I've had the car well over two years now but still occasionally wonder about some things, so can anyone else can help me with the following?

 

When choosing the information to display in the centre of the 'dials' on the instrument display, there are three that I don't seem to do anything useful - Apple Play,  Settings and Backgrounds. See the attached photos. Does anyone know what they do?   The first one in particular sounds useful if it provided a quick way to get Apple Play on the main screen - but if it does do this, i can't see how.

 

Any suggestions welcome!

 

 

Edited 30 July, 20232 yr by alancha

Apple CarPlay is exactly what it says, so if you have an iBone you can play your music 

 

Backgrounds, exactly what it says, you can change the background on the VC & Infotainment system to what you want from a list.

 

Settings again exactly what it says.

 

Select them and play with them (steady!), you'll be quite surprised what you can do.

The only one of those three I have used is the Settings, using it to remove items from those displayed when scrolling through when turning the knurled knob on the steering wheel spoke.

 

IIRC, the Backgrounds enables loading of images for the background of the main infotainment screen. Why I'd want to do that I can't imaging.

 

As for the CarPlay option I've never tried even though I connect my iPhone with CarPlay every time I start up. Might have to have a fiddle...

4 minutes ago, TheWanderer said:

Select them and play with them (steady!), you'll be quite surprised what you can do.

Thank you.  You say "select them" - I'm probably missing something obvious but I can't work out how to do that from the main instrument panel. 

Just use the controls on the steering wheel or you'll find everything that you want with the menu button on the infotainment system. 

40 minutes ago, alancha said:

Thank you.  You say "select them" - I'm probably missing something obvious but I can't work out how to do that from the main instrument panel. 

On your steering wheel you have right and left arrows. When you have "Settings" visible you see there's an arrow pointing to the right. Logically, you then use the right arrow on your steering wheel to go into the settings menu.

Same rule applies for all the other pages. For example, when you have the radio channel selected on the dial, pressing the right arrow lets you scroll through the radio channels and select one without touching the infotainment.

Edited 30 July, 20232 yr by Jorgeminator

1 hour ago, Jorgeminator said:

On your steering wheel you have right and left arrows. When you have "Settings" visible you see there's an arrow pointing to the right. Logically, you then use the right arrow on your steering wheel to go into the settings menu.

Great - thank you - I'll try this next time I'm in the car.   I have to admit it never occurred to me to try the left side buttons, which I thought were only for controlling media (channel/track and volume).

1 hour ago, alancha said:

Great - thank you - I'll try this next time I'm in the car.   I have to admit it never occurred to me to try the left side buttons, which I thought were only for controlling media (channel/track and volume).

This might be of help:

 

Thanks for that.   I can now see what I had previously missed:  when you press the control wheel, little green arrows appear above and below the dial and I've always then used the wheel to switch between different displays within the dial but what I hadn't realised or noticed is that sometimes there's a green arrow pointing to the right or left, which takes you into sub-options as explained the quote from the manual that Jorgeminator copied above.  In the case of Settings, you can then get into a list of various options.  Previously I thought all the arrow keys below the wheel did was switch between different instrument display formats - I hadn't thought to press them when the green arrows were showing.

 

So, "Settings" I can access and understand.  "Backgrounds" I think we can probably agree is pointless.  So I'm left with "Apple CarPlay", which doesn't have any sub-options and doesn't seem to do anything useful other than display the state of my phone battery and network connection.  As I use CarPlay almost all the time to show Waze on the main screen, I was hoping this option might do something really useful for me - but I don't think it does.

 

Anyway, thanks very much for the replies, which have helped me resolve a minor loose end that has been puzzling me ever since I got the car.

 

 

28 minutes ago, alancha said:

As I use CarPlay almost all the time to show Waze on the main screen, I was hoping this option might do something really useful for me - but I don't think it does.

 

I think with the CarPlay selected you can use the control wheel to play/pause music and end phone calls; otherwise not much use as far as I can see. When using Waze with CarPlay, do you see turn directions on the VC (top centre)? 

I sometimes use Apple Maps for navigation and I do get the turn directions displayed there.

 

Somewhere I read that CarPlay supports two screens such as infotainment and virtual cockpit in the Octy4 - but it's down to the individual car makers to exploit that functionality.

2 hours ago, SteveTheElder said:

 

 When using Waze with CarPlay, do you see turn directions on the VC (top centre)? 

I sometimes use Apple Maps for navigation and I do get the turn directions displayed there.

 

Somewhere I read that CarPlay supports two screens such as infotainment and virtual cockpit in the Octy4 - but it's down to the individual car makers to exploit that functionality.

Sadly not, although Google Maps does so I'm not surprised that Apple Maps does too.  I would really like it if I could get Waze (or Google Maps) to display the whole map etc in the VC the way the built-in satnav can.  Then we could use the Infotainment screen to choose music and keep navigation directly in front of me.  If the built-in SatNav was any good, I'd probably use it just because of that, but of all the navigation options I have (that plus Waze, Google and Apple) it's the least good, so I don't.

On 31/07/2023 at 14:40, alancha said:

Sadly not, although Google Maps does so I'm not surprised that Apple Maps does too.  I would really like it if I could get Waze (or Google Maps) to display the whole map etc in the VC the way the built-in satnav can.  Then we could use the Infotainment screen to choose music and keep navigation directly in front of me.  If the built-in SatNav was any good, I'd probably use it just because of that, but of all the navigation options I have (that plus Waze, Google and Apple) it's the least good, so I don't.

Google Maps doesn't, or does it? I can't get Google maps to show directions in the Head Up Display, but Apple maps shows them. Is there an option I might have missed perhaps?

2 hours ago, SvenIngvarsson said:

Google Maps doesn't, or does it? I can't get Google maps to show directions in the Head Up Display, but Apple maps shows them. Is there an option I might have missed perhaps?

I hardly ever use Google Maps but I'm pretty sure one time when I did it showed directions in the Virtual Console.  But my memory could be wrong or maybe I was (even more improbably) using Apple maps.  I don't have head-up display so I don't know about that.   I'll try google maps again sometime and see what happens.

Google maps turn indicators are a bit hit or miss for me in the virtual cockpit. Do work for the ones in the middle of the rev counter however. 

I have Android Auto with Google Maps and I have the heads-up display. I get directions in the HUD (and the virtual cockpit but I do not look down there when driving).

The directional arrows in the HUD do not have all the same details that Google Maps shows on the infotainment screen. E.g. they sometimes show straight ahead when GM wants you to veer left to take an exit off the motorway.

 

 

There are quite a few times when Google Maps tells you to turn off when your local route knowledge will tell you otherwise. I often ignore it around in Guildford and Taunton Town centres, as well as going out towards Western Somerset and North Devon as it sticks to principal routes.

 

I may follow it for areas that I'm not familiar with like Birmingham and Nottingham, generally it's OK, but I won't follow it blindly and without question. 

I reckon there is a generational thing going on with the virtual cockpit, with later versions being more capable than the older one. For example, new-ish cars can display the built-in satnav map on the VC along with the usual dials, whereas mine can't, even with the latest software updates applied. In fact before the VC was replaced as part of the kph/mph fix two years ago, it couldn't even display the clock in the top centre.

This afternoon I had a fiddle with CarPlay and various navigation apps...

• Apple Maps : display of turn directions in top centre of the VC and optionally in the centre of the speedometer or tachometer
• Google Maps : nothing on the VC at all
• Waze : nothing on the VC at all
• Built-in satnav : turn directions in top centre of the VC and optionally in the centre of the speedometer or tachometer

Can anyone tell me what the white line represents, occasionally it runs all the way from Charge-Power-Boost
other times it stops short of boost

Is it anything to do with the charge in the battery?

It’s showing how much regeneration the car will do. Full battery and or cold battery can’t take much charge. Once you’re warmed up and have used some charge, especially in the summer warmth, it will show the full dial meaning the car battery is able to suck as much regeneration juice as possible. Took me ages to understand this. 
Same at the top of the dial showing how much battery  utilise (before petrol kicks in)

As above, but you may also notice when the battery is cold or running low you don’t get full power as well as regen from it. 
 

if you set a departure time in the software, then it preheats the battery and ensures you’ll have full power, even if you don’t have 100% charge. 
 

if you don’t schedule a departure time, and just hop in it from cold, even if it’s charged up from a previous time, you may not have full power from it. Especially noticeable in the winter. 

On 27/11/2023 at 18:29, richard12345 said:

Can anyone tell me what the white line represents, occasionally it runs all the way from Charge-Power-Boost
other times it stops short of boost

Is it anything to do with the charge in the battery?

Very curious as to how you managed to get dials over the Navigation map. I only have a view with 2 dials or the navigation map without the dials. Could you care to elaborate?

On 28/06/2025 at 21:23, Anthrow said:

Very curious as to how you managed to get dials over the Navigation map. I only have a view with 2 dials or the navigation map without the dials. Could you care to elaborate?

It's available on later builds of the pre-FL Mk4; how late I don't know - only that my 2020 build doesn't have the option for it, yet a loan 2023 could. In that car it is accessed by clicking the right side roller on the steering wheel - same way as customising what's shown inside the dials.

I assume it's the new hardware/firmware of the virtual cockpit in more recent cars.

I wonder about the dial (eco). I haven't understood how it works.

Although the “freewheel” mode is easy to activate (with the little eco symbol), what does this dial show? Acceleration and braking? What's left in our bank account?

On 30/07/2023 at 12:25, alancha said:

I've had the car well over two years now but still occasionally wonder about some things, so can anyone else can help me with the following?

 

When choosing the information to display in the centre of the 'dials' on the instrument display, there are three that I don't seem to do anything useful - Apple Play,  Settings and Backgrounds. See the attached photos. Does anyone know what they do?   The first one in particular sounds useful if it provided a quick way to get Apple Play on the main screen - but if it does do this, i can't see how.

 

Any suggestions welcome!

 

 

I have the same menu option to choose between three different backgrounds...except all three are blank, just a frame around an area the same colour as the others (dark grey/black). How are you supposed to get different backgrounds loaded?