Rider 550 & iPhone XS Bluetooth Connectivity Problem
Benellista
Posts: 6 [Master Traveler]
in RIDER
Hello Everyone, new user here.
I just bought the 550, updated it with the latest firmware, software, maps, autovelox etc with my wifi connection at home.
I own an iPhone xs with iOS 13.2 ( the latest software ) and it's almost impossible to get the connection between my phone and the navigation. Also the My Drive app says that Device is not in range, bluetooth of my iphone says that connection is ok between the devices... what is wrong with that?
I hope i didn't throw the money in the trash....
Any help is appreciated
I just bought the 550, updated it with the latest firmware, software, maps, autovelox etc with my wifi connection at home.
I own an iPhone xs with iOS 13.2 ( the latest software ) and it's almost impossible to get the connection between my phone and the navigation. Also the My Drive app says that Device is not in range, bluetooth of my iphone says that connection is ok between the devices... what is wrong with that?
I hope i didn't throw the money in the trash....
Any help is appreciated
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Answers
TomTom was not able to fix this yet.
Until there is a fix you can use A WiFi hotspot.
To do this remove the BT settings between Rider and iPhone.
Remove the MyDrive app.
setup a WiFi hotspot on your iPhone. Connect your Riders WiFi with the hotspot and traffic information will work.
(Siri will not work this way)
I mean this is a HUGE problem, i dont want, after i spent lot of money on it, to buy an Android phone, and maybe having problem also there. This is unacceptable!
Hope you guys are working hard to figure it out, as soon as possible
I can't imagine a company like TomTom putting on the market a navigation sistem that is not even compatible with one of the most popular smartphone on the market right now.
I hope they are still working for a fix
Are they still working on it?
Waiting for an official response from TomTom
Thanks
Superusers
I have just recently purchased a Rider 500 which has had all the latest updates installed one at a time, gone through all the install/uninstall WiFi/Bluetooth/hotspot turn phone off, then back on again/factory reset Rider 500 fun and games and also experiencing this problem.
I have an iPhone 7 Plus with the MyDrive connect app.
Not wishing to be defeated by the iPhone/iOS issue, I fired up my EE Car WiFi dongle, plugged it into a portable 26800 mAh usb power bank which can be placed in some motorbike under/rear seat areas/put in a back pack or even plug the dongle into an on bike usb socket and added a 200Mb 30 day allowance costing £2. It has connected to the Rider 500 just like your home WiFi does and onscreen traffic updating after 1 hour connectivity working without fail.
I’m not presently worried about receiving text messages/phone calls, as the traffic function is the reason I have purchased TomTom devices since 2011. This is just my temporary resolve until the situation has been rectified and I am also able to monitor how much data is being used.
I’ll report back later after a good test ride, currently 5.5c in North Oxfordshire. 🥶
Superusers
So far, my temporary setup is working very favourably and there have been no traffic disconnections. Data usage appears to be about 1 Mb per hour.
I’ll continue using it this way over the next few days and will flag up any problems should they occur.
Hopefully TT will soon get the Bluetooth pairing matter rectified.
All the best and good luck. 🤞🏻
Superusers
I am currently still using my EE WiFi dongle (this is not a mobile phone) to my Rider 500 with no problems and have deleted my iPhone WiFi and Bluetooth settings from the Rider 500 menu for the time being until TomTom can offer a new pairing update which will work with our iPhones.
If you are able to connect your Rider 550 to your home WiFi then it should be able to connect to any other WiFi portable hotspot device.
I hope this clarifies my suggested temporary solution.
Superusers
Have just updated my iPhone to iOS 13.3 and with the hotspot WiFi and Bluetooth now paired and connected to the Rider 500 with traffic working ok. Initially it wouldn’t just receive traffic over Bluetooth alone, so will leave it like this for the time being.
So I tried turning off TomTom but when I turned it back on it gave me the same connection problems, which I had initially and which are described in this discussion.
"1.On your navigation device, open the Main Menu.
2.Click on "Settings", then on "Bluetooth®".
3.Click on "Add phone".
4.Click on the question mark (?) In the lower right corner of the
screen.
5.Click on "You don't want to use the app". Follow these instructions.
6.On your phone, open "Bluetooth®" in the "Settings" menu
7. Activate Bluetooth®.
8.Your navigation device will appear in a list of devices
available. Click it to associate it.
9. Accept the association request on your phone, then on your
navigation device.
10.Your devices are now connected
To use your phone's data connection for TomTom services, open the "Settings" menu on your phone and activate your personal hotspot. "
I must say that it works, but you don't have to connect the My Drive app otherwise the problem will reoccur.
In the mode described above, once connected to my iPhone 7, I turned my Tom Tom off and on several times and it always came back on.
But it is only a temporary solution, because not being able to use My Drive, I cannot create my own paths or even receive messages or even hands-free calls.
I made the report, that in my opinion, what creates problems with the connection is the My Drive app and I hope they will answer me.
Some of the temporary solutions mentioned above are great but it doesnt take away from the fact that the Rider 550 does not and will not do what it is advertised to do.
Seriously considering just reverting to a mobile phone for navigation.
What makes it worse is these comments seem to have been going on for some time with no advance of the problem.
Not impressed.
I will try to delay another email to understand if the problem will be solved.
I now use an iphone X with the tomtom app. It connects to my headset first time, I can hear camera and traffic alerts, I can use Siri, take calls, send texts, play music. Almost everything in fact that the 550 should do.
Have connected it via a wireless SR case and phone holder so it charges too.
The only draw backs are; if you don't have gloves designed to work with a touch screen you'll need to sew in some metallic threat or take your gloves off and rather irritatingly there is no My Routes folder on the Apple app, so although you can plan routes on the MyDrive app you can't save and then send them to the Apple app.
Seems Tomtom just wont let you have it all........
In your post (about 4 posts up, the one that begins "Hi everyone, after various tests and e-mails...", you describe a method of connecting an iPhone to the Rider 550 by doing a Bluetooth pairing without using the MyDrive app, and then turning on the Personal Hotspot of the iPhone.
I have followed your instructions, and your suggestion works. My Rider 550 now receives traffic information via my iPhone. Thank you very much for sharing that fix with all of us.
What I am not sure of is whether this particular method of connecting uses more GSM data than the original method of doing a Bluetooth pairing via the MyDrive app on the iPhone. I have a very limited data allowance on my cell phone plan, and don't want to go bankrupt at the end of the month due to data overage charges.
Elsewhere in the TomTom literature, TomTom says that pairing the iPhone to the Rider using the original preferred method (via the MyDrive app on the iPhone) uses about 7 megabytes of data per day. This is OK with me, it's about the same as what my Garmin device uses for traffic and weather when it is paired with my iPhone via Garmin's iPhone app.
Have you had enough experience yet using your new method (Bluetooth & Personal Hotspot) to determine what the data usage is like relative to the old method of Bluetooth & MyDrive app?
Michael
think that only with MyDrive TomTom Traffic does not work but still needs a HotSpot / Thetering connection.
Then we wait for some answers from someone more experienced
Superusers
When I had my Rider 500 connected via my EE WiFi dongle to receive traffic, it was using about 1 megabyte per hour.
Hope that wasn’t a photo of your bike that had gone down that bank?
Kieron.
Yeah, that was my moto - way back in 2002.
At the time, I was a volunteer beta-tester for Garmin GPS units on motorcycles. I beta-tested their new devices for 8 years from 2002 to 2010, until my work at my day job (developing and flight-testing avionics systems for aircraft) resulted in a conflict with my Garmin NDA and I has to stop. I have since retired.
The pre-release navigator I was testing had a small problem with roundabout guidance, so I pulled over to the side of the road to take a screenshot and a picture of the roundabout sign, and write the bug up. I put my right foot down to steady the motorcycle... but there was no ground there, and the moto tumbled out from underneath me and into a ditch just south of Lake Leman in Switzerland.
No great harm done - busted the windshield, that was all. 18 years later, I still have that motorcycle, now with about 200,000 miles on it. That's the bike I am going to use my new TomTom Rider 550 (my first ever TomTom device) on when I go to Tunisia next month. I bought the Rider 550 because it has better Tunisia maps than Garmin offers.
Michael
Superusers
Glad to hear the incident regarding you and your bike wasn’t serious. The Rider 5 series is a really good quality made unit and safe riding in Tunisia.
Sorry to get slightly side-tracked with the discussion about the upside-down motorcycle.
Now, to get back on topic:
Does anyone know if TomTom plans to release either an updated MyDriveConnect app for the iPhone or a firmware update for the Rider 550 to restore full functionality (telephony, SMS display, traffic, etc.) to the Bluetooth connection between the app and the Rider 550?
Quite a bit of time has passed since the problem first arose in November of 2019. I'm generally inclined to give organizations the benefit of the doubt when problems like this arise, but we're now approaching 4 months without the problem being fixed.
Has anyone heard anything from TomTom about their plans (if any) to fix things?
Michael
Apple's IOS is NOT the real issue
I have 4 cars, 1 motorcycle, I helmet handsfree and two other standalone sat navs that work perfectly and sync properly with the Bluetooth on my Iphone XS and it's IOS 13.3.1.
Despite these facts, all they do is post out of date links to Apple's original IOS release (which has since been updated several times) where some users had issues with Bluetooth connectivity.
Those connectivity issues were fixed in the subsequent Apple IOS updates. It works with everyone else's systems but not with the Rider. Their Facebook suggested "fix" is also quoted as being "use Android" phones as they are OK - utterly ridiculous
Its typical of Tomtom - they did this with the Rider 2013...they took months to fix the week rollover issue, when amateur programmers had a working fix in place within weeks.
To this day I am of the belief that TT only fixed it in the end because of the adverse publicity online about amateurs solving what they would not.
This Bluetooth stack communication issue seems to be the same. They choose not to fix it, so just ignore any grumbles about it hoping we give up.
We need to publicise the fact everywhere that their current Rider devices will not work with the most popular mobile phone system in the world.
Only by getting them negative PR do they seem to respond (eventually)
So TT - as always the ball is in your court - prove me wrong, issue a fix and I will retract.
Somehow, I suspect the fixes will need to come from 3rd parties again though ...
Superuser
You say you are having a spat on the Facebook group. Could this be that you have repeated your assurance on your above post, but have failed to indicate what positive evidence you have for this statement, " IOS is NOT the real issue".
As I have said before the system works perfectly on my units with an iPhone still on IOS12 but on the iPhone updated to IOS13, and its latest iterations it will not work as required. So it seems reasonable to me that Apple have made changes that stop the previously working system if you are using IOS13.. It would also seem reasonable to assume that it may need some change/help from Apple to restore the working system, unless you know better.
Regarding your comment that if Tomtom issue a fix you will retract. I assume if Tomtom issue a fix you will more than likely complain about how long it took. It could be that a change in the IOS system is required before any TT app issue would work, I don't know and I suspect neither do you. If however Apple issue an update and the situation is resolved, as has happened with some other suppliers equipment, then a retraction would be clearly appropriate. There are some I think still waiting for a resolution to problems since IOS13 was issued..
This is not rocket science here, although maybe the translation is losing it ?
Of course Apple made changes. They continuously make changes, it is called progress. The planet revolves, the world changes. Technology improves and everyone should follow on with that or we would still be using paper cups on strings and not smartphones.
This latest Bluetooth update is a security measure to reduce the chances of unwanted Bluetooth beacons tracking and accessing your phone without the owners knowledge. They now need to request permission to communicate. This is a good thing. It is more secure.
Tomtom needs to improve and allow that communication to take place
The issue is that every other partner has accommodated, modified or improved their bluetooth communication systems to work alongside the new Bluetooth standard that Apple and others now use. It is now an improved version of its former self.
Did you not read where my Iphone on IOS 13.3.1 works perfectly with all my other multiple devices ?
Its only ONE system it will not work with - the Rider. Does that really indicate to you its an Apple problem ?? Seriously ...
Tomtom need to update their system to work with the new Bluetooth stack system, just like everyone else has been able to manage to do.
Is that understandable to you or are you still persisting that the issue lies with IOS even though it works perfectly well with all those other systems ?
Incidentally, if you are still using an iPhone on IOS 12 - your phone is no longer secure. It is wide open to being hacked. If you are IT savvy, you would not allow that position to continue ...although of course, the phone will be secure but not talk to your Rider then
May I ask - have you any technical knowledge about their software, or do you actually work for Tomtom ?