BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

Well, it has been a while, so good afternoon all.

I've recently got a '23 RT. Love the bike, with one exception: getting wifi to work to enable the maps.

So far, the dealer failed too, so the bike has been back for new software, after which the tech was able to get it working with his iPhone after a couple of attempts. My Pixel 6a refuses to connect though. It is a bog standard phone running nothing weird, and with up to date Android.

So far, I've tried disconnecting from the house wifi and turning off auto reconnect, played with wifi direct, and faffed about with hotspots. Whatever I try it just eventually times out with the bike's screen showing a wifi error and the app telling me to try again. I do see the bike's wifi channel (starts "2W-Wifi-30:df:........") by looking at the phone's connections. Trying to connect to that asks for a password which I don't have.

I've tried other android phones with the same result.

Also tried a webchat with BMW's Geniuses; might as well talk to the pigeon in the garden. All they did was give the the Motorrad 0800 number, which I called, and they told me to call the dealer!

I do have a Zumo XT which works fine so its not the end of the world, but some of the stuff I do I'd rather not have a satnav on the bike. I get the turn by turn nav, in fact I get everything except the **%&$* maps.

Anyone else successfully navigated this winding path?

Cheers

I've used three different Pixel phones and they all seem to work for me (I'm not saying there is never an issue but on the whole it's satisfactory).

I'm happy to hep out if I can?

Thanks @gadgetgaz . Looks like we ride pretty much the same bike too.

I did some more faffing, including uninstalling Norton 360, playing about with hotspots, wifi direct etc. Nothing worked. Went back to the dealer and we spent a couple of hours, with four of their staff, trying to get it to work. This included uninstalling the connected ride app, deleting all of its data, and reinstalling. I could not connect to their demo RT either, but one of the dealer staff logged straight into my bike on an iPhone. I was not connected to, or looking to auto connect to, any wifi either at home or at the dealer. As a last resort I stopped miles from anywhere, so no wifi interference, but no joy.

Everything else in the app works fine, incl turn by turn nav. The issue is solely that the bike's wifi and my Pixel 6a (and my wife's Pixel 7a) never connect. I've never yet seen the wifi rectangle on the dash.

I'll try to enlist the help of a mate with another shade of Android and see what that does. Maybe it is because it is the cheapskate 6a and not the full fat version, or maybe there's an obscure setting (unlikely because my wife's phone has very little installed and will be bog standard).

It's no big deal because I have other options, just bloody annoying. Ah well, first-world problem.....

Hi mate, first off - nice bike and nice phone!
It does sound as though it's an issue with your phone and not the bike.
Just so you know, when it works you don't need to do anything wifi related as long as the phone is bluetoothed to the bike i.e. you don't have to search for the bike's WiFi to create a connection - it does it itself.
You should see the telephone icon appear on the TFT and then that causes the app to initiate a WiFi-direct connection to the bike without you having to do anything. After maybe 20-30 seconds you should see the screen mirroring symbol on the TFT start flashing.

Do you see the telephone symbol on the TFT indicating the phone is connected via BT? Can you then stream music from the phone to the bike?
That would rule out any issues with BT connectivity. After that it's due to the WiFi-direct connection.

Another thought, late last year, after Google pushed out a firmware update to my phone, I lost connection to the bike. I think loads of people complained about it. It took an update of the Connected Ride app to fix it. So make sure your phone is up to date. I don't think the 6a will get Android 15 so you might be stuck on Android 14 but that shouldn't be a problem for the TFT. Your wife's Pixel7 will be already on Android15 I think?

Sometimes I need to force the connection from the TFT - you could try this. Go to the navi menu on the TFT and scroll down to the bottom. I think it's the last item in the menu - "start map mode" or "stop map mode" (I'm doing this from memory so the words might be a bit different).

Another thing to consider when reading up on this - iPhones and Androids connect differently. Android using WiFi-direct and iPhones using normal WiFi so bear that in mind.

You should be able to get this working, I'm thinking it's a software setting. I've Pixel 8, Pixel Fold and Pixel 9 Pro Fold and all work just fine. I also have a Pixel5 somewhere here if you need me to check how an older Pixel works with it.
See if you get anywhere with this info and then come back to me.