Picking up a mk III monte Carlo on Friday 66 plate. Does anyone know if they come with startling as standard on the bolero stereo?  

*smartlink 

Didn't realise my phone had autocorrected to to startling lol

All SE and above Fabias in the UK have the Bolero or the optional Amundsen satnav, and it's always had some degree of phone mirroring. Early cars (pre MY16) had just MirrorLink, newer cars built after build week 22 in 2015, which is late May IIRC, have the full SmartLink system. 

 

The earliest cars with SmartLink will be on 15 plates. As your car is a 66 plate, you'll have it. It's great! It works flawlessly with my OnePlus 3T, although my previous phone, a Samsung S7 Edge, was a lot less stable and smooth. I possibly think there was a conflict going on there as that phone was compatible with both MirrorLink and Android Auto, and it was possibly trying to do both at once. I've only briefly used Apple CarPlay, and it seemed OK and slick enough with an iPhone 6.

15 minutes ago, vc-10 said:

 Early cars (pre MY16) had just MirrorLink, newer cars built after build week 22 in 2015, which is late May IIRC, have the full SmartLink system. 

 

 

Does it need activating with a Dealer Code for a one off cost of £150 ?

It shouldn't do! It's standard fit. I certainly didn't pay for it.

8 minutes ago, vc-10 said:

It shouldn't do! It's standard fit. I certainly didn't pay for it.

 

Sorry, I've mistaken Mirror Link with Smart Link. Mr's G's Fabia 3 SE-L ( June 15 plate ) only has Mirror Link.

SmartLink includes MirrorLink (and Android Auto, and Apple CarPlay). It's all rather confusing! There's also SmartGate, which is completely different and separate!

 

MY15 cars (like Mrs G's Fabia) can't be upgraded though to have the full SmartLink system. The older cars are stuck with what they came with unfortunately. 

17 minutes ago, vc-10 said:

SmartLink includes MirrorLink (and Android Auto, and Apple CarPlay). It's all rather confusing! There's also SmartGate, which is completely different and separate!

 

MY15 cars (like Mrs G's Fabia) can't be upgraded though to have the full SmartLink system. The older cars are stuck with what they came with unfortunately. 

 

 Thanks for that. We are not really bothered to be honest, The car is almost 2 and has only done 6K miles, it suits Mrs G's needs. 

 

 

Edited 21 May, 20179 yr by Auric Goldfinger

Yup- it's definitely not the end of the world. The Bolero system is very good without SmartLink anyway. 

Thanks for the info. Picked the car up friday afternoon. Already made use of smartlink with Android auto on a couple of occasions and it works really well with my phone (OnePlus 3). The connectivity on this car is something I've always been after. So it's great to have it finally without having to look at getting a 3rd party head unit installed. Be even happier when Waze becomes Android Auto compatible as well.

Edited 22 May, 20179 yr by abaday789

On ‎17‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 22:38, abaday789 said:

Picking up a mk III monte Carlo on Friday 66 plate. Does anyone know if they come with startling as standard on the bolero stereo?  

 

On ‎22‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 09:00, abaday789 said:

Thanks for the info. Picked the car up friday afternoon. Already made use of smartlink with Android auto on a couple of occasions and it works really well with my phone (OnePlus 3). The connectivity on this car is something I've always been after. So it's great to have it finally without having to look at getting a 3rd party head unit installed. Be even happier when Waze becomes Android Auto compatible as well.

I'm a 'Newby' as far as Skodas and this forum are concerned having bought a 16 Plate Fabia Hatchback SE 1.0 MPI 75 PS M  just 10 days back. It replaced a 2002 CDi Focus so having the latest car Infotainment is a whole new world. The car was an ex dealers demo model, had done a good few miles but looked like new. Many of the settings for the infotainment centre were already set up and the dealer was able to pair my phone, an HTC Desire 510 (android), quite easily. All I needed to find was a SAT NAV. which will have to be by using an APP on my phone, unfortunately I cannot get SMARTLINK to recognise it as anything other than a phone. I have looked at the list of compatible phones and could not see an HTC Desire model there. I can still use my old Tom-tom but don't really want the distraction of too many screens. Can anyone suggest a 'work round' for this problem or is it terminal - for the phone?

I am very impressed by the car overall. 

1 hour ago, rgcaston said:

 

I'm a 'Newby' as far as Skodas and this forum are concerned having bought a 16 Plate Fabia Hatchback SE 1.0 MPI 75 PS M  just 10 days back. It replaced a 2002 CDi Focus so having the latest car Infotainment is a whole new world. The car was an ex dealers demo model, had done a good few miles but looked like new. Many of the settings for the infotainment centre were already set up and the dealer was able to pair my phone, an HTC Desire 510 (android), quite easily. All I needed to find was a SAT NAV. which will have to be by using an APP on my phone, unfortunately I cannot get SMARTLINK to recognise it as anything other than a phone. I have looked at the list of compatible phones and could not see an HTC Desire model there. I can still use my old Tom-tom but don't really want the distraction of too many screens. Can anyone suggest a 'work round' for this problem or is it terminal - for the phone?

I am very impressed by the car overall. 

 

I take it you are plugging your phone in using a USB cable to the USB input when trying to use SmartLink/Android Auto and you have downloaded the Android Auto app?

 

If so it should be simple to connect your phone via cable, click the menu hard button and SmartLink/Android Auto should be the first option on screen. 

 

SmartLink/AA does not work via Bluetooth.

Thanks for the prompt reply. It was cable connected but my phone did not have Android Auto APP installed; it comes with the Google Maps Navigation installed. I will look into installing the AA APP and see if that works.

I will let you know if that works.

Once you have AA installed it should be just plug and play. My only issue now having AA installed is if I want to charge my phone via the USB port but not having AA running at times like when waiting to pick someone up or when the other half is driving but I need to charge my phone lol

46 minutes ago, rgcaston said:

Thanks for the prompt reply. It was cable connected but my phone did not have Android Auto APP installed; it comes with the Google Maps Navigation installed. I will look into installing the AA APP and see if that works.

I will let you know if that works.

Once you've downloaded the AA app it will automatically use Google Maps for navigation when you're in the AA function. 

Having spent some hours on this I have now discovered my phone is not compatible with AA or the various Skoda APPs. Not too surprising as Vodafone virtually gave it away as an upgrade in 2015 - possibly my fault as I said I only needed a phone having used a very basic Nokia for years, seems you get what you ask for!-a not-so-smart phone - so it's back to Vodafone.

The Desire 510 isn't running a new enough version of Android unfortunately. However, any Android phone with Android 5.0 (Lollipop) should work fine with Android Auto. I'd recommend going for something that doesn't have MirrorLink though, having both on my old Samsung caused issues while my new OnePlus works much better with just Android Auto.

Vodafone recommended the Xperia XA with Lollipop or Marshmallow, knowing I needed it quickly they accepted a phone order for next day delivery- then Emailed to say they would let me know within 3 days when they expected them in stock. Not being too impressed I cancelled the order and found BT Mobile could deliver the same phone next day. With Android Auto installed the system worked well enough when I needed it, any weaknesses being down to Google Maps. I am still on a learning curve with the whole system but it got us to and around Barnard Castle. It does seem to want to direct me home, almost by default but I suspect that is my fault.

Overall I am very impressed by the Infotainment System - and the car performed well; the very flexible 1ltr. engine coped well on the motorway and was excellent on the country roads 

 

You can download areas for Google Maps too- press the three lines (burger/menu icon) in the top left of Google Maps, and scroll down to 'Offline maps'. You can then select areas to download, I've found this massively improves performance and of course reduces data use as you do it over WiFi. 

Hi vc-10

Thanks for the tip. I think I may have done that quite accidentally on some trips as my data usage has been very erratic. I think there is a difference if I set the destination off line or set it on the car screen and performance does vary to the point where some directions are given after the manoeuvre is completed. That's OK if you don't actually need a navigation aid, not so good if you're 'lost'. Clearly I have much to learn but it's early days.

I've found Spotify,Amazon and Google music drain my data quickly so I rarely use them now as the novelty factor has ended.

Spotify also allows you to download music to your device via Wi-Fi before setting off - I've got a few playlists for this purpose. I think this only works if you have Spotify Premium, though. I imagine the other streaming services have a similar offer.

They do. I download everything to my phone, so I don't have to use streaming over the data network.

 

You can download some really large chunks of the country on Google Maps- it takes a bit of storage space, but it automatically updates itself over WiFi which is great. I've got the whole country, and I'm downloading New York for my holidays next week! 

 

If you come off your route then it will use data to find you the best alternative, unless there isn't a data connection. If it has the map area, then it will be able to re-route you but it won't have traffic etc. It constantly uses *some* data, if connected, to give you traffic announcements etc. If you park near enough to your house to use your own home wifi, then it will stay connected to that and use that to download the information while you're setting the route, however I find that my phone likes connecting to random public wifi hotspots and getting confused, so I've setup Android Auto to automatically turn off the phone's wifi when it's running. 

 

Edit: If you want, I can do a tutorial with screenshots from my phone on how to get the most out of Google Maps on Android Auto?

Edited 20 July, 20178 yr by vc-10

4 hours ago, vc-10 said:

I've got the whole country, and I'm downloading New York for my holidays next week! 

 

Not sure how you're planning to get around New York, but as a word of warning, offline maps do not support walking or public transport routes - at least, they didn't when I was there earlier this year...

15 hours ago, sparckzero said:

 

Not sure how you're planning to get around New York, but as a word of warning, offline maps do not support walking or public transport routes - at least, they didn't when I was there earlier this year...

 

Yup- I'll have data (bought a 3 SIM card and they have free roaming in the US) but I want to conserve it as I'll only have 1GB to last me.