeing that having that configuration on still didn't enable the horn sounding with the 'alarm', because honking the horn on unlock/lock is a really annoying feature...) Any ideas on a setting maybe that is needed in addition, or if some cars simply cannot sound the horn along with the built-in simple 'alarm' functionality? Below is the configuration guide that I followed; apologies that some of it is in Spanish. Thanks, -Jay

Hi @Marshy33, please forgive my ignorance; how do I figure out what headunit is in my car?

Thanks @ExSEAT! I wonder, if you don't mind, in the next days as you drive and occasionally (attempt to) voice dictate WhatsApp replies, could you try to notice whether it actually works well just at first (really, just the first one or two voice interactions) and then the lag starts? My original sensation had been "it's utter rubbish". I realized over the course of some very long (1000km/day) drives, that it actually worked great ... once, or twice, and then it got bad (and then it got unusable; until I disconnected the phone and reconnected it). Aside, what was a previous phone on which you had noticed more problems? Was it also a then-high-spec phone like the Samsung S20? Or was it a lower spec phone? (My phones have always been upper-mid to high level, so it *shouldn't* be an overload on the phone itself). Maybe it's also worth mentioning that I don't get a WhatsApp message every 30 seconds, so I hope I'm not overloading the expected performance characteristics of the car's head unit; I don't know whether the problem was coincident with a couple of WhatsApp messages coming in in relatively close succession or if it happens even with one message at a time with several minutes in between; I do suspect that a combination of WhatsApp messages and Google Maps-via Android Auto voice directions may also contribute to it choking. Oh, I definitely have tried swearing at it. Doesn't make it work any better 😜

Thanks for responding @skd12. Since everything else works reliably even while WhatsApp <-> my car's head unit is going utterly wonky, it doesn't seem likely that it's the cable. Also, WhatsApp itself on the phone (when I pull over and stop the car so I can manipulate the phone directly, of course) works perfectly even while the head unit is talking to itself and otherwise making my crazy(er...), so I don't see how anything about the WhatsApp app on the phone itself might be related .. I'll try clearing Android Auto's app cache. The one issue that I think has gone away with updates over time is that, originally, nearly every single time I would connect a phone to the car for Google Maps, Google Maps would claim that it was offline and couldn't get driving directions. Most recently, I may briefly see a "you're offline" message but then it promptly notices that in fact it was online all the time and it refreshes with the driving directions now displayed.

I have a 2020 (last of the MkIII) Octavia Scout, with (I think it's) the Bolero (basic) head unit. (No Nav, no Skoda Connect services; just Android Auto). For Maps, Android Auto works fine. But for WhatsApp, especially if I try to voice-dictate responses/new WhatsApp messages, it rapidly gets slower/ falls behind, such that it is practically unusable. My phone is a new OnePlus Nord (rather high spec, completely up to date Android, firmware, apps, everything; though I think I saw exactly the same problem on my older OnePlus 5T). For example, after just a few WhatsApp messages have been read to me through Android Auto, the follow-up "Do you want to send a reply?" (or whatever the exact prompt is) may be a little bit delayed, and in any case voice dictation of a reply/new message flat out doesn't work after the second or third message. Disconnecting the phone-to-head-unit USB cable and reconnecting (a process that takes over a minute, just like when Android Auto <-> SmartLink first starts up when I boot up, er, turn on the car) will make it "work" again, briefly... On a recent long drive, it got so far behind/ out of sync that it was hearing its own long-delayed "do you want to reply?" (or something) message in response to what it thought was me having told it that I wanted to reply. That is, the draft of the voice-dictation reply text was in fact something that the system itself had spoken out loud! I asked about this in a Spanish Octavia forum and got answers across the board; one or two people had the same problem; a few more said it works reliably for them. What experiences do Briskodans have with the reliability/performance of WhatsApp through Android Auto, please? ( @SashaGrace @skd12 @Aarond @ExSEAT @SoonToBeOctaviaOwner I've seen each of you comment about using WhatsApp; please forgive me for tagging you directly; I hope that your experiences might be most directly relevant to this question). Thanks everyone, -Jay

I know this is a very old post, but just in case someone goes looking, @brettikivi is correct; Google "Play" uses the location (address) of the Google account that is logged in to an Android phone (you can have more than one), not the physical location of the device, nor the logical location (VPN). I have Google accounts based in both the US and Spain. (I'm from the US originally; have lived in Spain for a dozen years). I switch accounts inside the Play app when I need something that is in one or the other country Google app store, but isn't global. Per https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7431675 you can choose your Google Play country .. but only if you have a payment method in that country :-(

Thanks @lway Clearly, I'm in "go home" space (no welcome lights for me) 😰 -Jay

@lil_weg If I read you correctly, either a car already has such lights (and they're easy to replace), or a car doesn't have such lights (and it would be difficult). Do I have that right? BTW my car is the last of the Octavia MkIII series; the MkIV started coming out a few months later. @FrankNicklin Thanks for the product link. I think I want to either "go big, or go home" (in the sense of fully embedded, wired). I see that this product sticks out (and sticks out), so even if the manual battery recharging would be a problem (and, ok, the car has power sources, and I have an embarrassing number of long USB cables, so re-charging really wouldn't be a problem) I don't know that I'd want to rely on the sticky tape, and being slightly clumsy at times I imagine I'd probably knock them off myself... 🐏 @varaderoguy Here are photos that I just took. I don't seem to have lights on the bottoms of doors at all - just a red reflector (so that if my door is open, a car coming up the street might be more likely to notice it), and the high mounted long narrow horizontal color-controllable LED strip (which does not project downwards at all). As far as I can tell, that red reflector is a reflector only - it never lights up. That seems to be the position at which e.g. the product in the kopacek link from varaderoguy would go; the kopacek link clearly states that the product won't work in a car with only the reflector in the door. Looking up at the bottom of the door from the ground; the only gap in the bottom of the door appears to be an access to an assembly bolt: So, I guess I'm "go home", no light, no pre-wiring, no joy? It seems such a stingy thing for Skoda to not include in a car which has so many other features, and on that Tarraco that I rented I really found the door welcome downlights to be useful... *sigh* thanks all,

I've seen "welcome" door-bottom project lights on some cars (a rented high-end Seat Tarraco last summer). Ok, yeah, there's some "cool" factor there, but it turns out that (logo or not) these "welcome" down-projector lights embedded in the bottom of the doors are quite useful (especially as I, and my eyes, get older...) Can these be added to my 2020 Octavia Scout, which did NOT come with any down-projection lights at the bottom of the doors, withOUT having to pull new wires through the door (or, even so, it being a quite easy job to do, no special tools, no significant risk of breaking things)? When I search for products like these, I tend to find them for the Octavia II / models up through 2017, not the last very few years. thanks,

So, I got the borescope. Not sure whether what I was able to see shows me the needed part numbers. Here's what I could see: 7 537 A U34 04S 5E1 857 407 CR LH 2/2 19357 >ASA< GERMANY DON and a couple of grids - one 6x6 and the other 13x6 with dots in some of the grid cells. The 5E1... number I find on a Russian car parts website: https://detali.bitavto.ru/catalog/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=533565#product-pictures-533565 The far end of the connector clearly has lots of wires coming into it; whether all of those wires actually connect to anything inside the mirror assembly is another question. Hm, there are actually several different of these parts on that website, here's another with better pictures: https://detali.bitavto.ru/catalog/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=430543#product-pictures-430543 I apologise for being fairly useless and asking so many questions. Does the above help identify the mirror motor? n.b. this is inside the driver's sideview mirror. (It dawned on me afterwards that maybe I should have looked at the passenger side mirror?)

Old topic, hoping @trimata is still around, or someone can answer... in the photo that trimata posted of the pre-FL and FL models, which of the two is the FaceLift? I have a 2020 Octavia Scout with around 6000km on it (bought new in October 2020). In the past few days the ACC has abruptly shut itself off with the "ACC not available" message appearing in the virtual instrument cluster, however simply turning ACC off and back on by pushing the cruise control lever back and a second later bringing it forward again has successfully re-engaged ACC each time. I looked at the nose of my car today to see if maybe the radar cover had got dirty. I see something that maybe looks like the white car to the left in trimata's picture; although when trying to peer through the grill slots of down from the top with the lid open, I couldn't see whether there was anything behind that flat plastic square, and in any case it's not dirty. I ran a fault scan with OBDeleven and there is NOT a fault in the ACC module, however there IS an "unknown" fault in "Steering assistance" with a time stamp that coincides with the most recent ACC disconnect: Interestingly, there's only this one, whereas ACC has disconnected two or three times recently. Any thoughts/suggestions on "ACC not available", NO idiot light on the dashboard, re-sets trivially by just turning ACC off and back on again with the cruise control (smaller, lower left) lever? thanks! -Jay

Aha. Bugger. thanks,

Hi @Krosta, I apologise if I'm being dense. You mention that you wrote a new "parametrization". I'm familiar only with the way that the OBDeleven works, which gives access to flipping some bits (which ODBeleven calls "long coding"; which does not mean writing/ changing/ or uploading program code, just flipping bits), as well as to adaptations (and some basic settings resets). So, what do you mean when you say parametrization? thanks, Jay

Yes, I know. Call me excessively conservative (or call me an engineer with a few too many years of experience with products that need to last for a very long time), I'm just not a fan of physically removing things that work on pressure clips any more often than necessary (when if they do break/wear out the cost is high to repair/ replace them). Call me old fashioned; I like screws and things like that which, at extremely low cost, are more-or-less engineered to last about 1000 times longer than the larger, more expensive product of which they form a part. And, yes, new toys... :-)

I've ordered a USB borescope in hopes of being able to identify the existing motor without having to remove the rearview mirror glass. Will report back in a few weeks when it arrives from China!

Hi @Krosta, by coincidence I was thinking about this same thing at about the same time. I suppose it's not "officially" "Traffic Jam Assist" if it can't really bring the car to a stop, but in practical terms for low speed (but not stop-and-go) traffic it's still quite useful. I think I've noticed that the ACC in my car actually does work below 60km/hr (which I understand is the speed below which ACC supposedly stops working). What I need to do is to get a friend out in their car in front of me to test this in a no-traffic situation, as I obviously don't want to do so in uncontrolled conditions.... heheh. Did you have to change any adaptations or long coding, or does your vehicle just do this as part of ACC? cheers,

Truth. I guess that (along with price) is how VAG differentiates between brands...