BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

This will change as I and others learn about the new bike, so, if we put the pieces of knowledge in a common location we can all collectively become wiser.


What I know so far, the four buttons have permanently assigned functions.Buttons


Button 1 Pause or play music, when you stop the bike the music is paused. When you start it again, you have to navigate through the TFT to music to start again


Button 2 Heated grips and seat, not played with this.


Button 3 Change audio output, this will switch from Radio to music on bike with a radio, if you don't have a radio it will bring up the music screen so you can push the wonder wheel to move to a different track.


Button 4  Displays Map in full screen, don't really use this.


TFT is pretty straight forward to navigate down to menu's and left to right. When you have a sub menu, say music open and you push the menu button up to return to the main screen, pushing the down menu will return you to your last sub menu.


There is no temperature gauge on the TFT all you now get is a warning light if you are too hot, engine temperature is shown on the vehicle sub menu. There is nothing to show the damping on the TFT, if you push the right button on the handlebar to change engine modes, dynamic will change the damping to dynamic, sometimes when I go over bumpy roads I want to change the damping to Road, this was easy on the older bikes and K16 as it was the first option on the menu button, but now I have to go through menu's to find the damping and change it, when I do change it there is nothing on the TFT to tell you what you have set it to, BTW there is only Road or Dynamic damping as on previous bikes.


When on the main screen pushing the wonder wheel right will open up the split screen and there are four displays for the split screen, trip 1 and trip 2 then map and music. Pushing the menu button up shows user info e.g. fuel left, tyre pressure etc. You can choose from a list of options.


Music Its playing fine from my phone, but you have to remember to switch on your music app. I had a problem with my Sena SRL getting the volume high enough to hear it, I also have a Sena RC 3 remote on the handlebar to change volume, the wonder wheel does not do this. I contacted Sena and they said the wonder wheel is propriety to BMW and that's that. I know BMW said they made the API available, but who knows. Anyway, I think I have the volume fixed, when you have it all connected and working push the volume on you phone to max volume. I had to push the volume up button on my Galaxy S10 to do this.


I had an issue with making and receiving calls, as in, the phone connected, but no audio or mic. However, it worked yesterday, so a leprechaun must have fixed it when I wasn't looking.


Reference phones, we all now have a dilemma. We used to have dedicated Sat Nav's that could play music and could be locked into the bike when we had a lunch break, coffee etc. Now we have our mobile phone's locked in a cupboard. I like my phone on my person when I go for a coffee etc. Maybe phone my wife or check emails. Now, I have to remember to take the phone out of its hidey place. Yesterday when I went to the dealer he took the bike to check the TPMS and the phone went with him, so that was that, twiddle thumbs time. So, I am contemplating getting a second phone for the bike, (bit of back to the future),since my phone is now my sat nav etc. it s essentially my old Nav Vi and I don't want to be putting in in and taking it out of its hidey hole all of the time, in addition, what happens if I drop it and break


Of course there is a benefit here, I will have two phones on my trips so if I break one, my backup will be in the cubby hole.


To be continued by me and I hope others.........................................................................

A bit more of an update on the TFT, this is it in its most useful format i.e. split screen and its pretty and got lots of colour but its dominated by the rev counter.


I know we all aspire to be GP riders but out of 100 touring motorcyclists, how many would put the rev counter as the single most important bit of information on a touring motorcycle?


I have already said that the TFT has no temperature gauge, but guess what, where is the odometer?. The answer is underneath the fuel gauge (shown on the picture) and under the fuel gauge you can put other stuff such as trip info, fuel economy, range, etc. You scroll through this important information by pressing he menu button up, so you can look at the odometer if you want, but not at the same time as the fuel gauge, get it?


On a 10.25 inch screen they have no room to show a dedicated temperate gauge, fuel gauge or odometer. So lets say you have the thing set to show fuel economy and you are on a highway and you just wizz past a fuel station the first thing you will know you are running low is when the warning light comes on and you had better hope the next station is within range and open. I know I can work around this, by leaving the fuel gauge on and forgetting about the other stuff that can be added but sometimes I think BMW designers ask their little children for inspirational ideas.

Totally agree on the utter stupidity of the size of the rev counter. A simple bar that runs across the top of the screen would be ideal.
As a user it would be good to bring forward the things that are useful to you. Sometimes that may be the average fuel consumption, other times it may be the temperature and other times the fuel gauge may be the one you want to take priority. However, as I see it so far, all of those functions are tucked away at the bottom.
It must be said that I am one of the RT riders that has always been happy with the 2014 - 2020 displays anyway.

All I ever view, is speed, rev and range. I never bother with anything else. Obviously I can currently see the trip and fuel gauge, but it wouldn't be a deal breaker if I couldn't as long as range was visible. I have no reason to change my 1250, but where does reason come in, when buying bikes   Or cars, last month I bought a new car because I needed 4 new tyres on my old one, nothing wrong with it at all, but rather than spend £600 on 4 tyres I bought a new car. Not really sensible at all. But it is a Hybrid, so saving the planet a little

DavidMcK wrote: Reference phones, we all now have a dilemma. We used to have dedicated Sat Nav's that could play music and could be locked into the bike when we had a lunch break, coffee etc. Now we have our mobile phone's locked in a cupboard. I like my phone on my person when I go for a coffee etc. Maybe phone my wife or check emails. Now, I have to remember to take the phone out of its hidey place. Yesterday when I went to the dealer he took the bike to check the TPMS and the phone went with him, so that was that, twiddle thumbs time. So, I am contemplating getting a second phone for the bike, (bit of back to the future),since my phone is now my sat nav etc. it s essentially my old Nav Vi and I don't want to be putting in in and taking it out of its hidey hole all of the time, in addition, what happens if I drop it and break


Of course there is a benefit here, I will have two phones on my trips so if I break one, my backup will be in the cubby hole.


To be continued by me and I hope others.........................................................................

Is there a reason why you can't keep your phone on you rather than in the storage compartment? I understand it charges in there but does it need to be there to connect?

MikeS wrote:
Is there a reason why you can't keep your phone on you rather than in the storage compartment? I understand it charges in there but does it need to be there to connect?

This general thread is running on another forum as well. I asked the same question. You can apparently just have your phone in your pocket as I do now.

Maybe you can answer a question,  does the 2021 R1200RT have XMradio built in or does all audio/radio rely on having phone connectivity?

Is there a reason why you can't keep your phone on you rather than in the storage compartment? I understand it charges in there but does it need to be there to connect?

The other reason might be this..



The storage compartment is suitable for smartphones dimensions up to a maximum of 6.37 in x 3.07 in x 0.34 in (162 mm x 78 mm x 8.8 mm). If the USB charging interface is used for charging, the size is reduced due to the cable connection

Casbar wrote: All I ever view, is speed, rev and range. I never bother with anything else. Obviously I can currently see the trip and fuel gauge, but it wouldn't be a deal breaker if I couldn't as long as range was visible.

The range can be set to be permanently visible, just like the current RT.


Interesting.....


A WiFi connection is used to transmit the map view from a mobile phone to the TFT display.


and ...



BMW Motorrad recommends [size=2px]setting the volume [/size][size=2px]for media and conversations via [/size][size=2px]mobile end devices to the maximum [/size][size=2px]before starting a journey.[/size]

ichavis wrote: Maybe you can answer a question,  does the 2021 R1200RT have XMradio built in or does all audio/radio rely on having phone connectivity?

Radio operating instructions
Select the Source menu. Select Favorites, AM, FM or SiriusXM.  So the XM is on the radio, not the phone

Yep you can keep your phone on you, on another forum a member said he did this and got about 2 hours out of his phone.  Obviously phone battery etc. comes into it, but the BMW APP must be on all the time if you want to see the maps.  The second thing is music, it will be running on my phone at the same time, so keeping the thing charged is going to be important.


Basically our phone is our old BMW Nav which can display maps and play music and is charged by the bike.  Except it not a dedicated Nav its our phone and we all like our phone in our pocket.


Its a fairly big thing for me as I tour Europe and Scotland each year, so I am playing "Into the cubby hole", "Out of the cubby hole".  I could also put the phone in my tank bag and hook up a charger.


I don't have the radio, but I can stream the radio from my phone.  I think the bikes with the radio will have all they need on the bike

beemerboy9 wrote:
The range can be set to be permanently visible, just like the current RT.

Don't know how to do that, the fuel gauge, TPMS, Odometer, range and trip info is under the single User Defined field that you can scroll through by pushing the up menu button, so you can only have one thing displayed at a time.  Its the same as the previous models had on the bottom right (I think) and you could decide what you wanted to display.


So, you can display range or perhaps TPMS but not at the same time you gotta scroll through whatever you have set up that you want to see.


Its the first bike, car or anything I can think of that does not show the fuel gauge or range as permanent displays on the screen.  Even the Odometer is not on permanent display.


Its very odd.


its the biggest TFT screen available and all this stuff is hidden.

The more I hear about the 2021 RT's FTF, the more I am content with my 2020 R1250RT despite really wanting the radar cruise and adaptive/LED  headlights.

DavidMcK wrote: Yep you can keep your phone on you, on another forum a member said he did this and got about 2 hours out of his phone.  Obviously phone battery etc. comes into it, but the BMW APP must be on all the time if you want to see the maps.  The second thing is music, it will be running on my phone at the same time, so keeping the thing charged is going to be important.
I have decided to get a phone power bank which is much cheaper than the phone pocket. That should help with the phone battery use.

Basically our phone is our old BMW Nav which can display maps and play music and is charged by the bike.  Except it not a dedicated Nav its our phone and we all like our phone in our pocket.
I got the dealer to transfer the Garmin 660 mount from my old 1200 to this bike.


Its a fairly big thing for me as I tour Europe and Scotland each year, so I am playing "Into the cubby hole", "Out of the cubby hole".  I could also put the phone in my tank bag and hook up a charger.
I also tour Europe and the UK every year so a reliable sat nav whether via TFT or sat nav is essential, hence the sat nav fit and finding a way to extend phone battery life when using the app and TFT.


I don't have the radio, but I can stream the radio from my phone.  I think the bikes with the radio will have all they need on the bike
I can access the radio without connecting to the bike or phone using my Cardo Packtalk Bold - works well as an option to music.

Steve P

To summarise what we know so far on the 21 R1250RT.


1. There are no programmable buttons, everything is pre-set, including what you can see in the four split windows when using split screen mode.


2. There are no gauges for:
Fuel
Range
TPMS
Odometer
Temperature


You can program the Display/Status line to show these (one at at time) apart from temperature which is under Vehicle settings and again is not a gauge but simply the engine temperature with no indications as to what is the operational temperature range, in other words its just a number.


3. There is no display for damping, so if you navigate through menu's to change the damping from say Dynamic to Road, there is nothing on the display to show this.


4. The four split windows display
Turn by turn map info and map
Audio
Trip 1
On board computer which is as far as I can see is Trip 2


The trip info shows you normal trip info including how much time you have spent having breaks.


I can only conclude that the person who designed the screen has never ridden a motorcycle and missed the memo that highlighted what is important to people who ride motorcycles and in particular touring motorcycles.


We need to know, fuel, range, TPMS and temperature, we don't need to know how long we stopped for coffee.


Yeo we can work around this but we should not have to on a premium touring motorcycle.