On my 2016 V60, one of the selling points the sales guy gave was Wifi at hot spots. I thought it was a nice thing to have and could use it.

What I wasn't told was that the darn system is basically worthless. The only way the car will connect to a hot spot is if you have the password. Now how many open Wifi spots announce their password. They are open that is the key....no password needed. As he (sales guy) explained the system was that you can have buy an account and have wifi anywhere or when you get near a hot spot you can connect to the open wifi.

I can't remember but it may have worked for a while when I had my trial of the overly expensive Volvo On Call find-my-car-for-me, tell me the temperature-in-my-car account but I can't remember.

So the question I have is this - do the newer models connect to open public Wifi?

 

Sounds like a misunderstanding of how it works. Cars that have WiFi connectivity can connect to any WiFi network. Obviously, if it is password protected, you need the password. That isn't the car's fault. Most people tether the car to their phone via WiFi. That's more of the intended use. Trying to constantly connect to different networks while rolling down the road would be worthless.

 

from a practical sense, you can use your cell phone as a mobile hotspot which the car can access for Internet service. You're really relaying the 4G data service from the phone so those usage charges will apply. I suppose you can use a public wifi service such as what the cable companies like Comcast offer (assuming you are a customer) but then you'd need to be in range of one of their hot spots, which isn't very practical since its not meant to be a mobile network with a broad footprint.

 

Well I am a minimal cellphone user and minimal is being generous. So I have Tracfone with about 4,000 minutes of talk and a bunch of data gigs saved up over the years. The problem is you can't use Tracfone as a hotspot.

I can use my Comcast signal when I'm in my own driveway but what good is that......I don't know.

Not a big, big deal it just isn't what I thought it would be.

 

Maybe mine is not working correctly because I can't connect to open networks. Hm? Although open networks do have a handshaking method where you have to accept their TOS. So if the car doesn't have the capability to accept the TOS....it won't connect.

An example would be at Lowes or Starbucks. There is no password to connect to their networks, you just have to accept their TOS and the Volvo has no capability to even start the handshake.

I think that in the next 5 years the onboard systems will have the GUI that will allow you to choose the accept the TOS and you'll be able to hit open wifi spots. I just thought it we were already there.

Maybe I should look into options. For $5 a month and 200 MB I would do it. Heck that's only two cups of coffee.

GM offers built-in OnStar 4G LTE WiFi hotspots (provided by AT&T) that can connect up to seven devices. The first three months are free with a new vehicle and the service costs range from $5.00/month for 200MB to $50/month for 5GB. It is available on the following 2015 models: